"The IDF did it on the Philadelphi Route when clearing tunnel entrances. Hezbollah did it in Southern Lebanon on ambushes. Now the French police are doing it in Seine-Saint-Denis, a rough suburb of Paris: equipping forward-deployed units with mini-cameras. ...'This equipment allows us to establish the context of our interventions,' said Christian Charlot, a police captain in the suburb. 'It allows us to support our procedures but also to deter these people from acting in the first place, because when they know they are filmed, hostile groups are less aggressive.' Apparently police officers were skeptical at first, but now even [they] ask for the gadgets."
What's most interesting here is the apparent crossover between policing and counterinsurgency thinking. The French police see the suburbs of Paris as areas where they must establish legitimacy in order to better control--and know that they are struggling for that legitimacy with other actors. American police have put cameras on their cars for traffic stops, but this is something wholly different.
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