DINT #67 - As Video Gets Smarter, Police Face More Accountability

Paid Subscriber Exclusive

See a full timeline of video tech advancements from camcorders to phone cameras and how they impact police accountability in high-profile assaults and killings from Rodney King to France’s Nahel Merzouk. See story below today’s top headlines.

Today’s Top Tech News Stories

Bangladesh’s IT Workers Face Sweltering Work Conditions Thanks to the Global Heat Wave (rest of world / Zuha Siddiqui)

SEO Expert Exposed List of Ashley Madison Customers (KrebsonSecurity / Brian Krebs)

Mobile Phones to Have Removable Batteries by 2027 (Android Authority / C. Scott Brown)

Drone Manufacturers in a Race to Create the Highest-Flying Device (The Wall Street Journal / Alistair MacDonald)

Twitter Gives Creators a Share of Ad Revenue (TechCrunch / Amanda Silberling)

---

Wide-spread riots have rocked France’s capital, only weeks after the city’s last series of protests over President Emmanuel Macron increasing the retirement age.

On a road just outside of Paris, police ordered a 17-year-old driver to stop the car he was driving. He did. Ten minutes later, Nahel Merzouk was dead of a gunshot wound to the chest from one of the officers’ firearms.

Incidents like this would be tossed on the trash heap of history’s sad moments if not for a video of the police stop recorded by a citizen somewhat nearby.

That incident harkens back to the Rodney King assault at the hands of police in 1991; known as the first incidence of police assault of an unarmed citizen caught on videotape.

Tech Enables Citizens to Turn the Cameras on Law Enforcement

Digital infrastructure allows everyday citizens to bear witness to injustices, whether perceived or genuine, and record them for the world to decide. Merzouk’s sad end shares parallels with that of George Floyd, murdered on May 25, 2020 by police in Minneapolis, MN.