In a situation like this, where it's obvious that the law has to change, I become more interested in the systems of people that are misaligned to make the confusion worse.<p>It looks to me that if you are an undercover policeman, you cannot participate in any police work aside from your undercover duties. Likewise, if you have ever been a "public" officer, you then can't cross over and become an undercover agent -- not with facial recognition software. There are also considerations for domestic violence, juvenile, and rape cases. No longer can you meet or converse with victims in any sort of public forum (interesting question: can victims of crime also tape their own interviews? How about suspects?)<p>All of this means we have a bunch of retraining and re-organizing to do of the national police force. This is going to be a major change and effects everything from seniority to career tracks, manpower needs, and court appearances. Just guessing, I'm betting that it adds a lot more cops than we had before. Not sure who is going to pay for those cops or if, in the end, we don't end up in a worse spot from where we started.<p>Having said that, because of the severity and broad scale of the problem, this will probably end up being settled at the national level. Probably after some crisis occurs. Wonder what that crisis would be?<p>I'd also note that it is the edge cases that are driving the change. There are probably dozens of cops taped everyday without incident. And probably dozens that illegally prevent taping. We just don't know. The only things we know are those things which are publicized effectively.<p>The point being that it's easy to think in terms of what the perfect world is or should be. The interesting part comes when real people and systems are bounced up against necessary changes.