Following the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, more people have clamored for police departments to adopt body cameras. The thinking, according to advocates, is that if police officer Darren Wilson was outfitted with a body camera at the time of Brown's shooting, the footage would have cleared up what happened and whether there was any wrongdoing on Wilson's end. The proposal for outfitting police around the country with body cameras has even been dubbed "the Michael Brown law."

The main argument for body cameras is that they could hold police accountable for their actions and also protect cops who are falsely accused of wrongdoing.

The cameras "have the potential to be a win-win situation," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "A lot of departments are finding that for every time they're used to record an abusive officer, there are other times where they save an officer from a false accusation of abuse or unprofessional behavior."