The California Legislature missed the September deadline to approve pending legislation that would have made police body cam footage a public record. The bill's failure keeps the Golden State largely in line with the rest of the nation.

The California measure, backed by the California News Publishers Association and opposed by law enforcement, would have set a uniform, statewide policy to make footage publicly available. Because of the bill's demise, California's police agencies are free to set their own guidelines. Some are open-access friendly and others are not.

"The patchwork releases of body camera footage only sow further public distrust with law enforcement and the communities they serve," Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat of San Francisco, said in a statement. "California needs a statewide standard for the disclosure of footage. In order to let the footage speak for itself, we need more time to find the breakthrough in this bill and I will continue to engage with stakeholders to find a transparent and equitable solution."

Nationwide, more and more police agencies are moving toward the use of body cams. The stated purpose is transparency, to help police defend themselves against false allegations and to provide a public accountability of police. Body cams started to become all the rage after recent high-profile shootings. Body cams have become so important to daily policing that we've now seen reports of officers fabricating footage.

Body cam footage is routinely turned over to defense attorneys as part of the pre-trial discovery process. But when it comes to supplying the public with footage, there's a hodgepodge patchwork of state laws and local laws nationwide. And the general default is that the footage is not a public record. The Seattle Police Department has among the most liberal policies, and it has a dedicated YouTube channel where footage is uploaded. But even there, faces and voices are redacted and dropped to protect privacy.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has a monster interactive graphic, as does the Urban Institute, about the ins and outs of state laws dealing with body cams. Every state that has adopted regulations on public access to footage has set varying limitations. Oregon, for example, prohibits disclosure unless it is in the "public interest." Oklahoma, on the other hand, declares the footage a public record and requires redaction when it depicts death, nudity, and minors.