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Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

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Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#111

Post by MereInterest »

glitchc wrote: post #99
abeppu wrote: post #51

Can we get a federal bill with the same prohibitions? It would be absurd if the right to be free from fear of automated death from the skies is left to a patchwork of state and local restrictions. Irresponsible arguments that I would totally not be surprised to hear to push in the opposite direction: - If law enforcement doesn't have armed drones, we live in a world where only the criminals have armed drones. - Somet…

A federal law can only apply to FBI, National Guard, Coast Guard and other federally managed law enforcement bodies. It cannot apply to the various state and county police authorities. Governance of those is a right explicitly granted to each state and county, and the states/counties will fight tooth and nail to retain it.

That doesn't quite make sense to me. A federal policy or a federal executive order only applying to federally-managed bodies, I could understand. But federal laws outweigh state and local laws.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#112

Post by screye »

It's sad that the advent of new technology is never viewed as an opportunity to reduce violence.

If the police can put themselves out of harms way using a drone, doesn't that help with peaceful de-escalation? A drone opens up options like tasers and pepper spray, that would have otherwise been impossible for police to deploy at a distance. If facial recognition can be done with near 100% accuracy, then what's wrong with it being used to identify the location of someone who has committed a life sentence worthy crime ?

I agree that drones and facial recognition should never be fully automated as a robotic civilian disposal system. But when used responsibly, the tools are much better options than what we have today : Guns. a GTA car chase can be swiftly stopped using drones. Don't need an expensive helicopter and a rampaging maniac to kill someone at 150 mph.

We are teaching kids what to do in the case of a school shooter, and arming school guards to the teeth. Schools have the hardware for facial recognition cameras. A manual "choose target -> hone in -> shoot pepper spray" mechanism is less dangerous and immediately neutralizes a threat. Yes, the rest of the kids are likely to get very painful chillies in their eyes, but you saved their lives. (I'll admit this one is stretch)

Yes, it seems dystopian because movies portray it as dystopian. But in the modern world, the state has total monopoly over violence. We already live in a surveillance state, and the worst case outcome is already as bad as it can get (death). Using tech to sustain the same state with less resources and better outcome (physical pain) is not as bad as it sounds.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#113

Post by retrac »

km3r wrote: post #91

Am I the only one that is OK with CCTV + facial recognition? Seems like a great way to tackle crime without having to involve potentially deadly encounters with police. Ya there are ways it could be abused, but I assume I have no privacy (as does the law) when I am in a public space. A lot cheaper than cops too. Put laws and systems in place to keep the data secure and require warrants to access the data. (No lethal…

> but I assume I have no privacy (as does the law) when I am in a public space.

I think we may need to slightly retweak our concept of public and private. There are very few truly private spaces, from the perspective of an entity that can see every public space simultaneously.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#114

Post by Ajedi32 »

reaperducer wrote: post #101
xtreme wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are good counters to these arguments?

What are good counters to these arguments? Mostly it comes down to the companies that make these things have to "maximize shareholder value." Who cares if people get killed? It's good to see Illinois get ahead of this, considering that politicians in Illinois keep getting caught taking bribes from these policing equipment companies that peddle gadgets like red light cameras. Just yesterday it was revealed that the ne…

I don't see how that addresses any of the three points in the root comment.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#115

Post by monksy »

_3vxq wrote: post #69
monksy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state reps seem to be better. But our federal senators are pretty awful tankies. (Durban and Duckworth.. they'll full on send you a tone death letter about why encryption is awful after you send them your concerns)

I don't like tankies, but what about that makes them a tankie rather than merely authoritarian?

Authoritarian. I think I may have had a bad understanding of what a tankie is.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#117

Post by xp84 »

tinyhouse wrote: post #96

Instead of fixing issues like bias with facial recognition, they prefer to ban it instead. And Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control. Who will suffer the most? you guess it right, those who they are trying to protect... Go figure.

I don't think bias is the main problem with FR. I think the problem is more of the police performing mass FR. Although perfect FR by a (fictional) benevolent police force could allow much easier capture of all criminals, I think most Americans are more afraid of an all-powerful police force made possible by FR than they are of the status quo that many criminals go uncaught for a long time (and possibly forever). And I think that the militaristic behavior of cops and police departments have earned that.

The (hopefully) hyperbolic version of this fear is: Say you were wanted for a crime, and nobody believed you (or perhaps you're guilty but it's a BS law). If it's perfectly legal for them to do so, maybe the cops will just fly a killdrone over places you're known to frequent and shoot you on sight, and say 'Gee, sorry if you were offended, but (Name) was a dangerous criminal, wanted for terrorism and refused to turn himself in, we had no choice.'

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#118

Post by kristianp »

screye wrote: post #112

It's sad that the advent of new technology is never viewed as an opportunity to reduce violence. If the police can put themselves out of harms way using a drone, doesn't that help with peaceful de-escalation? A drone opens up options like tasers and pepper spray, that would have otherwise been impossible for police to deploy at a distance. If facial recognition can be done with near 100% accuracy, then what's wrong w…

> the state has total monopoly over violence.

Gun death stats disagree with you on that one.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#119

Post by banana_feather »

ryandrake wrote: post #94
mulmen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the argument for federal laws but honestly I think it is misguided to want state laws promoted to a national level immediately. This is how law in the US evolves. The patchwork is a feature. A federal government with the agility to implement this law at a national level would have far too much power. The system is working.

I agree. It's helpful to remember: for every law you like and want promoted to the federal level, there's another law you probably don't like that someone else thinks would be great to promote to the federal level. Although moving states to flee terrible laws is a burden, it's not as much of a burden as fleeing your entire country. Laws should be as local as practically possible.

> Laws should be as local as practically possible.

You guys are every lawyer's dream. Yes, please, continue believing you're following some great American tradition of strong local government by submitting to the whims of your local Boss Tweed and the five judges in your county, I play golf with them once a month. Oh, you have a legal problem and need to navigate the rats nest of weird local laws? Great, you can choose from one of three tax attorneys that know the local tax regime as it applies to your business. I play golf with them too, and (coincidentally) we all bill $1,100 an hour.

Re: Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

#120

Post by glitchc »

MereInterest wrote: post #111
glitchc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A federal law can only apply to FBI, National Guard, Coast Guard and other federally managed law enforcement bodies. It cannot apply to the various state and county police authorities. Governance of those is a right explicitly granted to each state and county, and the states/counties will fight tooth and nail to retain it.

That doesn't quite make sense to me. A federal policy or a federal executive order only applying to federally-managed bodies, I could understand. But federal laws outweigh state and local laws.

This power stems from the Tenth Amendment, which states that any power not delegated to the Federal government becomes the purview of the State.

Given that the state has a number of laws, it must operate its own police force to enforce those laws. Therefore, since a state is required to operate said police force, governance of that force falls under the purview of the state and cannot be delegated to an external authority. If that were possible, the federal government could take control of a state police force to enforce laws contrary to the state's own laws.

It sounds circuitous, but the meaning is clear: The state has to be able to govern and control its own police force if it wants to enforce its own laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_co...

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