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Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

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Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#71

Post by axus »

buellerbueller wrote: post #41
infecto wrote: post #37

I don’t think I have a problem with drones. There is a line to be drawn regarding auditing access of footage and how we are analyzing it historically (prevent from misusing the tech) but for things like active reporting it has the potential to be pretty helpful. Cops used to be a lot more visible (or maybe greater in number) and this type of tech has the potential to help get that back. I am no fan of police and am a…

All camera footage should be publicly available.

I'd modify this to "all warrantless surveillance", so not just cameras. Warrantless surveillance should not be allowed for private activity, and making it public helps audit that.

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#72

Post by nozzlegear »

Neil44 wrote: post #20
malfist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

Is it essential liberty to be able to run around doing crime without being surveiled?

This article literally documents several times SFPD used drones to surveil people who weren't committing any crimes. They sent their drones to spy on a guy who was sitting on a roof listening to music, and in another instance they sent drones to follow "suspicious individuals" who were just going to a basketball court to shoot hoops.

This is done despite the department's drone policy stating that "drones can only be used to assist with active criminal investigations, to assist with or in lieu of vehicle pursuits, and for training exercises."

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#73

Post by alistairSH »

buellerbueller wrote: post #52

What are the safeguards that are in place here? What happens when this surveillance capability falls into the hands of an autocratic government?

Same as ALPRs and anything else related to policing.

We need protections/limits in place. But we also need a government that's reliable and "friendly" (to the extent a large government can be). We currently don't, so all these new techs are quite concerning.

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#74

Post by rayiner »

Grombobulous wrote: post #67
Gigachad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t agree. Especially in this day where anyone, or any business could run it all through AI and profile everyone to work out the exact best moment to send you a push notification for a Big Mac or whatever.

And this is the perfect demonstration of what why police shouldn’t have access to this technology. Police should be made to get out of their cars and make some relationships with the community to get information. They should be so trusted by the community that private citizens willingly give them tips and security footage to aid investigations. This surveillance tech is a band-aid on the effects of crime rather than…

[flagged]

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#75

Post by maxlybbert »

inigyou wrote: post #50
maerF0x0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there is no right to privacy in public, no? What I don't care so much about the data collection as I do about how it's used. Its not that the NSA surveils that bugs me. It's that they use kangaroo courts, "asdfasdfasdf" as the search reason field, that they cyber stalk girlfriends, or view camera devices to see people in state of undress (illegally and unethically). In this case we have an example of police usi…

Civilized countries do have limited rights to privacy in public. For example, it may be illegal to publish a photograph of a person without their consent.

For the record, most states have publicity rights (with exceptions) so that publishing a photo may still require somebody’s permission.

But the police don’t need a warrant to follow me in public, and even take pictures that they have no intention of publishing.

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#76

Post by buellerbueller »

vrganj wrote: post #69
buellerbueller wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the value of having the data on public spaces publicly available far outweighs the risk of privately held data, or editorializaed data from public spaces. Also: You're welcome to disable push notifications if you don't want a big mac ad. (I agree that advertising is a cancer.) Also, 2: What right should the government have to capture public data and then keep it from the public?

The idea of Meta being able to track my every move creeps me the fuck out, sorry. What right does the government have to give my data to randos? The public that's captured is not the same as the public that accesses the data. Just imagine the creepy implications. Imagine what stalkers could do if they could follow a woman's every movement. Imagine robbers staking out houses from the comfort of their couch. The govern…

-Meta can already track your every move; that ship has sailed. Not sure why it is relevant to this discussion.

-Randos can already observe your every movement, They just have to do it physically. A stalker can already follow a woman's public movements. A robber can already stake out a house.

-Your medical data is private, whereas this is a discussion about data from the public sphere, where there is no legal expectation of privacy.

-I agree that it would be a better world if there were no drone surveillance, however, in a world where there is drone surveillance--i.e., the world in which we exist--I would prefer public data available to all, rather than a one-sided panopticon. With the former, at least we can watch the watchmen.

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#77

Post by scottlamb »

> In its statement, the SFPD notes that it adheres to a “strict policy” around drone use, and that “drones can only be used to assist with active criminal investigations, to assist with or in lieu of vehicle pursuits, and for training exercises.”

In principle I think this is good. These are useful tools as shown in the first video, helping them safely arrest a suspected thief. And having a policy like this is a good step to ensure they aren't used for ubiquitous surveillance that enables the sort of post-hoc warrantless (and unjustifiable) invasions of privacy we've seen with Flock cameras.

That said, I hope the official policy is more air-tight than this one-sentence version. "with or in lieu of vehicle pursuits" is tautological, only constraining the target to be a vehicle [edit: or does it require they follow a vehicle pursuit policy specified elsewhere? unclear to me]. And can anything be a "training exercise"? What would the consequences be anyway if an officer violates the policy? [edit: I'm also wondering now how tight their policy on an "active criminal investigation" is. When there's significant officer time involved, there's some inherent limit on how silly/vindictive/... they can get, but with enough drones, that could go away.]

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#78

Post by ceejayoz »

bobthebob wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweet, you've invented pre-crime.

[flagged]

It's not a one-liner joke.

I believe citizens being able to run around without being continually surveilled is an essential liberty.

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#79

Post by maxlybbert »

inigyou wrote: post #14
bobthebob wrote: post #10

Helicopters already exist, and so do consumer drones - so why is this an issue?

Scale. The possibility of surveillance was far less worrying when three police officers had to tail you, because they'd only expend that effort when they were pretty sure you'd done a crime.

This is a very common position. But I’ve never understood the argument that police should have to do some amount of busywork for things to be fair.

Warrants aren’t required so the police are sportsmanlike. Warrants are required because interacting with the police can be inconvenient or hellish, depending on the interaction.

Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance

#80

Post by lazide »

vrganj wrote: post #70
lazide wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they evaluated and left? What should they have done, creeped on them as they played?

I can't help but wonder what skin color those young men had that made the police suspicious in the first place...

Well, everyone knows white boys can’t jump.
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