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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

#121

Post by infecto »

nozzlegear wrote: post #115
infecto wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article… These are being used for active calls only. Can you describe how this breaks the 4th? Does it really matter if it’s a human tracking down a suspect or a drone. If you have any case law that shows general cameras break the 4th I would love to read.

> Did you read the article… These are being used for active calls only. I'm the person who posted the article lol. The article lists several cases where the drones were used to investigate random people – not active calls. They deployed drones to spy on some guy listening to music on his roof, and used drones to follow two "suspicious individuals" who were just driving to a basketball court. Another instance had dron…

[dead]

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

#122

Post by infecto »

ceejayoz wrote: post #119
infecto wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe similar trajectory but fundamentally Chatrie is about compelling stored data from a third party. I don’t believe there is any meaningful overlap between that and direct visual observation from police. Folks should argue it in court if so but I don’t see the link to 4th violations.

Chatrie has sections like this: > Second, Location History allows police to reconstruct “retrospective[ly],” and with no real effort, people’s comings and goings in any area, enabling “tireless and absolute surveillance” of any number of people in any number of places. A certain level of drone surveillance would seem likely to rise to this level of intrusion, and I think ALPR cameras already do.

Agree I wish the article focused more on the storage and availability of the data instead of the narrative they wrote. It’s in there but not the focus which imo is the issue. I think it’s great to have the drones as active response but like ALPR, it’s ripe for abuse after the fact. These systems can have great value but are ripe for abuse, I hope organizations catchup to build the proper guardrails.

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

#123

Post by ceejayoz »

rayiner wrote: post #112
Grombobulous wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is basically a cherry-picking and oversimplification of the situation. For one thing, income inequality in Brazil is significantly higher than in Bangladesh. Also remember that I was speaking in the context of the wealthiest country on earth. We could perhaps assume that Brazil may not have the resources to end poverty and crime, but the USA definitely does.

> Also remember that I was speaking in the context of the wealthiest country on earth. We could perhaps assume that Brazil may not have the resources to end poverty and crime, but the USA definitely does. That doesn't matter. If crime is caused by poverty, like you hypothesize, then poor countries like Bangladesh should have astronomical crime rates. But they don't.

https://travel.state.gov/en/international-travel/travel-advi...

> Travel advisory - People's Republic of Bangladesh: Level 3 - Reconsider travel

And a little spot of Level 4:

> Do not travel to the Chittagong Hill Tracts due to unrest, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping. This area includes Khagrachari, Rangamati, and Bandarban Hill Tracts districts. Do not travel to this area for any reason.

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

#124

Post by vrganj »

rationalist wrote: post #99
vrganj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

That I'm aware of how big of a problem racial discrimination is in policing?

> Black Californians are more than twice as likely to be searched as white Californians, at about 20 percent versus 8 percent of all stops

https://www.ppic.org/publication/racial-disparities-in-law-e...

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

#125

Post by vrganj »

stronglikedan wrote: post #96
vrganj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

Thanks!

It's important to be aware of how unjust an organization who's origins are groups that hunt for escaped slaves is, and how fucked up the way they treat black people is to this very day.

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

#127

Post by ceejayoz »

vrganj wrote: post #124
rationalist wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That I'm aware of how big of a problem racial discrimination is in policing? > Black Californians are more than twice as likely to be searched as white Californians, at about 20 percent versus 8 percent of all stops https://www.ppic.org/publication/racial-disparities-in-law-e...

You'll get people going "well that's because they do more crimes" to this.

IMO, the toughest study to argue with is https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-redu...

They studied traffic stops around the daylight savings transition, which is a perfect natural control for "could the cops see the car occupants?"

When DST switches, the on-paper racial disparity moves by an hour. The Earth's orbit, obviously, does not.

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

#128

Post by ryandrake »

maxlybbert wrote: post #87
dannyw wrote: post #9

> The innocuous appearance of many of the videos raises questions about whether the surveillance was necessary. In one “auto boost/strip”-related call, the drone follows two young men in their car, at least one of whom is described in police records as having been identified as a “suspicious person in a vehicle.” Then the two men emerge onto a basketball court and start playing, and the drone departs. https://archive…

I don’t understand the problem. Police saw something they thought was suspicious, took a closer look, and then decided there was nothing illegal happening. I don’t think there’s a constitutional right to know when you’re being tailed. Or to be notified every time a police officer does a double-take.

What made the police think they were “suspicious”? Anybody can be suspicious if you want to tail them for another reason. When you leave the judgement entirely to the person who gets to initiate the surveillance, then you are saying anyone can be surveilled.

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

#129

Post by rangestransform »

infecto wrote: post #39
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"

What liberty does a drone with a camera break? Seems like a nice optimization on police resources.

There should be no optimization on police resources. When Katz v. USA (no expectation of privacy in public) was decided, surveillance was done by an officer who needed to be paid a middle class salary, maybe armed with a camera and a telephoto lens if we’re lucky. The average city police department barely knew what SIGINT meant.

Either the laws need to be updated to have equal friction for the police to do surveillance, or we need to physically prevent police from having access to modern surveillance technology.

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

#130

Post by infecto »

rangestransform wrote: post #129
infecto wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What liberty does a drone with a camera break? Seems like a nice optimization on police resources.

There should be no optimization on police resources. When Katz v. USA (no expectation of privacy in public) was decided, surveillance was done by an officer who needed to be paid a middle class salary, maybe armed with a camera and a telephoto lens if we’re lucky. The average city police department barely knew what SIGINT meant. Either the laws need to be updated to have equal friction for the police to do surveillan…

These drones are “piloted” but it can be in a semiautonomous way. Your argument makes sense for Flock cameras but not for this style of drone. I think first response with a drone to an active call is a great use of resources for all parties. Flock cameras constantly tracking every movement, probably not given the severe lack of audits and guardrails.
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