161–170 of 235 posts
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Drones are cheap & reliable. Vs. blimps, balloons, and such have repeatedly proven themselves quite fragile.
Quadcopters, you mean? They are cheap, and reliable enough given that they are cheap, but that's all.
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So we'd rather a high speed chase, crashes, danger to cyclists and pedestrians? I'd rather a drone follows the car until it stops and the police arrive to retrieve it and give a hand slap to the offender. I know this is lagging, and American culture will take decades to accept it, but the better our police are the lighter the sentences can be. Part of why a big hard sentence was seen as a deterrent was sort of the ER…
> So we'd rather a high speed chase, crashes, danger to cyclists and pedestrians? Yes, this is preferable to me when compared to a society where police can surveil everyone, everywhere for no crime at all. I don't want to sit on my roof listening to music and wonder how many police drones are watching me, trying to figure out if I'm a "prowler." I don't want to be followed by a police drone while I'm on my way to the…
Yes, i understand what you're saying hence why i mentioned culture. American justice (and cultural cues that inform the policies) seems to be more about revenge than rehabilitation.
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nah, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is IMO until the police have something to hide (besides their crappy securing of the usage) It's not really a news piece. If we had a story of a Police officer using the drone to follow his dominos order, or his ex-girlfriend -- thatd be a story about abuse of power and quite newsworthy.
https://www.404media.co/footage-shows-cop-stalking-woman-he-... So do we need to wait for abuse with this specific piece of technology in order to be concerned?
Like IMO the real recourse is to come down hard on the abuses of power, and that includes things like getting Citizens united taken down so that police union(s) are not so powerful etc.
I'm generally more interested in root causes than pruning the leaves. Which I realize often is not the "pragmatic" choice.
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No drone has ever followed me when I am on the way to go play hockey.
How would you know? From the article: > Curry and Robert were struck by the fact that, in all the videos they watched, no one ever looks up at the drone or makes an attempt to hide from it—perhaps evidence that, given their size and altitude, the flying cameras are virtually invisible to the targets of their surveillance. “You’re just watching from above, and no one is aware that the drone is there,” Curry says. “It…
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-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 expectat…
> -Meta can already track your every move; that ship has sailed. Not sure why it is relevant to this discussion. I've gone through great lengths to ensure it can't, I'd rather not have the government undo all that effort. > -Your medical data is private, whereas this is a discussion about data from the public sphere, where there is no legal expectation of privacy. Maybe there should be? There is in other parts of the…
I strenuously object. But that's not this conversation. It's way upstream, as the SCOTUS has already decided that there is no public expectation of privacy.
>> -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. > >Doing that in person is a much different thing in terms of commitment compared >to doing it from the comfort of your couch, or hell, having an AI model do it >for you and send you a nice notification.
A rando can send a drone or a fleet of drones to do the same surveillance that you are worried about here. Perhaps you are just really anti-drone?
>> I would prefer public data available to all, rather than a one-sided >panopticon. With the former, at least we can watch the watchmen. > >I would rather limit access to a power that can - at least theoretically - be >changed democratically, instead of having an infinite-sided panopticon.
There is no such thing as an infinite-sided panopticon. Definitionally, a panopticon is one-sided.
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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.
The problem is that police misuse every single power they have been given and public trust is very low for years now. I do not want to live in a world where random drones/cameras control my every move, and if your response to that is "I don't understand the problem" then we cannot live in the same society. It has been proven for thousands of years now that more laws do not fix society, and especially the problems we…
San Francisco used to not investigate or prosecute any of those crimes. Laptop stolen out of a car? Nothing to do. Now they catch video of it happening, follow the license plate, arrest the perpetrators. Catalytic converter stolen? We don’t investigate that.
Yes, police have shitty track records of abusing authority and technology. Does that mean we throw out all authority and technology? If you do we get the chaotic lawlessness San Francisco experienced for years.
So what’s the middle way? 1) Use the tech to fight crime. (Check! They’re doing it) 2) prevent abuses of that technology and authority (in progress, let’s see how it goes)
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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.
> 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…
Yea, "adheres to a strict policy" could mean anything. They have policies[1] posted publicly. I wonder if any of the footage will be found to violate their policies, and if so, what accountability looks like. 1: https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/explore-departm...
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> So we'd rather a high speed chase, crashes, danger to cyclists and pedestrians? Yes, this is preferable to me when compared to a society where police can surveil everyone, everywhere for no crime at all. I don't want to sit on my roof listening to music and wonder how many police drones are watching me, trying to figure out if I'm a "prowler." I don't want to be followed by a police drone while I'm on my way to the…
> I think you're really underestimating the public's desire to punish criminals. Yes, i understand what you're saying hence why i mentioned culture. American justice (and cultural cues that inform the policies) seems to be more about revenge than rehabilitation.
I'm sure this wont be misused frequently with total impunity, right?
As far as I can tell this program is addressing a real crime problem in SF, it is getting real criminals off the streets and helping police do their jobs.
If some policeman abuses his authority and misuses the tech we should 100% prosecute them for that crime. There is as yet no report of a police officer misusing that tech.
There are however thousands of examples of police using that tech to arrest real criminals, criminals who commit property crime and violent crime. Those people are off the streets.
I am cautiously optimistic about this program and so far fully support it. We should pay some pen testers to attempt to misuse the system and see if the internal controls are sufficient to catch them.