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Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

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Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#31

Post by beat »

strictnein wrote: post #18

Have these folks ever been to a major sporting event? Like a MLB all star game, for instance? Same planes are there as well. They just circle around slowly to give security an eye in the sky. If you have an important event or large scale protests, this seems like a logical thing to have. This article is a little out there and belongs on some conspiracy website. Reads like an Infowars piece.

It's the ACLU. I imagine they're more circumspect than Infowars. If they're concerned, there's good reason to be concerned.

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#33

Post by diminoten »

rmxt wrote: post #30
diminoten wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically say mass surveillance is (figuratively) "literally Hitler", and you think that's an "unpopular opinion" on HN? Well, have I got some fortunate news for you... The fact is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a police department flying an airplane over an area under their jurisdiction with the intent of surveying the area as an intelligence gathering activity. What's actually absurd is the idea that th…

You made the Godwin leap that the GP avoided, and putting words in another's mouth like that is an unfortunate way of polarizing discussion. They shouldn't fly an airplane over their jurisdiction without an express specific intent (e.g., hot criminal pursuit of an individual or individuals) because "gathering intelligence" is not their purpose. Are they in a warzone? Are their taxpaying funders now somehow their subj…

You actually think it's possible to perform police activity as outlined in the Public Laws of Baltimore without executing intelligence operations?

How would you know when Bad Things are happening? Are you recommending they exclusively perform reactive services?

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#34

Post by Karunamon »

beat wrote: post #29
Karunamon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what their gear is. If they're only looking at things an average person can already see, but on a large scale? Eh, can't really argue with that. If it's in the public eye, it ain't private. If they're trying to read the heat coming off of buildings, or laser-micing windows, or otherwise trying to look into areas that are not public, they need to knock it off and get a warrant based on probable cause first.

The average person cannot rewind the cross-town movements of thousands of individuals simultaneously.

Sure they can. Drones can be had for very cheap nowadays.

And again, what you do in public is available for anyone who cares to look.

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#35

Post by diminoten »

beat wrote: post #28
diminoten wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically say mass surveillance is (figuratively) "literally Hitler", and you think that's an "unpopular opinion" on HN? Well, have I got some fortunate news for you... The fact is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a police department flying an airplane over an area under their jurisdiction with the intent of surveying the area as an intelligence gathering activity. What's actually absurd is the idea that th…

There are limits to jurisdiction, well defined. For example, police cannot enter your home without your permission, unless they have a warrant from a judge. So if the airplane surveillance is being used to collect and act on data that would normally require a warrant, then "jurisdiction" is not sufficient. Even having the ability to do this is problematic in the eyes of many judges and many civilians (it would be the…

> So if the airplane surveillance is being used to collect and act on data that would normally require a warrant, then "jurisdiction" is not sufficient.

Very true, I agree.

However, I don't see any reason why this would be taking place given what we currently know. Arial surveillance has the distinct advantage of safely observing a public area under their jurisdiction.

So yes, they shouldn't avoid warrants by way of arial surveillence (e.g. peeping into back yards), but it's (practically speaking) useful to cover a lot of ground (the same ground they'd already cover) quickly.

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#36

Post by Karunamon »

diminoten wrote: post #33
rmxt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made the Godwin leap that the GP avoided, and putting words in another's mouth like that is an unfortunate way of polarizing discussion. They shouldn't fly an airplane over their jurisdiction without an express specific intent (e.g., hot criminal pursuit of an individual or individuals) because "gathering intelligence" is not their purpose. Are they in a warzone? Are their taxpaying funders now somehow their subj…

You actually think it's possible to perform police activity as outlined in the Public Laws of Baltimore without executing intelligence operations? How would you know when Bad Things are happening? Are you recommending they exclusively perform reactive services?

Unstated assumption: that these "intelligence operations" are both legally permitted, and that even if they are, that they prevent enough crime to justify their existence.

Not sure either of those things are true.

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#37

Post by diminoten2 »

cryoshon wrote: post #26
diminoten wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically say mass surveillance is (figuratively) "literally Hitler", and you think that's an "unpopular opinion" on HN? Well, have I got some fortunate news for you... The fact is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a police department flying an airplane over an area under their jurisdiction with the intent of surveying the area as an intelligence gathering activity. What's actually absurd is the idea that th…

The cops are already flying their choppers all over Baltimore and back in order to keep track of the protests/rioters. This is something a bit more insidious than simple crowd/crime spotting for ground units. As the article states, this airplane was likely utilizing a few privacy-smashing technologies such as an aerial Stingray (dirtbox) or an ARGOS camera suite, complete with individual identification and tracking f…

Anything the BPD is doing to circumvent warrants is obviously bad and needs to stop. I'm not arguing they should be allowed to do any of that stuff.

What I am saying is there's nothing inherently wrong with arial surveillance, to the point where everyone who works for companies offering such services is "evil".

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#38

Post by cryoshon »

rfreytag wrote: post #25

Working from the IR surveillance mentioned in the article maybe they are operationalizing ARGUS-IR ( http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/Autonomous_Real-t... and PBS video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=13BahrdkMU8 ). It is a sort of "dirtbag" system but for visible and near-visible light. [Note to self: don't be lit from below when being interviewed on camera, see at min 1:08.]

This was my thought as well.

You deploy a system like this on an aircraft with long loiter times and you have a visual history of the movement of as many individuals or vehicles that it can keep track of. You pair this with a stingray on the ground or air, and you can put names and electronic communications to the people being tracked from above.

You can have a history of where a person has been, who they've been talking to, what they've been saying if it's electronic, and you can get a great picture of what they've been doing at each location, without a warrant, with no way of opting out. This is an Orwellian dragnet. This is a police state.

The NSA-style rebuttal to this is that they're only capturing metadata. This technology suite gives "only" where you've been, who you've talked to, and when you've done those things. Of course it's fascist nonsense, knowing that I was at a bakery at 9 AM leaves very little to the imagination.

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#39

Post by rmxt »

diminoten wrote: post #33
rmxt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made the Godwin leap that the GP avoided, and putting words in another's mouth like that is an unfortunate way of polarizing discussion. They shouldn't fly an airplane over their jurisdiction without an express specific intent (e.g., hot criminal pursuit of an individual or individuals) because "gathering intelligence" is not their purpose. Are they in a warzone? Are their taxpaying funders now somehow their subj…

You actually think it's possible to perform police activity as outlined in the Public Laws of Baltimore without executing intelligence operations? How would you know when Bad Things are happening? Are you recommending they exclusively perform reactive services?

I stand fast by the notion that they shouldn't be performing general "intelligence operations", nor should they be recruiting the FBI to so on their behalf. They should be proactively fighting crime, but that doesn't need to (and legally shouldn't) entail wholesale monitoring of everyone in their jurisdiction (and then some, judging by the range of the drones and the involvement of the FBI). Do you actually think that the Baltimore PD has a cogent sense of probable cause and articuable suspicion for everyone that this device is collecting information on? If not, then this thing has no place being in the sky. This is unnecessary dragnet surveillance so that "boys can play with their toys", not proactive crime fighting with good purpose.

Re: Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

#40

Post by ceejayoz »

comrade1 wrote: post #6
MattGrommes wrote: post #4

" Among the companies offering this technology are major defense contractors working for the Pentagon and an Ohio company called Persistent Surveillance Systems, which is trying to sell it to local police departments." I know this is an unpopular opinion these days but the people working for these companies should be ashamed. There is little use for this technology, especially on US soil, except mass surveillance of…

There are used in drug interdiction and other coast guard functions. My brother was an Air Force test pilot that tested these for that purpose (he was originally a surveillance pilot flying kc-135s). They are basically a kc-135 in a small jet (e.g., leer jet 35) form factor, and not carrying a team of technicians in the back but instead just equipment, or maybe a technician or two. Officially he's not supposed to kno…

Do you mean an RC-135? KC-135 just carries a bunch of fuel, which doesn't seem useful for surveillance.
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