I think they also use planes with state of the art optics and cameras in other major US cities, especially before certain events, to go back in time later. If a crime happens they can trace back cars and suspects in the video archive. And I guess they might also do number plate recognition by default, to get even quicker results.
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
#62Am I missing something? I can click the 'article' but its a big picture and a single paragraph. That reads like a picture description.
They paywalled the article, that’s why you can only see the first paragraph
Didn't realize it was paywalled when I posted it. I read it in Apple News where it's not paywalled:
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Helicopters are expensive and thus rare. Consumer drones can't summon a SWAT team.
Still don’t know how this affects me. The use here seems to be for criminals on the run
So, we're back to the "if you don't break the law, you have nothing to worry about" argument for overbearing policing?
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Classic example of the Nothing to hide argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
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.
They already do use tech to spy on exes, though
Police Officer Accused of Tracking Partner Using License Plate Reader: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/us/milwaukee-police-offic...
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#65Helicopters already exist, and so do consumer drones - so why is this an issue?
To answer your question succinctly: The government is doing them, and that could be breaking the law.
If you are still unconvinced, ask yourself why you think the government breaking the law is not an issue?
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#66Earlier 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.
'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy
In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: "I've got nothing to hide." According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the nothing to hide argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings.
https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications/158/
See also "Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime"
The result of overcriminalization is that prosecutors no longer need to wait for obvious signs of a crime. Instead of finding Professor Plum dead in the conservatory and launching an investigation, authorities can instead start an investigation of Colonel Mustard as soon as someone has suggested he is a shady character.
https://columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Rey...
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
All camera footage should be publicly available.
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 a solution to the root cause.
So you catch the criminals and put them in jail. Then what? What prevents more people from resorting to crime? What prevents recidivism?
Our government as a whole should reduce crime by performing the most effective crime reduction strategies: eliminating the tuition cost of education, ending poverty [1] and disastrously high income inequality, implementing strong universal healthcare [2], reforming the prison system so that it provides opportunities to rehabilitate rather than raw punishment, enshrining employee protections like paid family leave into law so that kids can be raised by their family rather than being under-supervised while their parents work two shifts a day.
[1] With the excess wealth the US generates, ending poverty is trivial. Suggested Google search: “daily cost of Iran war.”
[2] Doesn’t even cost money, it saves money.
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#68Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#69Earlier 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.
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 government has an obligation to protect the data it has on its citizens, not to just give out willy-nilly. By your logic, public hospitals should share your medical files publicly.
The solution would be for less data to be collected in the first place, not to make the data leak as dystopian as possible.
Re: Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes Reality of Urban Surveillance
#70> 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 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...