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Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#81

Post by snuxoll »

danso wrote: post #27
ajb257 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst a free press is important, I would argue that 'a man and a woman have been held in connection with the Gatwick Airport drone incident' would suffice. Kudos to the BBC for recognising this. It's not in the public interest for us to know exactly who they are unless they're actually found guilty of a crime. Publishing their names and pictures before _even being charged_ does nothing but open potentially innocent…

I think the right to privacy vs. printing public info about the actions of our police is always going to be in tension. Of course, there's no argument that innocent people should have their privacy invaded, but ideally, innocent people shouldn't have been arrested at all. The flip side is when famous/powerful people are arrested but not charged, and the public not being able to know whether they got off because strin…

Public information about ongoing investigations and arrests wouldn't be problematic if our society didn't have such hilariously broken views on criminal investigations and trials.

Get arrested in connection with some well talked-about crime, but were released or found innocent at trial? Doesn't matter, you're still guilty in the eyes of the public. Hell, look at jury boxes in the US - you as a defendant are assumed guilty against the spirit of our constitution, because people suck.

Either we as a society need to fix our fucked up perceptions, or we need to have a serious discussion about the right to privacy up until the point that a verdict is delivered. Unfortunately, there's no evidence that we are going to fix the former in a timely manner.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#82

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #52
dTal wrote: post #50

Serious question - is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone? There are no available pictures of the supposed drone, which seems odd if it was 'buzzing the tower'. It also seems odd that it kept 'popping up' in random places, yet nobody managed to follow it with their own drone, or track it on radar. And now the police are arresting people with no connection to the incident and clearly still have…

I was wondering the same thing. Given the amount of press this generated, I still haven’t seen a photo of one of the drones which seems odd. Has anyone seen a photo?

The official story makes no sense at all. Why announce that you have arrested a couple of people if you have no hard evidence against them?

Either this is all monumental incompetence, or the real story isn't being released.

Coincidentally, Birmingham airport was shut for a couple of hours today after an air traffic control failure.

If that's the end of the story, it's fair to assume there's no connection.

If there's a spate of air traffic control and/or other failures over the next few days, it's going to be hard not to wonder if something else is going on.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#83

Post by incompatible »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #2

I'm sure the two of them are enjoying having their faces plastered over the sunday news ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs/the_papers ) and sorting through all the lovely messages they've received over the last day or so.

Is there a chance that their suffering will be compensated by big libel wins?

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#84

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

caminante wrote: post #68
hopler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an obvious difference between protecting people by tracking their identities in captivity vs harming people by publicly shaming them by immediately parroting the authority'sallegations.

You're missing his point. Your distinction still places the trust in the discretion of the police/press. If they don't disclose the name, then it's harder for character witnesses to come forward (e.g. the couple's neighbors in this case).

I don't think it works like that. Character witnesses are organised in private by a defence lawyer, who - of course - knows the identities of the accused. Not by a public announcement in the press.

Front page headlines along the lines of "The police believe these people are criminals who caused huge inconvenience and suffering to hundreds of thousands of people - would someone like to say a good work about them?" probably aren't the best way to guarantee a fair trial.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#85

Post by dmix »

spuz wrote: post #60
dTal wrote: post #50

Serious question - is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone? There are no available pictures of the supposed drone, which seems odd if it was 'buzzing the tower'. It also seems odd that it kept 'popping up' in random places, yet nobody managed to follow it with their own drone, or track it on radar. And now the police are arresting people with no connection to the incident and clearly still have…

You are not the only one questioning the existence of the drones: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/23/police-admit-may...

That article is paywalled but what about this bit of the parent article?

> "We are [..] carrying out a forensic examination of a damaged drone found near the perimeter of the airport.

Sounds like some evidence of at least one drone. But regardless this is still likely a culmination of panic over a potentially one-off sighting.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#87

Post by user5994461 »

knorker wrote: post #71
user5994461 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No company in their right mind would sell anything like that for less than $10k. Try £100+ as a starting price for one unit. It's aerospace and defense equipment and the airport is losing a truckload of money. One of the article was giving a £16M figure for a 6 pack of the Israel Dome system.

I'll admit to not knowing what CAA rules a receive-only system would need, but this is not knowledge that is that specialized. I'm saying the hardware is yes about $10k for sufficient coverage, COTS, and maybe you're right that a proven company would charge 100k and up. But you could hire someone competent for $300k/y to just implement it, and then deploy everywhere. (300k would get you someone competent enough) But…

I don't think that is receive only, there is an active radar. The iron drone system seems catered to detect mortar/missile/UAV rather than consumer drones so it's certainly overkill and could be done for less.

Drones and UAV can cost more than $10k in hardware alone. I'm not familiar enough with the sensors and the technology on the detection side but wouldn't assume that anything comes cheap.

There are no product selling in the $10k price range. You will need to go through procurement with numerous sales meeting and demonstrations to make a sale, which automatically push the price to $100k and above.

It's low volume, meaning few units to recoup the development costs. Let's keep in mind that it takes a lot more than a guy in a year to develop a product.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#88

Post by megaremote »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #82
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering the same thing. Given the amount of press this generated, I still haven’t seen a photo of one of the drones which seems odd. Has anyone seen a photo?

The official story makes no sense at all. Why announce that you have arrested a couple of people if you have no hard evidence against them? Either this is all monumental incompetence, or the real story isn't being released. Coincidentally, Birmingham airport was shut for a couple of hours today after an air traffic control failure. If that's the end of the story, it's fair to assume there's no connection. If there's…

> The official story makes no sense at all. Why announce that you have arrested a couple of people if you have no hard evidence against them?

For lots of reasons. To make it seem like they are making progress, to make it seem like it is safe to travelers, to assuage their bosses, pick one.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#89

Post by kiliantics »

voltagex_ wrote: post #11
jstanley wrote: post #4

There must have been some motive for whoever did this. AFAIK, no environmental or terrorist groups have claimed responsibility. Is it possible that this has been done by someone within the police or intelligence community in order to create a pretext for pushing through drone licensing laws?

https://twitter.com/GlytchTech/status/1076715652843487232?s=...

Didn't the drone disappear to recharge/replace batteries and return multiple times? I thought this meant it must be intentional and not accidental.

Though, the accidental explanation is arguably more ominous/terrifying. It reminds of the episode "Autofac" from the "Electric Dreams" series.

Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'

#90

Post by ljm »

closeparen wrote: post #77
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that publishing the names at all isn't particularly news-worthy. The right to privacy exists, too. In the justice system it's the judge which rules a sentence. Years – or even decades – of public shaming doesn't seem fair to me. Committing a crime doesn't mean you're no longer dealing with a person with real feelings. Publishing names and photos strikes me as "2 minutes of hate", and not "news". Also no…

The facts entering public record are what distinguishes "arrested" from "disappeared." Do you want to live in a world where people are yanked off the street and not heard of for months or years, with no ability for the press/friends/family to find out about the situation, "out of respect for their privacy?" If the police refuse to disclose whether they've grabbed someone, I'm going to assume I'm in Soviet Russia.

But, the police can disclose that information without expecting newspapers to slap it on the front page.

The court of public opinion is utterly unforgiving compared to the legal system these people could be sent through. We're not talking about neighbours reading an outrage piece in their daily paper; we're talking about nutjobs on the internet finding their Facebook profiles, their Twitter accounts, their emails, their physical addresses, and then doing their best to make those people's lives hell. Because that's what happens and the mob operates on a hair trigger.

The number of people being truly disappeared in our Western societies is vanishingly small, compared to all of the people who have their mugshots and criminal records indexed on Google, and all of the people who were indicted by newspaper editors before a jury even got a chance. That's before the internet keyboard warriors start shipping out their death threats or fabricating hostage situations for SWAT teams.

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