Picture this: You’re hanging out on your stoop, and a drone appears overhead. You ask yourself, “Is that the police?” It could be a delivery drone, or belong to the local utility or a kid down the street. Your police department is flying drones more and more—and you know they have powerful zoom lenses. You ask yourself: “Do I look suspicious?”

This situation could become reality soon for Americans, because the U.S. is on the cusp of an explosion in the use of drones by law enforcement. The country isn’t prepared.

More than 1,400 police departments in America already use drones, but Federal Aviation Administration rules generally prohibit operators from flying these craft beyond their visual line of sight, sharply restricting the purposes for which they can be used. Among other things, these laws help keep drones from being used for suspicionless surveillance.

A dozen or so police departments, however, have gone through an extensive and time-consuming process to secure a special FAA exemption from this ban—and more have applied. And in the next couple of years, the FAA is expected to issue new rules allowing police departments and others to carry out flights beyond the visual line of sight as long as they follow certain safety rules, opening up the skies to commercial flights such as delivery drones as well as expanded police operations.

Driving police interest in such flights is a new concept called drones-as-first-responder programs, in which the police send flying video cameras to the location of every 911 call. Often arriving well before officers, the drones give the police an aerial view of what is going on. Police say this tool is valuable in serious emergencies and even helps prevent law-enforcement encounters. Drones could establish, for example, that a man reported to be waving a gun is actually holding a gun-shaped cigarette lighter—all before officers arrive on the scene.

We shouldn’t object to reasonable, bounded uses of drones, but the vast majority of 911 calls aren’t for serious emergencies. They are for mental illness, wellness checks and reports about loud music or suspicious persons. If every 911 call results in a drone flight, the sheer number of flying police video cameras with powerful lenses would take over American communities.

And drones-as-first-responder programs may quickly expand. With flights allowed beyond the line of sight, we could also see drones used to conduct prolonged suspect surveillance, or to watch places where police expect crime will happen. That might escalate into routine drone patrols.

The result would be nightmarish levels of surveillance. Our courts are now grappling with the constitutional limits of surveillance in public places, and a federal appeals court struck down a citywide aerial surveillance program in Baltimore in 2021. But it’s not clear where the courts will draw the line.

Before drones become a regular tool for police departments, we must implement safeguards and accountability measures. There should be a moratorium on drone 911 responder programs—currently active in only a couple of dozen cities and towns—until the U.S. learns more about how those programs turn out. Will they improve policing and reduce fraught interactions as proponents suggest? Or will they become another weapon amplifying the war on drugs, overpolicing and the targeting of vulnerable communities?

The communities that allow their police departments to adopt such programs must enact laws to contain them. That means creating a standard that police should use drones only in true emergencies. The standard also should impose privacy protections limiting the handling of video data and require transparency regarding where and when drones are flying, precisely what sensors they carry, and what department policies have been adopted surrounding their use.

Many people feel self-conscious and uncomfortable when a police car is driving behind them, or when a uniformed officer is watching them. You wouldn’t want to experience that feeling from the air while sitting in your own backyard. Drones can be a useful law-enforcement tool in some circumstances, but we still must protect our civil rights and liberties. We shouldn’t have to feel we’re being watched whenever we see the sky.


link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/p...ions-667a53c6?mod=hp

I live in a very conservative community . The Chief of Police is elected and that matters . There is no way this city would approve of drones being used for random surveillance . The department has used it for missing person searches and probably criminal investigations . Drones hovering over somebody's backyard would ignite a firestorm around here .

A drone is just not practical or efficient to be used for spying on people. Sure if there is already a suspect for something then it might work for checking out a rural property or something. To get people all worked up about drones hovering around everyone’s neighborhood is just nonsensical.

Turkey shot or BB??

Frankly, I'm more concerned about always-on dash cams in public vehicles (and subpoenas for private so-equipped vehicles, not to mention Ring doorbell footage) than event-dispatched drones. Another potential threat: I suspect that the control software and comm. channels for drones are very hackable as well.

No concern here.
They are not a deterant.
Just another money making scheme.
Recognizing crime is not an issue anymore.

Criminals still won't be stopped, society won't stop them.
Laws don't matter.
Criminal records are irrelevant.
But boy there's money to be made ,
So full steam ahead

This article is a joke. “Drones could overrun communities”- what does that even mean? The author is trying to stoke fear for some reason. Police aren’t going to be flying drones around spying on people going about their everyday lives.

What are they going to do with any evidence collected with drones, they don't put people in jail for many laws broken directly in front of police.

I'm not a criminal so not worried about it.

In my neighborhood, they'd get more return on investment giving the Appraisal District (i.e. people who set the assessed value for property taxes) drone money than giving LEOs drone money.

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
I live in a very conservative community . The Chief of Police is elected and that matters .

I learned something new today.

Sheriffs are nearly all elected (with a few exceptions like Rhode Island and Hawaii), but I've only ever been aware of police chiefs being appointed by the elected mayor/council/governor/etc., which is how just about everyone does that nationwide.

But apparently electing local police chiefs is a thing in Louisiana (only?), though even there it's not universal.

My local Sheriff's Office has an entire drone team with quite a few different drones, from consumer grade stuff to much larger units that run into 5 digits.

They are used for lots of things including providing overwatch for the service of warrants, targeted aerial recon (the stuff the helicopters used to do but the drone can now do much cheaper) and for deployment for unfolding events for patrol. They have been utilized on-scene for all sorts of searches and even had one record an officer involved shooting that devolved from a hostage situation (video is available on youtube).

In those manners they are a great tool. "Pilots" are subject to FFA regulations and have the appropriate license (I'm not clear on what that is as I am not directly involved).

The author of that article states they are only in use in a "few dozen" municipalties... I don't buy that for a second. I know of at least 4 of our local agencies that utilize them.

Adequate drones are, relatively speaking, dirt cheap. It costs a lot to outfit a patrol officer these days... another $1000 for a DJI mini pro is not that big a deal. The day will come when they are standard issue in every patrol car along with the Glock and the 870/M4 clone.

For good or for bad.

The police can watch you now IF you are out in public, with or without drones. That has always been the law. Drones might, theoretically, make it a little easier to watch you, but until police agencies have hundreds or thousands of the things flying around, you will be more likely to be seen by a live policeman than a drone.

I agree that this article is written to stir up fear and concern.

Aren't there laws that prohibit drones in the airspace above private property? If so, is that only for private drones (ie - neighbors) or does it apply to public drones (ie - police)?

We need to tighten our laws about recording private property - and I’m not sure how fast drones can go - but I think they’d be a heck of a lot safer than high speed pursuits/foot pursuits, etc.

Marquette Co. S.O. has one. Mainly used for Search and Rescue callouts.
Up here, the weather (we have two seasons: Winter and August) would make a more day to use of a Drone impractical.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
I live in a very conservative community . The Chief of Police is elected and that matters .

I learned something new today.

Sheriffs are nearly all elected (with a few exceptions like Rhode Island and Hawaii), but I've only ever been aware of police chiefs being appointed by the elected mayor/council/governor/etc., which is how just about everyone does that nationwide.

But apparently electing local police chiefs is a thing in Louisiana (only?), though even there it's not universal.

Not universal in Louisiana , but not unusual either . Off the top of my head I can think of a handful of neighboring cities with Police Chiefs that are elected .

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Turkey shot or BB??

https://www.fieldandstream.com...r-waterfowl-hunting/ <--- Purely out of technical interest. I would never advocate destruction of .gov property. Nome sayin'?

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
I'm not a criminal so not worried about it.

Ummmmmm ...

Never mind.

@YooperSigs - I think that could be an excellent use.

Using a thermal camera drone to find lost kids/elderly, etc could be useful.

(In my hometown, in TX, there didn’t used to be too many roads. I guess most of those folks have passed on, but people used to try to “walk home” by old foot trails that hadn’t been used in many years.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
A drone is just not practical or efficient to be used for spying on people. Sure if there is already a suspect for something then it might work for checking out a rural property or something. To get people all worked up about drones hovering around everyone’s neighborhood is just nonsensical.

Wow. If you don't think drones are effective at spying, you must not know about the tens of thousands of enemies killed by drones (either shooter or hunter) during the last 2 decades of GWOT. The scale of violence we visited on our adversaries is hard to overstate.

First, don't assume these are merely outfitted with electro-optical cameras. There are all types of strap-on collection methods available. Do you think a warrant is required to soak up text messages? Secondly, imagine all data collected goes into a massive super computer the size of COSTCO and kept forever. Do you think that data can be manipulated or hacked? No, surely it's secure. Third, ask yourself what type of federal/local partnerships might exist to offset the cost of outfitting localities with drone technology.

Anyone remotely ok with this development has no idea what the technology actually is.