Cops with Drones: Alameda Co., CA Weighs Technology vs. Privacy
For a long time, drones—unmanned aircraft—were used only by the military. Now local law enforcement wants them for police work such as surveillance and search-and-rescue missions. That in turn has sparked a fierce debate over the balance between cutting-edge law enforcement technology and the privacy rights of citizens.
In February, Reason TV covered an Alameda County, California public protection committee meeting in which Sheriff Gregory Ahern announced that he planned on using a laptop-sized drone (he prefers to call it an "unmanned aerial system") for search and rescue. "It's mission specific to search areas for lost children or elderly or Alzheimer's patients to search an area that it would be very difficult for our personnel to get to," said Sheriff Ahern.
Residents and civil liberties advocates are skeptical that drone use would remain so narrowly defined for very long. At the meeting, Linda Lye of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California took issue with the sheriff's submitted draft of a privacy policy. She it's not specific enough about what the sheriff can and cannot do with drones.
"If the sheriff wants a drone for search and rescue then the policy should say he can only use it for search and rescue," said Lye. "Unfortunately under his policy he can deploy a drone for search and rescue, but then use the data for untold other purposes. That is a huge loophole, it's an exception that swallows the rule."
Lye urged the public protection committee not to approve the drone until stricter safeguards were in place. She pointed out that the safeguards were important because the technology will develop very quickly—and possibly to a point where citizens don't have control of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. Indeed, Alameda County could serve as the baseline for police and sheriff's departments across the country, so getting it right there may affect all Americans.
The sheriff plans on applying for permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly aircraft above 400 feet and plans to pay for the drone with a federal grant. MuckRock.com made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the grant made to the Department of Homeland Security in July 2012. The request revealed that Sheriff Ahern was looking to purchase a drone equipped with a something called a "Forward Looking Infrared camera." These thermal-imaging devices detect radiation given off by heat from people or animals, opening up a wide variety of concerns.
Criminal law experts such as Laurie Levenson of Loyola Law School say law enforcement hasn't been given enough legal guidance on drones yet.
"If you say we're going to use it for a manhunt, what do you call a manhunt? If you say you want to use it to find missing persons, well, how far can you go with that?" says Levenson. She says that it's a matter of drawing lines because it's just too easy to become Big Brother without them. What happens, for instance, if police capture evidence of unrelated criminal activity while searching for a lost toddler? Can they use that to trigger arrests and prosecution?
Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that it is very hard to draw lines with police because, once police have a certain power, they never want to give it up.
"Police always seem to want to push the boundaries as far as the law will take them and sometimes over those boundaries," says Timm.
He points to law enforcement and cell phone data as an example. The New York Times reported in 2012 that law enforcement made 1.3 million demands in 2011 of phone companies for subscriber locations, text messages, and other information. Because there weren't strict privacy rules in place when mobile phones first exploded onto the market, it made it that much easier for law enforcement to obtain civilian data without search warrants or users' approval or even knowing about the requests.
"Generally there is this real friction between technology and civil liberties and we haven't really figured out how to deal with it," says Levenson. We don't know how to deal with it because technology is developing a lot faster than the law can keep up. Government cameras are everywhere these days and the laws that deal with them go back to the time of the framers of the Constitution. "What did they know about drones?" asks Levenson.
About 8 minutes.
Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Camera by Alex Manning, Zach Weissmueller, Tracy Oppenheimer, and Detrick.
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I’ve been thinking. Reason has a thing about drones and posts frequently on the topic. Reason also has a thing about food trucks. Why not combine them? Drone food trucks!
“I’ll take a predator burger with extra hellfire sauce please.”
“Sorry, we’ve been here an hour and have to re-park our drone before we can drone you.”
You mean like the article they did some time ago about the drone taco service?
This article.
Yes, just like that. But for reals.
I figure that by making food trucks into food drones, the licensing issue will go away, as who needs a drone to be licensed?
Let me be clear, there would be chaos in the skies if just anyone was able to operate an unlicensed drone. For the safety of all Americans, this market MUST be tightly regulated.
What, we’re licensing machines now?
*Looks at auto license plate*
Yup.
Elevators and boilers too.
Welcome, man from the future.
Wow, I said that? What a cunning plan. It’s true, my most cunning plans come in April.
Best. Idea. EVAR.
*orders Chicago-style dog from DroneDog.com*
Dronemurder or dronecater?
The latter – it’s DELICIOUS!
You guys are missing the most important facet of the drone story:
What does Brett Favre think of law enforcement drones?
Only Millenials? know for sure
I think that is pretty messed up man, Seriously.
http://www.GoPrivacy.tk
This seems like a good time for helicopter cat! (Is there ever a bad time for helicopter cat?)
If you haven’t seen helicopter cat chase cows, I think your life has been wasted until now.
“What happens, for instance, if police capture evidence of unrelated criminal activity while searching for a lost toddler?”
Easy. They arrest the person, shoot the dog and give the shooter a paid vacation.
I wish all questions were so simple.
If you think Travis`s story is incredible…, in the last month my dads girlfriend basically also actually earnt $6021 just sitting there a eighteen hour week from there apartment and they’re co-worker’s aunt`s neighbour was doing this for 4 months and brought in over $6021 in their spare time at their computer. follow the guide on this page, http://www.wow92.com
I’ve been to Alameda, and I like the place, but it really isn’t that big. How many times would they really need a drone to see something remotely, in lieu of someone arriving on site?
You’re confusing the city of Alameda with the county (800 Sq miles to patrol). So you might have to spy on tweakers in Fremont to hit a MILF car wash in San Ramon so yeah. It’s needed…also the East Bay is filled with scum that need watching. Myself especially.
at Valerie implied I’m taken by surprise that a person able to make $9303 in 4 weeks on the internet. did you look at this web page http://www.great90.com
What http://www.celinebagsaleuk.com/ did they know about drones?
Maybe, just maybe, this sheriff really is against using drones to violate our privacy and he will only use them for legitimate purposes. BUT, he won’t be sheriff forever – what about the next sheriff? There is NO doubt that drones WILL end up being used to invade our privacy.
He telling us the least untrue thing he can.
my roomate’s half-sister makes $83/hour on the laptop. She has been out of work for 7 months but last month her pay check was $15258 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read more here and go to home tab for more detail .. http://www.big76.com
How can you people worry about drones when there’s all this money to be made from stuff people’s half sisters are doing? It’s crazy, this internet thing!
They are multiplying!!!!
They are multiplying!!!!
COMMENT BOT IS MULTIPLYING!!1111
Is Dronazi a word? Can I trademark it?
No. Yes.
Any other questions?
No, I’m off to see the examiner, the wonderful examiner of marks.
I quit my job and am now making millions selling drones to cops part time.
My wife’s sister live-in lover, who has a limp, makes $320943 an hour stripping for midgets who have lisps. Go check it out on lispingmidgetslovelimps.com
🙂
It’s mission specific to search areas for lost children or elderly or Alzheimer’s patients to search an area that it would be very difficult for our personnel to get to.
He’s saying that these are the only things they will ever be used for (“mission-specific”).
I gotta wonder: how many areas are there in Alameda that would be difficult to get to? I mean physically difficult, not legally difficult because you don’t have a warrant.
Naturally, he’s lying. Can’t help himself, I’m sure.
Quite a few actually. Especially in the hills and valleys along 84 between Niles and Sunol.
Probably a lot of places to grow marijuana in there. By “elderly or Alzheimer’s patients” he did mean marijuana, right?
Gotta ask – how many Alzheimer’s patients get lost each year in Alameda County?
Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern has bought two drones with $97,000 from the county’s own budget.
$48,500 each? Love to have that contract. Radio Shack is selling camera-equipped drones for under $100.
http://www.radioshack.com/radi…..prefv1=Air
I was just going to post the same thing. Someone’s relative got a nice “commission”
Even for a few thousand dollars, you could have something that would pretty damned awesome.
I don’t expect the Sheriff’s dept. to use something for $75. But for about $5000 you could have something professional grade.
However, I have to admit it won’t be equipped with a remotely triggered shotgun. So there’s that.
Well, its $100 for the drone, a $100 dollar markup added in (plus tax so that makes $250 for the drone purchase), plus $48,000 for the 1 year maintenance and ‘training’ support contract.
Which has all sorts of limits in it, so it’ll be around $100/hr, everytime tech support is used, after the first 3 months.
I can see how using drones would be helpful from a public safety standpoint.
…especially if they were used by private citizens to monitor the police.
I’m cool with sheriff’s owning drones…
As long as they run the landing strips up their ass.
FUCK the POLICE and their fucking dicks up American ass.
Sorry Breitbart… I know you love COP DICK up your tight gay ass.
AC, don’t hold back, tell us how you REALLY feel!
’cause then all of us could be certain that we really do agree with you.
I do like gays…
There is NOTHING wrong with that.
All hail Agile Cyborg!
Columbia law school lets students postpone their final exams if they’re traumatized by the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury decisions.
I’m sure anyone who is too traumatized by this to take an exam will make a tremendous lawyer. After all, who ever heard of a jury trial being stressful?
It’s a trick, Irish.
They see who doesn’t show up and then sell that list to every law firm in the country.
I would pay for that list.
My cousin’s broke deadbeat adult son lives at home and makes $30 an hour running drones for the local police department from his laptop. He was unemployed for six months but now gets a $1,000 bonus every time he records suspicious activity that the SWAT team can investigate with a no knock raid!
??? http://www.OutsourcedProbableCause.tk
This is surprisingly on topic.
Except for the part where drones are operated from the middle of the South Pacific.
I think it’s about time to blacklist any post with a .tk in it.
“Surprisingly”? Harumph…
Just imagine if police departments all over the country bought drones, but lacked the personnel to run them. They might just turn to a Web-based company with a New Zealand domain to outsource their operation. In which case, bot-based recruiting ads like these would be expected. If a US-based police department outsourced done surveillance to a foreign company with anonymous subcontractors, would courts hold that 4th and 14th amendment protections apply?
Even if they would – would they have jurisdiction to adjudicate a foreign espionage case where the FN’s never entered the country?
Of course they’re operated from the South Pacific.
Satellite communications – might be expensive but you more than make up for it by the low cost of outsourced labor.
Best part? Since they’re foreign nationals conducting the surveillance there’s no 4th amendment issues to deal with.
Alright! The county I work in, which votes more reliably D than the south side of Chicago. Hope you are all happy with the police state your votes have brought, even as you simultaneously have your cute protests in Berkeley.
Police state, plus they’re really bad negotiators.
Do-gooders like lots of laws. They forget that for those laws to have any effect they must be enforced by assholes with badges and guns who are more than happy to kill anyone who resists their tender arrests.
If you’re opposed to drones looking in your private areas you are a COMMIE! And can go back to Sloth Africa where you bleong!
You know what’s disturbing? Recycled posts.
WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!??!
The what now?
Well… FUK KIDZ.
KInda tired of kids… fuckin tukin’em in… feedin’em… care;en fo dem…. so othey live well…
I hate kids… I have 2 and I lovem.
Hoping no one dies of laughter, the sheriff states:
“Hoping to put an end to protests from privacy advocates, Alameda County’s sheriff said Wednesday that he won’t use a pair of newly purchased drone aircraft to monitor demonstrations or conduct surveillance of ordinary citizens.”
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/…..933461.php
And, if, like me, you’re an extra-ordinary citizen what then?
Every individual is an extra-ordinary citizen. It’s everyone else who is ordinary.
When everyone is super – then *no one* is.
“After tabling plans to buy a drone with federal grant funds …”
Is Alameda broke? Why in hell is the federal govt spewing out grants for local police departments? Is there a special, magical multiplier effect when money is sent by taxpayers to D.C. and then sent back to local govt to spend?
“Hello, 911 operator? Yes, I want to report a possible gun crime in progress. There’s an adult black guy walking around with what appears to be a gun in his hand. And he’s wearing clothes that make him look like a gang member. Send a squadron of police officers immediately!”
Privacy hating cops send a drone (equipped with video camera) with to scope out the situation while a cop is stationed nearby. They watch the live footage.
“Look at that guys, the gun was just a homemade brownie. And the guy is just a little kid. He’s just wearing an Oakland Raiders jersey, so he’s not even in a gang. Now he’s waving at us! Yes, Merry Christmas to you too!”
Drone starts to play a R&B version of “We wish you a merry Christmas” and the all the kids in the playground begin to jam. The cop in the car distributes cookies with “just say no” stickers.
But the crusty old libertarian sitting on the bench is not pleased.
“I don’t care about what they say,” he grumbles. “Ron Paul WILL be president in 2016. Ron Paul revolution, HURRAH”
Return to your homes and places of businesses!
“Look at that guys! It’s a pot brownie! Send in the SWAT team!”
By the way, i looked at the video game thread where i said playing a murderer mingt desensitize you to violence, while *specifically disavowing* the belief that games turned people into murderers.
Half the replies were variants of “contrary to your claims, video games don’t turn people into murderers.”
Watching a cartoon might desensitize you to violence.
Reading a book might . . .
Fighting a war . . .
Being a tax collector . . .
Being desensitized to violence – what of it?
What of it? That’s a new discussion!
Well, if desensitizing people to violence doesn’t cause those people to be more likely to commit crimes, then what is your point? You’re basically arguing that this desensitization has no real world impact, so I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to convince me of.
I would say there’s an issue of willingness to tolerate the crimes of others. Political criminals, for example, take advantage of the tolerance of their behavior by voters who themselves would not *consider* doing such behavior themselves.
But at least we’re reaching my actual point, the point which I made when I first commented this morning.
Now, there’s one source of *even stronger* influence on humans, for better or worse. Books!
The Bible has influences lots of people for better or worse, inspiring both crimes and virtuous behavior.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped mobilize Northerners against slavery, with important political consequences.
Bekmethov’s (sp?) What is to Be Done inspired the Russian revolutionaries to practice amoral violence.
The Jungle inspired the germ of the modern FDA.
Mein Kampf gave Germans a conspiratorial explanation of their post WWI troubles.
And there’s Atlas Shrugged.
Etc.
Media can influence people’s behavior.
You’ve conflated a lot of things there. Of the works you list, only two were intended as fiction novels intended for readers’ entertainment. And one was quasi-fictional.
Dare I ask which of these works was designed for entertainment – I suppose you mean *primarily* for entertainment, because all these works were designed to be entertaining, even if was only to attract the readers to their political or social letter.
political or social message
I don’t agree that the Bible and Mein Kampf were designed to be entertaining. People reading those works might have found them interesting, but that’s not the same thing as entertainment. By entertainment, I mean that the work was primarily intended to amuse and delight the reader.
OK, but of those works, some of them delight us with a struggle of Good v. Evil, or a struggle *within* a character with his/her good and evil impulses, and some of these works invite the reader to empathize with a robber or professional hit man.
And, as a morally grounded adult, I’m capable of enjoying all three of those narratives. If I read or watch a bad guys win scenario and enjoy the story, that says nothing about my desire to see (or be) the bad guys win in reality.
We’re not clay to be molded at will be entertainers – they have to reach us where we are and maybe carry us a certain distance, but hardly an infinite distance.
So an author or director or game developer isn’t going to convert the average person into thinking hit men are cool.
They *might* (for example) persuade an SJW type that the morality of a hit-man is somehow more honest than the morality of The Violence Inherent In the Capitalist System, etc.
Or of course, like the Greek playwrights, they can cause the reactions discussed by Aristotle, which I won’t try to paraphrase because you can probably quote it chapter and verse.
But at least you’re not confusing me with the SJWs and social “scientists” who use phony “research” to denounce any and all video games which appeal to boys and men.
The problem is not that some games appeal to males with fighting, shooting, and explosions, but that some games have players take on the role of bad guys.
There is every difference between a game where you save the world from zombies, rescue the princess, or defend your country against Nazis, versus a game where you get *points* for committing murder, rape and improper lane changes.
The SJWs and social “scientists” don’t bother with this distinction – the only video games they would approve would involve girls shopping for purses and braiding each others’ hair.
As to the Godfather, I’ve heard people justify it as portraying an organic community where people can go to the local crime boss in search of fair treatment, in contrast to being trapped in a criminal, indifferent, incompetent, Kafkaesque bureaucracy. In other words, relying on the local crime boss is better than relying on govt. thugs.
So that’s a positive message.
Don’t know about Scarface.
Well, if you put it that way, Scarface is as much about rags to riches as anything Andrew Carnegie wrote!
Some entertainment is strictly “l’art pour l’art,” but even that sort of entertainment contains values and assumptions which may influence the consumer (reader, viewer, player).
Now, even the stories where you’re asked to sympathize with a criminal usually pit that criminal against an even worse criminal.
Entertainment sinks even lower when you’re supposed to sympathize with the criminal *against the good characters,* and there are even examples of those.
But usually, even when you’re asked to cheer on a robber, his adversary is some mass-murdering crime boss who makes the robber look like a Sunday school teacher.
I think you’re engaging in a little of “wet streets cause rain” reasoning here. It’s the values and assumptions of the consumer that may influence the sort of entertainment they consume. And those values and assumptions are primarily aesthetic ones. I repeat myself from this morning, ethics aren’t equivalent to aesthetics.
While I don’t think an entertainer can simply create a reaction or mood for which the audience has no predisposition at all, I also think a good entertainer can work on inchoate feelings and ideas in the audience to turn their minds in directions they wouldn’t naturally go.
The Lord of the Rings (an art pour l’art, non-propandistic work), for instance, didn’t pull ideas out of nothing, but they reached readers who wouldn’t on their own have turned their minds in that particular direction
Also, there are readers with certain attitudes which they suppress as unacceptable, and if an entertainer glorifies those ideas, it gives the reader permission to bring those attitudes to the surface.
So entertainment is subject to the sociopath’s veto? That if a work of entertainment has the potential to cause a mentally or emotionally unstable person to act out that it should be viewed with opprobrium or even censored?
Sociopaths gonna sociopath. Entertainment might “trigger” them (Jodie Foster and John Hinckley), but it’s not going to turn them from nonviolent to violent.
I’m not really talking about sociopaths, but (say) an average irritable, resentful guy who reads or sees something explaining his discontents and giving him permission to express his resentments publicly.
And the genie of communication is so far out of the bottle that refutation, not censorship, is the answer.
So a propagandist won’t go very far with a guy who has good relations with his boss, but if he doesn’t like his boss the propagandist can say “of course your boss sucks – he a bourgeois exploiter who stole the money that’s rightfully yours!” – and now, instead of grumbling in his beer, the guy might join a mob.
I agree with that. However, I’m not following the connection between that and your distinction between “heroic” games and “villainous” games. You claim there is a difference between a game where the protagonist is a hero and where the protagonist is an anti-hero or villain. I agree with that, but the difference is aesthetic, not ethical. Which is why I never agreed with Aristotle’s Poetics, btw. Some people don’t enjoy dark or morally ambiguous stories and other people can’t stand “happy/Hollywood endings”.
You seem to have a problem with games where you get *points* for committing murder, rape and improper lane changes.” Which I read as an allusion to the GTA series. The irony is that it is pretty clear in the narrative of the game in the later stages that the player’s character’s world falls apart because of the crimes they committee in the earlier stages of the game. In GTA IV, the character is betrayed and depending on the choices of the character, he has either his girlfriend or his cousin murdered because of his actions. In the latest game, the character is forced to either kill one of his friends or lose everything he worked for. Either way, the character ends up losing much of his power.
As you can see the narrative of these criticized games are actually quite conservative in their moral that “crime doesn’t pay”.
OK, but that does remind me of the pre-Code gangster movies where it shows the gangster being tough and cool until right near the end when he gets killed and the solemn narrator gives his crime-doesn’t-pay speech. Yeah, the implicit message reads, he lived life to the limit and went out in a blaze of glory, but remember, kids, he’s *totally* a loser!
Having it both ways.
Recall how Thelma and Louise (SPOILER ALERT) end up driving their car into the Grand Canyon at the end, which totally wipes out all the badassery they got to do beforehand! /sarc
Don’t forget Agamemnon, Agamemnon.
I’m thinking of the here cop in Resident Evil and Mario in Mario.
Mario is a mass-murdering psychopath who just happens to be chasing after a kidnapped ‘princess’.
Really – he’s the reason a game like Spec Ops: The Line could be written.
No, censorship is a vain attempt to put the genie back in the bottle.
An article this morning discussed the treatment of hookers in video games and framed it in terms of a catfight among feminists. I tried to shift the frame to a broader discussion.
But what’s the broader discussion here? That media *can* influence people? We already know that.
That media has a noticeably harmful effect? We already know it doesn’t.
BTW, the team that pLays in Alameda County beat the pants off…
DELAY OF GAME!
It also helps that all these actions that increase the power of the police also increase the power of the people *running* the police.
L’?tat, c’est moi.
The NSA woulda fucked PAUL REVErE up the fuckin ass…
and SAVED the nation so PETER KING COULD have been HAPPY HEPTO HAPPY on Twitter
PETER KING is a jesus butt licker…
Well this is weird.
There were 0 reported sexual assaults at fraternities at University of California – Berkley between January and September of this year. Since September, there have been six reports, including an alleged mass rape of 5 women at one party and three separate rapes on one night.
We’re officially in a moral panic. I guarantee you that several of these (if not all of them) were made up by Berkeley activists in service to the cause, especially since one of them has already been ruled baseless by the cops and a bunch of them were reported by anonymous third parties.
So there’s a grand total of one rape accusation in which there was any actual alleged victim, rather than anonymous accusations for which no victim has come forward, and in that accusation the alleged perpetrator was found to be completely innocent by an investigation. Facts here:
This is a witch hunt. They’re going to make more and more accusations without regard for evidence in order to maintain their increasingly falsified narrative.
I just read that. Bizarre indeed.
So… the alleged rape victim agreed that no sexual assault was committed?
Really strange.
was about to give 250 to this shithole…
Here’s the deal…
Yes I live fuked up … I drink TONS of beer and I do drugs,. reason
However… I just went to spend 250 and NO XXlarge shirt existed…
Cmon… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM a BIG guy!!!!!!!!!!!! very little fat and 6/3 but DO NOT fund raise with SHIT clothes…. arrrgggggggg
The BMI of the Cyborg is, in fact, an irrational number.
I think that was his height.
Yeah, I speak Agile Cyborg
So, his height is a unitless number?
How tall are you?
2.
I think he was saying he’s 6 foot 3. We’ll ask him in a couple of days when his bender is over.
In a couple of days, when his bender is over, is when he starts the *next* one.
Do more coke, and you’ll get smaller.
My suggestion to Reason is to have only two H+R posts per weekend:
1) Group all rerun threads into a single “Weekend Reruns” post. It’s annoying to be fooled into thinking these are new, not to mention the strange mix of old and new comments.
2) Also have one “Weekend Open Thread” post, for those who wish to run wild in a free-range space.
Perhaps a Weekender Lynx post.
Ok.
It’s Midnight Q.
As for me, there are very few laws that can protect you from drones. I’ve heard that in Germany they introduce a number of laws that will control your privacy and guarantee only the legal use of drones. I read the article https://www.liquidimageco.com/ that drones can now take high-quality pictures at long distances. I think it could be used by the police to illegally use them for their own purposes.