| I'll add to abeppu's arguments. > If law enforcement doesn't have armed drones, we live in a world where only the criminals have armed drones. If criminals have guns, police should have body armor and maybe also guns. If criminals have automatic guns, police should not have automatic guns because 99% of their job has no connection to those encounters and they are a huge force that interacts with the public constantly, so treating it at an occupying force is a terrible idea. Armed drones don’t fight each other. Having armed drones doesn’t protect police, or anyone, from armed drones that criminals may or may not have. > Sometimes law enforcement must be able to use deadly force. Isn't it better if in those situations, officers aren't also putting their lives at risk? Taking the life of a fellow citizen is a huge amount of power given by the government. If the government can take citizen’s lives with no risk and no locality, there can be no accountability. Real people going out and enforcing the law is a check, as imperfect as it is, on what laws and how far the government can go. If a warehouse of drone operators outside of DC can open fire on protestors in Albuquerque, there is no accountability. > Currently, when law enforcement uses deadly force, one of the strongest defenses is that in the moment, an officer felt that their own life was at risk. A drone operator has no such fear and therefore no bias towards using weapons prematurely. DOJ investigations show again and again that shootings are the result of systemic issues within the police force. Just as one example, the Clevand PD was investigated after the Tamir Rice murder and found a pattern of excessive force, substandard training, and unconstitutional practices. From the report. "The employment of poor and dangerous tactics that place officers in situations where avoidable force becomes inevitable and places officers and civilians at unnecessary risk…We found that CDP officers too often use unnecessary and unreasonable force in violation of the Constitution. Supervisors tolerate this behavior and, in some cases, endorse it. Officers report that they receive little supervision, guidance, and support from the Division, essentially leaving them to determine for themselves how to perform their difficult and dangerous jobs." The DOJ specifically states that Cleveland PD use excessive force, including deadly force, at a "significant rate" and that excessive and deadly force was a pattern, and not isolated incidences. [1] Making it that much easier for police to use “unnecessary and unreasonable force in violation of the Constitution” is not going to make things safer for anyone. [1] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releas... |
I'd be in favor of immediately banning armed drones, and immediately banning facial recognition from drone surveillance. At a national level. Don't even give it to federal police forces. Then let the congress come up with a sensible path for qualifying their use. Drones over a sporting event, looking for faces of any known terrorists is a non-starter. Drones over a specific sporting event, looking for a particular suspect, because the officers were able to get a warrant for their use during that event? Ok, sure, if we could find a constitutional path to get there.
Likewise, I have no particular objection to e.g. armed robots, if the police who use it can show that there was no other way to resolve that situation. But there can be no qualified immunity if you lose that case. Whoever signs off on the robot goes to jail for murder if a jury can be convinced there were other realistic options.
Basically, a lot of issues with police abuse of power, to my mind, come down to a total absence of accountability. The tools are not, of themselves, dangerous. Its just that we keep putting them in the hands of people who will never use them responsibly. To be clear, it may well be the case that no people exist who can use them responsibly, but the narrative around removing the tools needs to center on the accountability question, not the "tools are scary" angle.