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To that end, its not that, in a perfect world, law enforcement shouldn't ever have any of these tools, just that our entire justice system is not set up to adequately police the police. 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. |