Due to the cost of doing so, right. If the aircraft were suddenly unmanned and significantly cheaper to fly in potentially great quantities, it’s easier to justify doing so “just in case.”
It’s concerning to think that because police have traditionally had tools that were quite powerful in single use to balance out technology limitations of the time, this balance should not be rethought when the usage becomes significantly more efficient.
If you have to get a black van and big dish microphone to surveil someone’s single conversation in the park, it’s going to be employed when there’s already a strong suspicion, seems fair. Now if you’re able to hide a wireless microphone in every tree, computer-transcribe everything that’s said 24/7, and match it with cameras that can capture facial recognition data, you can build a file of everything everyone says in public, just in case you have to find something against them. What’s more, you can have an AI scrutinize every single conversation and sentiment on a scale that is not otherwise possible.
All of this uses the same fundamental rights, but clearly the outcome poses a huge problem.
Yes, but clearly an insurance company will go to the trouble of flying a plane around my house. Whether it’s manned or unmanned is immaterial - I wouldn’t want them to do it.
LOL. Police around here will routinely use rotary for grocery store thefts, fixed wing for pursuit of non-violent suspects. In fact a couple of weeks ago, they deployed a State Patrol fixed wing to come south about 40 miles to here to look for "a group of young males dressed in black that were graffiting numerous buildings in town".