[nozzlegear]

This article literally documents several times SFPD used drones to surveil people who weren't committing any crimes. They sent their drones to spy on a guy who was sitting on a roof listening to music, and in another instance they sent drones to follow "suspicious individuals" who were just going to a basketball court to shoot hoops.

This is done despite the department's drone policy stating that "drones can only be used to assist with active criminal investigations, to assist with or in lieu of vehicle pursuits, and for training exercises."

[Neil44]

How would this be different to following a suspicious car to see what it's intent is?

[nozzlegear]

A few things IMO:

First, the police have a weird habit of determining that black people drive the most suspicious cars. Does this racial profiling extend to their drone use as well? It's clear from the article that the police are using the drones in more situations than just the active investigations that they claim to use them in. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_while_black)

Second, if you're being followed by a police car, you know the police car is there. If you're being followed by a drone, you have no idea the drone is there. From the article, the SFPD's drone policy states that operators must only record video once the drone has arrived at the scene, and they must take care not to record individuals unrelated to the active investigation. However, every video had recorded the full takeoff, flight, loitering, return flight and landing – capturing all of the people in SF going about their daily lives. One of the videos showed the drone hovering outside the windows of an apartment building while police schlepped around inside; if I lived there, would I have to worry about a drone appearing outside my window and recording me jerking it in the privacy of my own home? Would I even know it's a police drone, and would I be able to guarantee that the footage was deleted?

Third, I can pull over and ask the cop why they're following me, or (more likely) just let them pass. A drone is just going to loiter there, waiting for me to commit whatever crime they think I'm committing.

Finally, I hate to invoke the slippery slope argument here, but IMO it's warranted. It's easy to deploy drones wherever you want throughout the city; it's not easy to tail every vehicle waiting for them to commit a crime, just because you find them suspicious. If police find drones to be super effective at tailing all of the people they want to tail, why not buy more drones and just have them hover throughout the city perpetually so there isn't a square inch that goes unwatched?

[ieatcandlewax]

> First, the police have a weird habit of determining that black people drive the most suspicious cars. Does this racial profiling extend to their drone use as well? It's clear from the article that the police are using the drones in more situations than just the active investigations that they claim to use them in. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_while_black)

What about we keep the drones to reduce crime and just selectively never investigate black suspects?

>Second, if you're being followed by a police car, you know the police car is there. If you're being followed by a drone, you have no idea the drone is there.

There are such things as plain-clothed police officers. Not that police officers have to announce their presence to you when they are driving on a public road anyways.

> Third, I can pull over and ask the cop why they're following me, or (more likely) just let them pass. A drone is just going to loiter there, waiting for me to commit whatever crime they think I'm committing.

If they ask YOU what crime YOU'RE committing you don't have to answer. Why would they have to answer you or even admit to following you?

You say slippery slope when what I think you really mean is that it shifts the overton window of what is and isn't acceptable. That is a valid concern, but unless the police are allowed to fly drones in places where gen pop aren't allowed to, they aren't getting any special privileges from their position so I thin the point is moot. Slippery slope imo only starts when the police get NEW privileges.

[nozzlegear]

> If they ask YOU what crime YOU'RE committing you don't have to answer. Why would they have to answer you or even admit to following you?

Why should the police be accountable, indeed? That's honestly my whole point, my whole issue with police having drones. They're not accountable, and when they get caught, they lie or ignore. They have power over you and I, they're in a special position, and for that reason we should both be fighting them and holding them accountable wherever and whenever they step over the line (which, I'm sure you're aware, is constantly). Given the option and an inch, the police would establish a surveillance panopticon, all in the name of "safety."

> That is a valid concern, but unless the police are allowed to fly drones in places where gen pop aren't allowed to, they aren't getting any special privileges from their position so I thin the point is moot.

The police do, literally, have special drone privileges. They get access to special, high-powered surveillance drones that the public does not get. They get training to use these drones. They get the tacit permission of our governments to use these drones in their pursuit of us, to record video of us going about our daily lives, to survey us listening to music on our rooftops, or driving with our friends, or living in our apartments.

Go fly a drone outside of a police officer's house and you'll end up dead or in jail. Meanwhile, the police themselves can fly a drone outside your window, or use drones to stalk you if you're a woman, and people like some of the commenters in this thread will lay down their lives to defend them from public criticism.

[Neil44]

In terms of photography there's no expectation of privacy in a public place. Maybe in some countries that's different but that's how it is here. If you take a picture in public you don't need the consent of everyone in the background. So the police aren't doing anything that joe bloggs couldn't do. Personally, I feel the police keep me safe. 99 times out of 100 when there's some kind of shitty headline about police there turns out to be a lot of missing information from the story. I've been pulled over plenty when I was younger and had other interactions and have always been dealt with reasonably. My only complaint about the police is that there isn't more of them. So I guess we're going to disagree on this issue.

[malfist]

How are you defining public? When a drone flies over my backyard and records me naked in my hot tub, is that public now?

Mind you that scenario is explicitly forbidden by law, the drones are only supposed to record at the scene but the police are illegally recording for the entire flight.

Should the police be allowed to break the law when they feel like it? Or should they be held to the same (or higher) standard as the general population because of the extra authority we give them

[ieatcandlewax]

>Why should the police be accountable, indeed? That's honestly my whole point, my whole issue with police having drones. They're not accountable, and when they get caught, they lie or ignore. They have power over you and I, they're in a special position, and for that reason we should both be fighting them and holding them accountable wherever and whenever they step over the line (which, I'm sure you're aware, is constantly). Given the option and an inch, the police would establish a surveillance panopticon, all in the name of "safety."

The police are accountable, this is one of the big reasons they wear bodycams—so that there is a video record of if they were abusing their power. If they don't have the bodycam on, this would look very bad in front of a jury. If they're actually stalking you that's an abuse of power and you can sue the city/state.

The key difference is that they aren't accountable to you on the street because they need the special privilege to do their job.

Given the option (shown time and time again) police will sit on their ass and rack up overtime for their ridiculous pension. They aren't paid by crimes avoided so I don't think they would care to proactively fix it.

> The police do, literally, have special drone privileges. They get access to special, high-powered surveillance drones that the public does not get.

This is a real problem in America, where tools that could potentially be used for nefarious purposes become illegal for the general population "for their own good". If you're arguing we should have access to specialized surveillance drones and other police equipment on the market you have my complete support.

Also training for a drone, using a drone, recording video in public spaces, surveilling you in a public space are not privileges.

Surveilling you in your apartment needs a warrant, unless you have your window open, at which case it doesn't.

>Go fly a drone outside of a police officer's house and you'll end up dead or in jail.

Anyone can walk up to you and kill you, it doesn't mean there aren't legal consequences for it.

>people like some of the commenters in this thread will lay down their lives to defend them from public criticism.

This is because we've heard these arguments a million times and know it's a trojan for some harebrained ideology, which is unfortunate, because police oversight is an important topic—especially considering police unions wield a lot of political power.

Out of curiosity, where do you draw the line between what police can and can't do?

[malfist]

Please explain how drones reduce crime?