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Eye In the Sky For City Crime Fighting
Tiger4 writes "The mayor of the City of Lancaster in the Antelope Valley of southern California is considering a high-definition video flying platform to aid in crime fighting. The aircraft, would circle the city constantly, able to zoom in on activity spots instantly. 'You never know when you are being watched or followed. It would be stupid to commit a crime. You see it with such detail,' said Mayor R. Rex Parris, who took a ride last week in a camera-equipped airplane with pilot Dick Rutan. 'I have every hope that Lancaster will be the first city to deploy it. I've never been so excited about anything.' Dick Rutan is the same pilot who flew around the world non-stop in the Voyager, custom built by his brother Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites in Mojave." The aircraft is nothing special, a garden-variety Cessna or the like, but "the camera is an example of technology developed for and used by the military making a transition to civilian applications, Rutan said."
Btw, could someone tag the story "bluethunder"? I can't seem to add tags.
I wholeheartedly agree. On the condition that the loop includes a trip above the Mayor's house and that all video feeds are released to the public.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Privacy outside of a building is not constitutionally mandated. Walking on the street? Anyone can take pictures of you - media, gov't, private citizens and you have zero privacy claims. There is no expectation of privacy when you leave the protection of a building.
But as soon as an individual points a camera at this aircraft, you can bet that police will be telling them they're not allowed to do it, that they must delete the photos, or arresting them on some terrorism charge (at least, that's what would happen in the UK).
It's as if objects, buildings and so on have more of an expectation of privacy than individuals do...
The average Cessna plane consume between 5 to 9 gallons of fuel per hour. With an rough estimate fuel price of $5.25/gallon in the SW region, a "surveillance" plane that flys 24/7 would cost:
$5.25 * 7 = $36.75/hr.
$36.75 * 24 = $882/day.
$882 * 365 = $321,930/year.
As such...
Cessna Surveillance Plan: $125,000
1 year of fuel: $321,930
Killing both privacy, the economy, and the budget is one fell swoop: Priceless.
You bring up a very interesting point. What if the flying-camera-drone catches some police abuse on civilians, or some other egregious violation of human or civil rights? Do we, as civilians, have the right to request the footage of that incident at that time? After all OUR money paid for this plan, the pilot's salary, the camera, the fuel and everything else related to putting that object in the air. Does the FOIA cover this too?
Curiously enough, here in the UK, the fashion trend for 'hoodies' among teenagers took off pretty much in parallel with the explosion of CCTV monitoring in the cities.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
because here in Atlanta when police protecting the mayor scanned the plates of a car visiting her son and found the car stolen the policeman doing got into trouble and the police were prevented from doing future scans.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If something takes place in public, I don't think there's any violation of here. If they put a camera in the sky that can "see" through walls, or bounce lasers off our home windows to "hear" what's going on inside WITHOUT a warrant and trust me, I'll grab the pitchfork, you grab the torch.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll close their eyes if they see something in your privacy fenced-in backyard.