Armed Robot Drones To Join UK Police Force

Lanxon writes "British criminals should soon prepare to be shot at from unmanned airborne police robots. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers. But these drones could be armed with tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus, reports Wired. The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by one police force, to BAE System's new 12m-wide armed HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan."

Comments

Timeline

[Snarf You]

February 10 @ 6:43 PM: When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?
February 10 @ 9:45 PM: Six-legged Robot Teaches Itself to Walk
February 11 @ 2:24 AM: Armed Robot Drones to Join UK Police Force

In less than 8 hours we have gone from wondering about AI, to robots that have learned how to walk, to robots that are flying around shooting at people. This is all happening much too fast.

Re:Timeline

[thhamm]

February 12 @ 1:24 PM: Humanoid Robots with Sunglasses talk funny Austrian Accent

It's a 'topia sir, but not one of the good ones...

[VendettaMF]

Dammit you guys...

1984 and Brazil (movie not country) are not bloody HOWTO guides!

Not impossible, but very unlikely

[NoNeeeed]

This is a highly speculative article, assuming that because these drones can carry weapons that they will.

While I wouldn't put it past the Home Office to want to do this, I'd be surprised if the Police were too keen.

Here in the UK there is a strange dichotomy, we seem perfectly happy to be watched all the time, but the idea of armed police is an absolute no go.

Riot police in the UK don't even use water cannon, and rubber bullets haven't been used by british police in decades. There are a few areas which have introduced a handful of Tasers, but these are used by specialist armed response units, not the average bobby on the beat. The idea of launching anything potentially dangerous from the air seem highly unlikely when they don't even use it on the ground.

Of course that doesn't stop the police from being violent, but when they are it tends to be national news for weeks after. See the death of Ian Tomlinson and the controversial "ketteling" technique used at the demonstrations in the summer for good examples.

The UK Police are currently trying desperately trying to improve their public image after a lot of bad press from the 2009 demos, and the ongoing harassment of photographers and the abuse of the Section 44 Stop and Search powers. Doing something like this would put them back to square one the moment it goes wrong.

So while not impossible, this report seemed to be highly speculative and purely designed to get clicks and build paranoia.

For all their flaws, the UK police are not actually idiots, and in a land where police are not armed, and using a baton in a riot is considered heavy handed, let alone water cannon and rubber bullets, launching Tasers from the sky would be public relations disaster.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[VShael]

Yes, the death of Ian Tomlinson was a horrific example of police brutality out of control. One that would not be out-of-place in a fascist dictatorship. And yes, it was big news for weeks afterwards.

So was the police murder of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Remind me again, in each case, who was held responsible for these murders? Do we know their names? Were they jailed?

The answer is a resounding No in all cases.

So please, stop telling us we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt, that this report is only to fuel paranoia.

When it comes to the police in the UK, their own actions have demonstrated that paranoia is necessary and healthy.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[delinear]

Of course that doesn't stop the police from being violent, but when they are it tends to be national news for weeks after. See the death of Ian Tomlinson and the controversial "ketteling" technique used at the demonstrations in the summer for good examples.

While I mostly agree with your summary of the likelihood of seeing armed drones, I have to say when it comes to police violence, when it's found out it is national news for weeks after, but how many incidents never get discovered or reported? They even tried to cover up Ian Tomlinson's death for the first couple of days and it's only the advent of camera phones and the video evidence they captured that revealed their lies. How many times has something like this happened in the past and not been discovered - as recently as five years earlier even the truth behind Tomlinson's death would probably have never been revealed, this is a rare case of the surveillance environment coming back to bite the police. No wonder they are so against the public using cameras around them.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[rabbitfood]

...but the idea of armed police is an absolute no go...launching Tasers from the sky would be public relations disaster.

First, the UK's armed police is significantly on the rise (for the Met, deployments have risen over 50% in six years, despite firearm incidents falling), and they're almost part of the landscape in London. Most of them are still static patrols of high-profile locations, but the Met has been actively planning for routine armed patrols.

The UK Police also seem immune to legal boundaries - their retention of DNA and the use of 'stop-and-search' have both been ruled illegal, with no discernible effect to date. More worryingly, even in high-profile cases of physical abuse, manslaughter and credit-card fraud, officers have been quietly rewarded rather than disciplined.

Secondly, they're getting much better at PR. If the Guardian is right, they started using the spy drones to scour the coast for immigrants: "There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a 'good news' story to the public rather than more 'big brother'." And, since then, they've been practicing on the BNP (paradoxically an anti-immigration minority party with a poor reputation).

It would be utterly wrong to conclude that the UK police are power-hungry, trigger-happy thugs with mental deficiencies, lethal toys, immunity from sanction and slick PR skills. But it would be incautious not to consider the possibility.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[Rogerborg]

2005 would like its analysis back. Tasers are now being issued and used by street Plod in many forces.

How many of the taserings reported above did you read about "for weeks after"? The beauty of taser is that it's the perfect punishment and compliance tool. No big bruises, no lasting damage except in rare cases, where the excuse is always "underlying medical condition".

(Some) Plod who don't have them say they don't want them. Plod who have them love them, and will never go back. Police PR is about covering up their actions, not about altering them.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[golden age villain]

There is almost no violent crime in the UK by US standards (suggesting the surveillance state pays off), [...]

Nonsense, there is almost no violent crime in most of the Western world by US standards. It doesn't say anything about the efficiency of surveillance in the UK but rather about the climate in the US.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[Heed00]

In relation to the Jean Charles de Menezes case, the officer in charge, Cressida Dick, has actually been promoted:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/12/menezes-london

Not much accountability going around in the U.K.

Re:Not impossible, but very unlikely

[Z8]

Do you have any statistics to back this up? I went to http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/cri-crime and added up the per capita statistics for murder, rapes, and assaults and it looks like the UK has more violent crime than the US. The US has more murders, but that is a relatively small percentage of violent crime.

This article also says Britain has more violent crime than the US, and has the most crime in Europe. I know it's easy mod points to say anything bad about the U.S., but reasonable people need to try to avoid the temptation unless it's factual.

Re:Obligatory 1984 Reference

[iamapizza]

And because it's Britain, there isn't much to worry about. The project will be delayed by 8 years, overrun its budget by about 12 Million GBP. They'll come up with a crap logo for it as they did for the Olympics, and within a few hours of launch, the drones will malfunction and start tasering trees; eventually the whole project will be scrapped for health and safety reasons, I mean, what if the tree falls on someone while it's being tasered?

Wrong URL

[Lanxon]

Nate here from Wired. Somehow the URL Slashdot's pointing to has been truncated. Correct one is: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-02/10/future-police-meet-the-uk's-armed-robot-drones.aspx

Re:Obligatory 1984 Reference

[delinear]

I know this part of TFS was about a slightly different story, but: "[...] modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers" sums up the state of the UK perfectly, our Glorious Government will spend millions on police drones that carry out surveillance on everyone from protesters to motorists to people throwing away rubbish, so everyone except criminals then?

It's the same old pattern, if it costs a fortune and can be used to keep the guy on the street under control, the budget is endless whether the excuse is terrorism/crime (new strict laws, insane airport security, full body scanners, ID cards, numerous measures to spy on everything we do) or our own "safety" (miles and miles of speed cameras, even on roads where you're lucky to be doing half the speed limit most of the time), and yet nobody seems to feel any safer.

Re:Obligatory 1984 Reference

[jimicus]

Actually, I'd have to disagree with that.

They'll find a way to monetise this - have the robots automatically hand out fines, for instance - and believe me, within a year they will be amazingly efficient.

Re:Obligatory 1984 Reference

[Jane Q. Public]

"... and yet nobody seems to feel any safer."

And of course there is good reason for that: nobody is any safer.

Traffic cameras have actually increased accident rates. A recent report said that approximately 1 crime was solved for every 100,000 surveillance cameras installed (there are over a million in London). The report did not say whether any of them were major crimes, or whether the same crime might have been solved anyway had the cops been on the street instead of behind cameras. And how about cost? How much does it cost to install 100,000 cameras and pay someone to watch them?

And so on. It seems like it has just been an endless stream of the same old thing: give up your liberties in order to make you "safer", but in reality it inconveniences you greatly, costs you a lot of money, and doesn't work. But you have still lost those liberties.

--

"They that give up essential liberties in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin

Not as good as real cops

[dugeen]

They'll never program robots to have the hatred, malice and spite of real coppers. Maybe a robot could gun down an unarmed man on a tube station platform, but could it convincingly circulate a wholly misleading account of events afterwards? And then, after the inquest, issue a press release basically saying "We don't care, we'll do it again if we feel like it".

Re:Obligatory 1984 Reference

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I am a lot more afraid of the increasingly draconian powers of governments than I am of terrorists.

• The British authorities can impose heavy restrictions on individual liberties (is it a 16-hour curfew?) without actually having to win a case before a court.
• We have more and more summary powers, where individual officials can impose punishments like fines on people, again without having to provide any evidence beyond their own word or having to make a case before a court.
• We have more and more surveillance powers and government databases, where individual officials can access vast databases about people, often with dubious levels of justification or oversight. (Notice I keep writing "officials", by the way, because these powers apply to hundreds of thousands of people who aren't even part of the police/security services/courts.)
• Courts themselves can impose ASBOs, which can criminalise activities that would otherwise be perfectly legal. In other words, magistrates (who are not even trained lawyers, and operate in our lowest tier of courts) can effectively legislate.
• You can now be punished on mere suspicion. In addition to the control orders mentioned above, there are numerous crimes under recent legislation that ban collecting things that "might" be useful to bad people, or let the authorities act on "suspicion" that you might be doing something bad. Most of these are so broadly worded that things like carrying a camera and photographing a public building have been treated as covered by these laws. Don't even think about reading the Anarchist's Cookbook, which IIRC was doing the rounds in schools 20 years ago or more, or buying the kind of home chemistry set that the last generation or two enjoyed out of a simple curiosity about science.
• Actually, scratch that "suspicion" requirement. There have actually been occasions where senior officials have stood up and, with a straight face, defended a policy that explicitly and in very simple words said that they could do bad things to members of the public without needing any reasonable grounds for suspicion.
• The government have been told repeatedly by various courts that they have gone too far, and their response is typically to mumble something about national security and terrorism, and then completely ignore the court ruling. Yes, the administration are openly ignoring the rulings of courts when they don't like them.

Next to this lot, one more drone in the sky that isn't going to do more than spy on you, tase you or cause an epileptic fit with its strobe lights seems like nothing, which tells you have far we have fallen. Roll in 6 May, and may none of the big parties achieve a working majority that lets them take any of this madness any further.

By the way, was anyone else dumbfounded while listening to David Miliband talking about the release of the torture information yesterday? Speaking in Parliament, he seemed far more interested in being nice to the US and protecting the intelligence agencies than he was about the fact that our government knew about torture being carried out on a British resident, and did nothing about it! He even had the cheek to claim that the revelation of this information now showed that everyone had recourse to the law and the system was working, which I'm sure will be a great comfort to those under control orders who clearly do not have any such thing, not to mention to the man who was held and tortured for years in this particular case. I thought our succession of increasingly abusive Home Secretaries was bad, but Miliband, D. has just made it to second place on my "really doesn't get it" scale, right behind Blair, T.