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

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

[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

[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: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

[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