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Honeywell To Sell Miami-Dade Police a Surveillance Drone
AHuxley writes "The Miami-Dade Police Department recently finalized a deal to buy a 20-pound drone from defense firm Honeywell. The drone can fly for 40 minutes, reach heights of 10,500 feet and cruise in the air at 46 miles an hour. As the Miami-Dade Police Department has recently made a lot of budget cuts, the funding may have come from a federal grant. An eye in the sky like over Iraq and Afghanistan may soon be looking down over South Florida 'to keep people safe.' Honeywell has applied to the FAA for clearance to fly the drone in urban areas."
Does it come with missiles?
Remember the scanners from Half-Life 2?
doesn't sound like a very long time, do they launch it with an elastic band or something ?
Nullius in verba
I hope this doesn't complicate Dexter's employment at the department.
Assault on a Police officer with a door knob. Yeah you read that right told Miami police to pound sand at 3 AM after they woke me up talking about a dead body smell (was the refig in the apartment next door which was off and had gone bad) with no warrant. Closed the door and got my ass handed to me when the door knob hit the officer and he claimed I assulted him. Spent the night / next day in MIA prison waiting for bail facing 7 years for assault, & resisting arrest.
fuck miami, and 'the man' that live there! sorry had to be said.
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
So, with the superfluous knowledge about hacking, how long will it be before it is hijacked and goes AWOL from the police?
People who distrust gov't but are not familiar with life in South Flori-Duh, don't know why this is necassary.
Can my karma get any worse than bad? Let's find out!
So expect the drone to be shot down around minute 4 in the test flight. Dibs on the fallen cameras and servos! Next invasive technology, this one is compromised.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
"UAV Recon standing by!"
"Our UAV is online!"
The drone in question is a "T-Hawk". Seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_RQ-16_T-Hawk
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I thought these guys made washers and dryers!
I'm guessing one use will be following criminals from the air to relay positions. That, and keeping track of a car on a protracted chase, although from what I read, this bird doesn't have that long a radius and run time compared to a helicopter. I wonder if it is cheaper to spin something like this up than get the police in the air, so that is one reason this is being looked into.
"Honeywell has applied to the FAA for clearance to fly the drone in urban areas. This has never been allowed before, but if it does happen, the Miami-Dade Police Department will be the first police agency in the US to use the technology."
I am less worried about flight duration than the sensor payload that Honeywell is installing for Miami-Dade. IR, Thermographic, NightVision, and HD cameras at the very least to make the drone "useful". TFA only mentions "cameras" not what type.
This statement by police says it all. "It gives us a good opportunity to have an eye up there. Not a surveilling eye, not a spying eye. Let's make the distinction. A surveilling eye to help us to do the things we need to do, honestly, to keep people safe," said Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus.
Hmm. "Not a surveilling eye," then "A surveilling eye to help us..." Maybe a typo, but still telling.
We knew this was coming. http://news.cnet.com/Drone-aircraft-may-prowl-U.S.-skies/2100-11746_3-6055658.html
Time to start-up my own residential sheilding supply and installation company. Any investors interested?
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I can only hope the FAA is smart enough (funny joke there) to say no. The risk to other aircraft can not possibly be justified. And given that this would likely trigger as a "pop up" means that the pilot and passengers this drone may murder would likely be "at fault." - even if hit from the rear.
There is absolutely nothing safe about having an idiot cop with a remote control aircraft mixing with air traffic which has can not see and avoid - which is a mandate of the FAA.
come across to me as paranoid. look: cameras in public spaces is just pretty much reality now, and you just need to deal with it, and accept it
i can hear the howls about orwell already
but its NOT ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT. its not about the power of the state. really, its not. if you took away every government camera in existence, there are still PRIVATE cameras everywhere, on every cellphone. in fact, the greatest use of cameras in public spaces is to FIGHT the government. ever hear of rodney king? if the police abuse you, PRIVATE cameras are right there, recording the abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan
in other words, cameras in public are a double edged sword, equally pointed against the power of the state as it is used to enforce the power of the state. in other words, if you think the idea of cameras in public spaces carries with it the only consequence of the growth of the power of the state, then this is a prejudicial assumption on your part and you are in fact clearly factually wrong
the issue is not the state, its not big brother, its simply THE MARCH OF TECHNOLOGY that you are fighting against, and its a fight you can't win
if you go in public, you probably will be recorded. you don't have to like that fact, but that's pretty much the facts of your existence now. so you are going to have to make peace with cameras in public and just get used it. welcome to reality, now deal with it, and stop wasting your effort on a fight you can't win
the game is over, the subject is closed. move on
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
place your bets everybody as to exactly how this gets worked into one or more CSI episodes
1 the drone is hijacked: 30 to 1
2 the drone crashes on somebody: 600 to 1
3 a primary character takes the controls of a drone for %reason%: 10 to 1
any takers??
(offer void in any jurisdiction using US Dollars as currency or funds convertible to same)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Does it come with missiles?
For police use, a TASER would be a better idea. A quadrotor drone equipped with a TASER would be very useful to police. Once you've identified a perp using gyrostabilized telescopic video cameras invisibly from 1000's of feet in the air, you can wait until the perp is alone, then swoop in and stun the perp while a patrol car is called in with the GPS coordinates to take him in.
Hilarity (read police atrocity) ensues
Stupid terminator movies always changing the time line. Lets go with 2012, it can become self aware and eliminate those pesky humans. I for one welcome our robotic overloards and remind them humans make great batteries when kept in womb-like fluid.
This is just a cheap version of a police helicopter, which have been used for decades.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
The aviation community (myself included) might have some concerns with a drone flying around in Class B airspace. Is it taking off/landing at MIA? Interacting with ATC or MIA tower? Hmm, 10,500ft seems a bit high to monitor traffic/crime from ;)
"You killed my yogurt!" --Fred Fredburger
The summary insinuates that this drone will be circling the skies watching the citizens below, big-brother style. But with 40 minutes flight time (and every flight would cost money) it's far more likely this would be used to track fleeing suspects, as a cheaper alternative to a helicopter.
A solar-powered plane that can stay up for days at a time, or a blimp with cameras, would be much more threatening to our privacy. If the police want me bad enough to send a drone up to track my movements, then the drone is probably the least of my worries.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
No wonder Gibson and Stross quip that we're living in the sci-fi future already. This was in Empire Strikes Back
Your screed assumes that the public has the same access to all these cameras as the police.
The reality of the situation is a bit murkier.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
has introduced a bill the have the name of the state changed from Florida to Oceania.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
You're right private cameras are there. The cops have to jump through additional hoops to get the footage. If a business owner was aware of his (and his fellow citizens' rights) he'd tell the cops to get a warrant. Being that even public video footage isn't even worth watching to prosecute most crime because there is so much of it to go through, I'm guessing they'd ignore it for most crime unless it was super serious.
But hey, if the drone is flying they probably have someone watching the thing during its 40 minute flights and finding the crime going on. All this is going to do is pack our prisons with more unnecessary prisons while claiming it's protecting society.
Our police department just got a radio controlled drone and the damn thing doesn't even have a Visual Basic interface to control it!
Well you know,
*Puts on sunglasses*
There's no use to drone on about it all day.
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See what I did there, 2 CSI memes in one post, I rock.
~Syberz
pick ten random people on the street
most will have cell phones
most of those cell phones will have cameras
in fact, most will be turned on, pointed at the police, should they see the police do something abusive
and that video will be on youtube 10 minutes later, and on the evening news by the 6 pm broadcast
that's reality
now wake up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if there is crime going on, its good it is being caught if before the drone it wouldn't be caught
i don't understand a mentality that says society is better when less crime is being punished
now if you mean by crime things which shouldn't be a crime, like smoking a joint or prostitution, i agree with you. and society is slowing changing in that regard: marijuana will soon be legal in the usa, and prostitution should be made legal, and many people will agitate for this positive change on our society
but never, ever will i believe that society is better when less behavior that is CLEARLY criminal is less caught and less prosecuted. a camera caught a guy smacking his girlfriend? send that asshole to jail. that's one less asshole on the street who will clearly smack more women if allowed to stay on the street
i see nothing wrong with better enforcement of laws, as long as those laws are clearly just. and if the law is not just, then WE CHANGE THE LAWS, we don't engage in less enforcement!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you think that marijuana and prostitution are the only to crimes which are leading to the most ridiculous prison population in the world you're wrong. These are crimes which definitely need to be prosecuted but not require jail time and thus tax dollars to pay for the individual to be incarcerated.
The drone isn't going to find important crimes in 40 minute flights. It's going to find every day run of the mill crime which honestly isn't worth the cost of operating this drone.
pick ten random people on the street
most will have cell phones
most of those cell phones will have cameras
in fact, most will be turned on, pointed at the police, should they see the police do something abusive
and that video will be on youtube 10 minutes later, and on the evening news by the 6 pm broadcast
that's reality
now wake up
Yeah, because cops who were actually committing a crime would NEVER just round up those people, confiscate their cell phones as "evidence" and delete all the video. Somebody's asleep here, but I don't think it's the poster you were responding to...
in fact, most will be turned on, pointed at the police, should they see the police do something abusive
Except in the increasing number of places where recording the cops is a crime.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Once the laws have passed, then you get the swarm of solar plains...
Now that would be interesting...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Shades of Blue Thunder!
What I find interesting about surveillance discussions is it seems to be the case that the consensus on /. is that surveillance is OK if it's difficult and expensive to the taxpayers, but it's not OK if it's easy and cheap to the taxpayers.
For example if you're a suspicious character, it's considered OK if a law enforcement surveillance team stealthily follows you everywhere you go for a week, without your knowledge, meticulously recording everything (at great expense). However, it's considered NOT OK to attach a GPS device to your car that basically does the exact same thing, only much more cheaply and efficiently.
Similarly, it's OK to track bad guys and keep an eye on a city with (very expensive) manned & piloted helicopters, complete with infrared night-vision gear and spotlights. It's not, however, acceptable to fly drones to do the same thing.
I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong, but I find the contrast confusing... Is it simply the case that surveillance is OK provided it's difficult? If that's the case, why do we allow helicopters at all? Or in the case of manned surveillance, why are the police allowed to use radios? Shouldn't they have to use call boxes? Either we're OK with the concept, or we're not...
You're thinking of ATK, which was split off from Honeywell in the 90's. Honeywell DOES have an Aerospace division, but it focuses mostly on avionics. Most of their income is from Energy Services.
anything that leads to better enforcement of laws is good
anything that leads to more sane laws is good
but in no world is less enforcement of laws a good thing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
than that is abusive law which should clearly be overturned
nevermind the fact that even in severely draconian societies, video will find a way out and work against the state:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
how are the cops going to round up 10 cell phones from 10 different people in 10 different locations, most of whom aren't around by the time the cops even notice
you have some sort of strange faith in the ability of the state to keep the lid on things
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How long before they crash it? Put me down for 8 months.
Considering the proximity of several very busy airports there has to be an awful lot of trust in allowing drones in the area. Miami International Airport among others is right in the center of Miami. We could get a huge oops type of event and it is so hard getting those bodies out of the Everglades.
Except that in many states recording someone without their explicit permission is considered a crime itself. In particular these laws have been applied to the recording of police officers. Depending on state these laws preventing, and applying to, the recording of an on duty cop *have* been upheld by the courts.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
Other at least anecdotal abuses in this area are the [incorrect] claim that police have the ability to seize (and then destroy) video and/or audio evidence, and reports in which official recordings such as dashcams, asked for by a citizen to corribate their version of events, are unable to be found.
While the technology may be neutral & a two edged sword that does not mean 'Government' [or at least some elements of it] is content to leave it like that. And does have enough power to achieve at least a limited degree of success in doing so.
so they can murder us 'criminals' who pollute their 'law' wholesale?
I hope Dexter gets to use it...
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
And then those people will be arrested and sent to prison for wiretapping the police. It is happening.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
Every time a new gee-whiz technology is created, it is soon used to solve social problems. In Great Britain millions of surveillance camera have failed to dent crime rates, in spite of a few high-profile successes.
In education, which is even more fad-driven than crime fighting, deployment of educational tv, audio tapes, laptop computer and other gizmos have failed to engage turned-off students. iPads are the latest gadget.. I expect they will be another expensive fiasco.
There is no substitute for engaged teachers and parents.
Yeah we should put devices in cars that automatically print out tickets the very second you break the speed limit.....I mean, 100% enforcement of laws is the best scenario according to you... /sarcasm
The issue is not one of cameras. The issue is of pervasiveness and data management.
There being a camera on every street corner isn't that big of a privacy issue if every one of those feeds into a separate tape deck for a convenience store that gets reused every two weeks when they don't get robbed. No one looks at that video. If something interesting happens on the corner, someone might think to get a warrant for it and search through it for something interesting, but that's about it.
But network them, put them all where some data center can crunch through facial recognition, or where a guy can sit in front of a computer and track you around the entire city, and that's a whole different privacy issue, because now a small organization can monitor an entire city.
Just because you're in plain sight doesn't mean someone isn't invading your privacy by stalking you.
But really, this isn't about you and me. Privacy rights are a nice luxury for normal people - we don't like people messing with our personal lives, but most people don't care.
They're a much bigger issue for the journalist working on a big leak about the current administration, who can now have a drone tracing him all day to find out who he's talking to and if he has any habits that can be used to blackmail him out of doing his job. Or for the people's rights advocate lawyer or political candidate going against the incumbent. For those sorts of people, the functioning of a democratic system *requires* that they have privacy rights against the government.
the issue is not the state, its not big brother, its simply THE MARCH OF TECHNOLOGY that you are fighting against, and its a fight you can't win
It is the deployment and use of technology NOT technology itself at question. Just because the capability to do something (such as obliterating all life on earth) exists does not mean it automatically should or will be done. Technology is nothing more than a tool. How it is used is subject to the whims of those who yield it.
Phones have cameras to the point where it is impossible to buy one without a camera not because of technology. Rather it was cell companies who demand it from manufacturers to upsell data services and make bigger profits.
I'm thinking a high speed laser scanner can target optics and CCDs without much trouble. If there is a will there is a way. You can WIN if you care enough by using technology AND your brain. Some people are rich enough to make the "impossible" come true.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/russian-billionaire-installs-anti-photo-shield-on-giant-yacht/
no, this merely means the speed laws are unjust and need to be more sane. did you actually read what i wrote?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that is unjust, and should be stopped
but if you, or the government, believes it will be able to keep the lid on abuse in a world where every citizen has a camera, both you and the government are in for a nasty surprise
so it is GOOD cameras are everywhere, IN THE HANDS OF THE CITIZENS
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Drone Instruction Manual
That assumes that the police don't manage to confiscate every bit of camera footage of the incident, or intimidate the public into not recording them. There was the subway shooting out in California a few years ago where a police officer shot an unarmed, non-combative, restrained "suspect". The police immediately began confiscating phones & cameras, thankfully several people who had been recording the incident managed to hide either their cameras or their memory cards, otherwise I bet we would never have heard of the incident and it would have been blamed on the victim as "resisting arrest". There have also been several incidents in the Northeast where anyone recording police activity, especially illegal activity, have been threatened with "wiretapping" charges.
Meanwhile, the news reporter intones about this grave threat to privacy over a continuous video loop of a Predator UAV in flight, while, as you point out, the PD has actually purchased a 14lb dry-weight Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), which is a completely different vehicle. It appears that a MAV could have some use in SWAT operations, and is much quieter and less intrusive than a hovering helicopter.
Incidentally, Miami-Dade Police already have an Aviation unit operating helicopters, apparently without privacy concerns.
Easy to do now, but a 3G phone can upload video elsewhere as its recorded. YouTube will probably have a feature soon (if it doesn't already) for live streaming and later playback of footage from a phone camera. Confiscating the camera doesn't help if everything up to that point (including the officer demanding the phone) is already online.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Agreed. Poor enforcement leads to a general tolerance of unjust laws, that can be selectively enforced against brown people, gays, guys who are just dicks to the police, etc. Strict enforcement, regardless of the fairness of the law, would result in much more public outrage over unfair laws.
As someone who lives in Downtown Miami and I am both happy and bothered by this. On one hand I like the idea of "an eye in the sky" to keep people from acting on bad inhibitions. On the other hand, I don't necessarily want my privacy rights violated. I live on the 40th story of a building, with big, open windows. Who knows what this thing will fly and what it can see?
...this is going to be used primarily for ticketing speeding cars on I-95 and for busting cars that go into the express lane between the 40th st and Miami Gardens Dr entrances.
My kingdom for a donkey!
That is in normal aircraft airspace, and something so small would be nearly impossible to see when you are going 90-200 mph. How long before this thing gets hit?
And the person who shot the footage will be arrested pretty much immediately.
To protect people form their privacy
Yo dawg, I herd u liek imprisoning criminals, so I put a prison in your prison so you can incarcerate while you imprisonate.
Or something like that.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
In a world of insane, draconian laws being misapplied, less enforcement of laws is a good thing
And the police then contact google, video is taken down, person doing video is arrested and spends years in jail for wiretapping.
Perhaps you should be the one who wakes up, since this had already happenned.
And how exactly has this worked against the state? Nothing changed, no harm to the state at all in the end. Did you even read the page you linked?
Did we ever hear of Rodney King? Why yes, he was beaten on camera and the cops were acquitted. All the private cameras in the world won't help you if society chooses to instinctively back authority.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
well yeah, the iranian hard liners squashed the popular revolution, for now
but what are you trying to say here? the state always wins?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
no, in a world of insane draconian laws, more enforcement leads to more outrage, which leads to less insane less draconian laws
you want all laws enforced as much as possible. any laws that are unjust will therefore be ridiculed and howled at until they are overturned
but less enforcement of any laws allows really bad laws to just stay and fester and be applied at the discretion of corrupt cops
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
nevermind the fact that even in severely draconian societies, video will find a way out and work against the state
Seems your example was faulty. What were you trying to say?
---
Myself, I am saying that the state wins, in the vast majority of cases.
Willfully giving the state additional powers to use against people they find inconvinient is nuts. Particularly coupled with the naive assumption that either the same video, or personal video, can be used against the state when quite clearly situations in both Iran, the U.S.A., and elsewhere has indicated the opposite is usually true.
Even your counter example supports this view.
Before you trot out any other examples, take a close look to see whether they support your cause. Police caught on tape who ARE (rarely) charged are usually given slaps on the wrist. At worst they are 'fired' in cases where ordinary citizens would be spending the rest of their lives in prison.
i am saying that video can work against the state
i didn't say it was easy, especially when dealing with a government like the theocracy of iran
you seem to be saying there is no hope at all, the state wins, bend over and take it. which makes you a coward and an asshole
at least i'm still fighting. you seem to be accepting the lamest thing you can possibly accept
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You distinctly said that your Iran example showed how video could be used against the state, I pointed out that your example showed nothing of the sort.
I am saying don't give the state additional weapons, assuming that our weapons are as good. The state has enough power and tools to aid them for their intended purpose. For you to agree to giving the state additional tools to monitor and use against citizens makes you a lacky pawn and a scumbag.
At least I'm fighting, you seem to be working directly for the state against the people.
See. I can play that game too.
hey, genius: how are you going to take the cameras away from the state?
if you are going to fight the state, you need to know which fights to pick, you need to be smart. i am being smart by saying it is of no use to fight the state's use of cameras, you need to pick your battles wisely, and fight them on other fronts
in the end, we're on the same side, but i'm the only one with any brains, apparently
but good luck taking the cameras away from the state! you go dude!
pffffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
An eye in the sky like over Iraq and Afghanistan may soon be looking down over South Florida 'to keep people safe.
Just like the start of Half Life 2 ? As long as i've got my crowbar!!!
Who's advocating bending over and taking it now?
Why fight the expanding of government powers cause they have some powers now? Your 'smart' fight is to allow the government to expand as much as they want because it is too hard to fight back. Talk about cowards.
Hey, genius: how are you going to make it legal to record the police?
You say you are being smart, I say you are putting off the battle until it is too late. You keep putting off the battles because you are lazy and it is hard.
Perhaps you should read some of your own writings:
" i didn't say it was easy "
" you seem to be saying there is no hope at all, the state wins, bend over and take it. which makes you a coward and an asshole "
At least I'm still fighting. You have given up on the fight already and are trying to justify it to yourself.
But at least you can play your videos to yourself. You go dude.
A mobile camera that can help in chases to capture when a suspect is outrunning a cop tail.
If you dont lose him, you can monitor him without endangering anyone in the process and setup a better intercept.
you can't take away the state's cameras. fact
you can still record the state's abuses with citizen's cameras regardless of legality and disseminate on the internet. fact
anything else i can help you with today?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The standard instrument arrival (STAR) and standard instrument departure (SID) routes can be viewed at the bottom of this page for Miami International http://www.airnav.com/airport/KMIA I have no idea how up to date they are, but you can bet there won't be any drones getting in the way, or heads are gonna roll.
Invasion of privacy is when this thing plummets through a roof due to poor maintainence.
Yet the news report linked in the post is largely a continuous video loop of a Predator UAV in flight, while, as you note correctly, the Miami-Dade PD has acquired a Honeywell T-Hawk, a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) with a 14 lb dry weight. Completely different vehicles from what is suggested by the news story.
These MAVs have been proven to be helpful for small-unit tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan, and may prove effective in SWAT operations. This is not a pervasive surveillance technology, it is a tactical aid.
The Miami-Dade PD already operates helicopters with surveillance capability, as do most large police departments.
The main news here is the use of a MAV by a Police Department. It's my belief that the FAA will take a hands off approach, as this is much more akin to a hobbyist's Radio-Controlled helicopter than a Predator UAV. This MAV will not mix with air traffic. It may be "capable" of flights to 10,000 feet, but I am sure its 1-lb camera system is pretty useless at that altitude above ground level. That spec is probably in there to allow it to be used in high-density altitude locations such as mountainous or high desert areas. This is meant to provide an aerial view of rooftops, walled compounds and areas not easily accessible from the ground.
In some ways I blame the Miami-Dade PD for not being very clear in their public relations, to speak to the press and not make clear that this tech cannot be mistaken for a Predator-type UAV.
most will have cell phones
most of those cell phones will have cameras
in fact, most will be turned on, pointed at the police, should they see the police do something abusive
The GP and I were talking about more than just cell phone cams.
Everyone these days is videotaped by private cameras attached to store fronts and buildings.
The government has access to these recordings in ways that Joe Public does not.
We're talking about two different things and, considering the context of the discussion,
cell phone cameras aren't really all that relevant.
To be clear, a network of fixed cameras with 48hrs~30days of recorded video
and a group of people with cell phones are not the same thing.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Military [or police] robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"
Alternatives: http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/#comment-392
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
From a privacy perspective, this is no different that a current police helicopter. And it's not the drone they showed over and over it the video. It's this guy,
http://www.thawkmav.com/index.php
almost a toy.
The story here is that they under estimated the FAA's concern over UAVs in the National Airspace. Much bigger players than the Miami-Dade police force want permission for this, but so far it has not happened. They have an expensive toy, which can't be legally flown anywhere except military managed restricted airspace.
I dispute your first "fact". There are legal means (which may or may not be successfull), and there sure as heck are illegal means.
You can get thrown into jail for uploading said videos: fact
The vast majority of the population doesn't care about you, so this won't change: fact
So it is better to try to restrict the government from getting more rules and more tools *now* then to allow them to try to fight from your armchair/prison cell after the fact.
Anything else I can help you with today? Or are you done being self righteous and assuming your way is the only possible way and perhaps those who want to actually resist and fight now can can continue without you belittling their efforts (since your efforts seem to be constrained to watching youtube).
Fuck that... It costs way too much to outfit millions of cars with kit. It's much easier to place them on the side of the road and mail out the tickets en masse.
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I'm sure a druggie in a Piper Cheyenne is not going to see such a small object in the sky, and sure as hell won't be strictly obeying most other laws either.