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Honeywell To Sell Miami-Dade Police a Surveillance Drone

Posted by Soulskill on from the setting-trends dept.

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."

2 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Please say, "NO" by GooberToo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re:Does it make it too easy? by __aagctu1952 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    The difference is that "difficult" surveillance can't be mounted on a massive scale - they actually have to be frugal in its use. They can't go around tracking everyone; they have to be pretty sure they have the right people to follow before committing the resources to it.
    "Easy" surveillance OTOH, can be used to simply monitor everyone. Well, actually, that should read "will" instead of "can". It's basically Murphy's law as applied to surveillance: if the opportunity exists to misuse a law or technology, it will be misused. Surveilling everyone is way easier than bothering with all that pesky "probable cause" nonsense.