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Some Baltimore Residents Are Lobbying To Bring Back Aerial Surveillance (theoutline.com)
A local group in Baltimore argues that a plane providing real-time surveillance of the city will dial down police brutality. From a report: A piloted plane would fly over the city, capture images from 30,000 feet in the air, and use a computer program to stitch the photos together for a real-time, by-the-second portrait of what's happening on the ground. With access to all 911 dispatches, which provide information about the the time and place of a crime, local analysts could track the dot-like people and cars at the scene of a crime forward and backward in time until they arrive at a house or address. With a permit from the city of Baltimore, this surveillance system could access videos from street cameras and cross-reference their aerial data with precise, on-the-ground footage.
The analysts would then compose a PowerPoint report with visual data and a written explanation regarding the activities of all possible suspects or witnesses, and they send out five copies of that report via thumb drive: two copies go to the Baltimore police (one for an investigator, and one for evidence storage), and if the case goes to trial, two copies are given to the city prosecutor, and one copy is given to the defense. All of this could occur in just a few hours. Baltimore residents argue that a system like this is the only solution for a city grappling with high crime rates and a systemically corrupt police department.
The analysts would then compose a PowerPoint report with visual data and a written explanation regarding the activities of all possible suspects or witnesses, and they send out five copies of that report via thumb drive: two copies go to the Baltimore police (one for an investigator, and one for evidence storage), and if the case goes to trial, two copies are given to the city prosecutor, and one copy is given to the defense. All of this could occur in just a few hours. Baltimore residents argue that a system like this is the only solution for a city grappling with high crime rates and a systemically corrupt police department.
whenever its footage is "needed", it will be conveniently missing or cameras or recording servers discovered to have been 'broken' at the time of whatever incident the footage is needed from.
The solution to a systemically corrupt police force should be the reformation of the police force, not some multi-million dollar project to watch all activity in the city and beget from, dare I say it, corruption itself. Plus, where would that end?
I hope "the citizens" all declared their personal interests in such a project. As if.
What a fucking mess.
Too many cops
Not enough cops
Not arresting criminals
Arresting too many minorities
Oppressive Police Presence
Not enough police presence.
It seems like the minority communities rationally understand that the police are a force for good, keep order and protect the innocent. But they just can't wrap their minds around the fact that in doing so, their friends and family members who are the perpetrators of the violence are going to be arrested and sometimes killed when they draw down on cops.
Their Tribalism will be their end.
First of all, when story starts with "A handful of Baltimoreans are willing to try anything to stop their police force from killing them", you know you're looking at the standard far left anti-police hit piece.
Second, the story has all of the far left talking points. Namely utterly ignoring who is committing the crimes, complaints of racial profiling based on the fact that clear majority of criminals in this community fit a certain race profile, accusations of "Hitler, uncle Tom" pointed toward black people who dare to disagree. And really novel and strange beliefs on part of people complaining, such as suggesting that they can't tell race from high above, so it's ok to conduct surveillance from there as opposed to street level, which is apparently racist to do.
The only thing I got from the story is that people behind the complaints are not the sharpest tools in the box, and that far leftist dogma is alive and well in their circles, and crying wolf in old ways apparently got old, they had to invent new talking points, such as the fact that camera surveillance on ground level is just racist and cannot be trusted, because [bigotry and corruption], but camera far in the air can be.
I guess they never looked into resolutions and ability to see colour of those aerial cameras they're looking for.
If they want constant aerial surveillance, use a constant aerial observation platform. A collection of lighter-than-air craft with high resolution cameras can record the entire city constantly and at much lower per-day energy costs than spyplanes.
Use some combination of course-correction and semi-strong tethers to maintain position. With the size of modern cameras and communication options, each skyeye only needs a few pounds of payload, which can be padded to minimize risk when the lift portions fail..
First off I'd point out that Baltimore is a city of about 620,000. Not the biggest city, but it's more than big enough that trying to provide areal over watch to watch the watchers, so to speak, is going to be increasingly expensive. Not to mention the fact of how hard it is going to be to try and use a 'computer program to stitch the photos' of still pictures from 30K feet up in the air. Assuming that's even technologically possible and good enough to be used in a court of law. Not to mention the idea of trying to fly in bad weather or at night, and most digital cameras don't work very well at night, especially when your moving.
No, I think this entire plan was cooked up by some activist group that doesn't have a single clue about what they're talking about. But if they're really concerned about police brutality then I would suggest lobbying the BPD to use mandatory body cameras. That's a far more feasible plan than trying to do areal surveillance of the police. Of course I don't really think they'll go for that... because it turns out that those body cameras sometimes end up being used in court to justify the actions of the police against bad actors. There's been a handful of incidents where someone get's pulled over by the cops, make up a wild story after the fact about police brutality, only to have their claim completely disproves when the body camera footage is released.
Instead of flying airplanes over the city, why not a fleet of drones? Seems that would be cheaper, better for the environment, and have better coverage.
The whole ideal of trying to blanket the city with 24 hour camera coverage is stupid, not to mention all the privacy issues it would entail. But if you are going to do something stupid, lets at least be smart about it.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
If the local PD is corrupt, vote out the Council and City leadership, fire the Police Chiefs and get accountability back. Creating a surveillance state is the antithesis of freedom. Otherwise, just like Democracy in the Middle East, you end up throwing out that which you want most.
The system being described fits under the category of Wide Area Persistent Surveillance. This requires far more than a single 5 gram camera carried by a simple drone. Perhaps a few hundred 5 gram cameras with onboard storage and data processing to geo-locate each image and stitch them together in both space and time - or at least store all the relevant data to allow all the data fusion to occur on the ground. Also, operating such a system at 30,000 feet is not practical as high-altitude clouds will often obscure the ground, and at over 5 miles range the optics needed to discern details would be impractical on board an aircraft smaller than an airliner. These types of persistent surveillance systems typically operate much lower.
These systems capture and record everything, and I mean everything, that moves. Nobody that lives beneath such a system will have any privacy. Keep in mind that image data from airborne sensors is often fused with ground sensors, making The Minority Report more of a documentary than a sci-fi thriller.
If a society has problems with crime and corruption, monitoring every detail with such a surveillance system will certainly be entertaining, but it's not likely to actually solve anything, and might lead to even more hilarity.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
So a small group of people wants to decide this for everyone else?
Welcome to how the entire country works.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust