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What is the big deal. Anything you can see from a Drone isn't really private anyway. And what you do as part of a violent mob real really isn't private. I thin

What is the big deal. Anything you can see from a Drone isn't really private anyway. And what you do as part of a violent mob real really isn't private. I think the Taliban has proved that any sort of dystopian fears are wildly over blown. Plus we already have police helicopters.

bantunes 11y ago
Do you know what equipment was on the plane? Police are already starting to use X-ray scanners without warrants...
hugh4 11y ago
And police choppers are loud and annoying, while drones are presumably quiet. On the other hand, what if we scaled if up? It would be very useful for the police to have a constant fleet of drones in the sky ready to swing their cameras around to focus on anything. Report of a mugging at fifth and D? Get visual on it in seconds. Which as a potential mugging victim I'm all for, but still, the idea of constant airborne surveillance gives me the heebie-jeebies. That said, this, along with many other potentially useful crime- fighting tools, is about to become technologically possible, and we're going to need rules about every new thing that comes along. Right now we have no useful framework for making rules, apart from seeing what people shout loudest about. Personal heebie-jeebies aren't a good guide to sensible decisionmaking.
- pyre 11y ago
  Also, the people making the decisions/laws (politicians) are usually the least likely to be directly affected by any of the downsides of the technology. E.g.: How many Congressmen / Congresswomen have been directly affected by the idiocy of the No Fly List?
- rhino369 11y ago
  >Which as a potential mugging victim I'm all for, but still, the idea of constant airborne surveillance gives me the heebie-jeebies. There are 220 million smartphones in America. How many of them are set up to send location data? 80-90%? Shit, Android reads through my texts/email and gives me directions to where I'm going to meet someone for dinner before I even ask for them. Privacy is dead.
  - rmxt 11y ago
    Is the distinction between a private entity collecting semi-consented to location data, and the government/law enforcement collecting such data lost on you? I say "semi-" because I'd wager that less than 5% of people read and understand the implications of the TOS they click through. Your privacy might be dead, but don't think that everyone else's is as well.
rand334 11y ago
No, no. The FBI planes have "Stringray" devices on board and pick up people's private calls and their IMSI IDs. They also have FLIR/high-res cameras. This shit is not "public" when they pretend to be a cell-tower to MiTM your phone.
- beeboop 11y ago
  To be fair, stingrays now require warrants for anything other than immediate life/death situations and national security, and nothing is really private once they have a warrant.
  - rand334 11y ago
    "require"--cute. Even if "required" in all states including federally, who oversees this to ensure that said requirements are being followed? What keeps them from using it anyway? Also, the very nature of these devices ensure that they capture data that does not belong to the suspect under warrant. Just because a suspect lives in an area near me, does not give them any right whatsoever to collect my data.
    - rhino369 11y ago
      Someone like the CIA might ignore court rulings the FBI, other federal/state/local police don't ignore them as a matter of policy[1]. They'd never be able to introduce evidence from that in a court case, which is what their goal is. [1] - of course, individual bad actors do break the rules. But as far as that goes, buying and servicing a drone is something that is hard to off the books.
      - beeboop 11y ago
        >They'd never be able to introduce evidence from that in a court case, which is what their goal is. This is often not true. Many cases have shown evidence of being put together through parallel construction. It's easy to find damning evidence if you know exactly where to look, the phone conversation that leads them to the evidence is not required.

bantunes 11y ago

Do you know what equipment was on the plane? Police are already starting to use X-ray scanners without warrants...

hugh4 11y ago

And police choppers are loud and annoying, while drones are presumably quiet. On the other hand, what if we scaled if up? It would be very useful for the police to have a constant fleet of drones in the sky ready to swing their cameras around to focus on anything. Report of a mugging at fifth and D? Get visual on it in seconds. Which as a potential mugging victim I'm all for, but still, the idea of constant airborne surveillance gives me the heebie-jeebies. That said, this, along with many other potentially useful crime- fighting tools, is about to become technologically possible, and we're going to need rules about every new thing that comes along. Right now we have no useful framework for making rules, apart from seeing what people shout loudest about. Personal heebie-jeebies aren't a good guide to sensible decisionmaking.

pyre 11y ago
Also, the people making the decisions/laws (politicians) are usually the least likely to be directly affected by any of the downsides of the technology. E.g.: How many Congressmen / Congresswomen have been directly affected by the idiocy of the No Fly List?
rhino369 11y ago
>Which as a potential mugging victim I'm all for, but still, the idea of constant airborne surveillance gives me the heebie-jeebies. There are 220 million smartphones in America. How many of them are set up to send location data? 80-90%? Shit, Android reads through my texts/email and gives me directions to where I'm going to meet someone for dinner before I even ask for them. Privacy is dead.
- rmxt 11y ago
  Is the distinction between a private entity collecting semi-consented to location data, and the government/law enforcement collecting such data lost on you? I say "semi-" because I'd wager that less than 5% of people read and understand the implications of the TOS they click through. Your privacy might be dead, but don't think that everyone else's is as well.

rand334 11y ago

No, no. The FBI planes have "Stringray" devices on board and pick up people's private calls and their IMSI IDs. They also have FLIR/high-res cameras. This shit is not "public" when they pretend to be a cell-tower to MiTM your phone.

beeboop 11y ago
To be fair, stingrays now require warrants for anything other than immediate life/death situations and national security, and nothing is really private once they have a warrant.
- rand334 11y ago
  "require"--cute. Even if "required" in all states including federally, who oversees this to ensure that said requirements are being followed? What keeps them from using it anyway? Also, the very nature of these devices ensure that they capture data that does not belong to the suspect under warrant. Just because a suspect lives in an area near me, does not give them any right whatsoever to collect my data.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    Someone like the CIA might ignore court rulings the FBI, other federal/state/local police don't ignore them as a matter of policy[1]. They'd never be able to introduce evidence from that in a court case, which is what their goal is. [1] - of course, individual bad actors do break the rules. But as far as that goes, buying and servicing a drone is something that is hard to off the books.
    - beeboop 11y ago
      >They'd never be able to introduce evidence from that in a court case, which is what their goal is. This is often not true. Many cases have shown evidence of being put together through parallel construction. It's easy to find damning evidence if you know exactly where to look, the phone conversation that leads them to the evidence is not required.