7 ms·

Surveillance plane starts flying over Baltimore

119 points by jbegley 7y ago

Chris2048 7y ago
Sorry, this content is not available in your region.
- smcleod 7y ago
  Out of interest where are you located and what browser are you using? (Works in Australia. (iOS))
  - DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
    doesn't work in Europe, OK from US
  - kratom_sandwich 7y ago
    Does not work in Germany - I suppose because of GDPR ...
  - swarnie_ 7y ago
    Not working in the UK. We got some really weird EU rules a year or two back which fucks about with a lot of content.
  - sschueller 7y ago
    Doesn't work in Switzerland, no GDPR here.
    - netsharc 7y ago
      Also from Switzerland. I never thought the lack of geographic^Wgeo-political knowledge of the average American would affect me...
      - kube-system 7y ago
        This is the website of a local TV station on the other side of the planet. It is just as likely that their legal counsel is aware that the Swiss were contemplating new data protection laws at the time of GDPR implementation and advised they err on the side of compliance. I bet the management at TeleBärn doesn’t spend much time having nuanced legal discussions about the difference between US and Canadian law either.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  https://pastebin.com/VQTDQkcH https://pastebin.com/VQTDQkcH
kratom_sandwich 7y ago
Quick google search turned out an alternate source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/baltimore-surveillance-planes-aclu.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/baltimore-surveillance...
chrisbuc 7y ago
Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200505113005/https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-police-surveillance-plane-starts-flying-recording-everyones-movements/32346318 https://web.archive.org/web/20200505113005/https://www.wbalt...
dividuum 7y ago
Probably related Radiolab episode covering a similar/same(?) system: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s...
madradavid 7y ago
Naive question here. Is it illegal to build counter surveillance tech, I mean you have companies that specialise in building these things for governments would it be illegal to start a company that does the opposite, build tech that helps people beat this sort of surveillance?
- dpwm 7y ago
  Naive answer: if lawmakers disapprove, they can just ban companies from helping people counter mass-surveillance efforts.
- Teever 7y ago
  Better idea -- make products that let the public track law enforcement and politicians in the same way that law enforcement is tracking people. If police don't need a warrant to do something that probably means that it's legal to do, right?
  - sneak 7y ago
    This is an excellent way to learn about how criminal law is not applied equally in the United States, but instead is wielded as a weapon selectively against anyone who would challenge the status quo. There was a famous case recently where a judge ruled that searching someone's trash didn't require a warrant as they had discarded it and it was no longer "theirs", so cops were within their rights to search through it. Presumably having been granted permission, some journalists then took it upon themselves to inventory and publish the exact contents of the judge's trash, including prescription medicine packaging and such. If I recall correctly, it didn't end well for the journalists. There are two different sets of laws, for two different sets of people in the US.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      Well, of course there are. "Warrantless search" is one category, and "search by random person" is another. The 2nd is closer to harassment, in some opinions. It's not quite fair to compare actions by an officer of the court with that of the general public. By design.
TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
"It can't film onto private places" they say as they record private property across the city. This is a disgusting encroachment upon our lives. Even if they can find a technical loophole to make it legal, it's the kind of action that degrades trust in the government and strengthens militias and anti-government behavior.
mtharrison 7y ago
There was a great Radiolab episode about this system back in 2015: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s...
AlecSchueler 7y ago
So they feel that it's ok because there is no expectation of privacy in public places? Could I really choose someone and follow them every time they left their home? Or is there also an element of it being indiscriminate at play? This is so ridiculous and outrageous to me. I'm a European myself but it sounds like everything America was set up on the hope of avoiding. What about all those people who advocate gun rights? Why aren't they up on arms, either metaphorically or even literally, about this?
- sneak 7y ago
  Sadly, most of the gun rights supporters in the US seem to fall in the partisan camp that unwaveringly supports the police and the military, no matter how many civil and human rights those organizations seem to infringe. (It's confusing to me, too.) (An aside: Posting a similar wonder as you just did recently got me permbanned from Twitter after 12 years of daily use and ~10k followers. You're apparently not even allowed ask questions about guns and cops in the same sentence over there, even if it's not your own guns you're asking about. No response whatsoever to support/appeal inquiries. It's toast.) The other team, they make noises about human rights and equal protection, but have no practical means to induce the police to comply, due to decades of having voted in those states to deny themselves even optional/opt-in access to the types of weapons the police carry in every single police vehicle just meters from them on a daily basis. Meaningful nonviolent physical resistance in most of the more populated places in the US is thus now totally infeasible, as we have learned in places like Ferguson or New York City as the police are significantly better armed than any group that they wish to subdue, legally or illegally. (For a long time I thought this was a new development until eventually learning about Kent State when I was in my mid 20s.) For example, during the 2008 RNC in New York just before W's second term, the NYPD were able to illegally imprison several thousand peaceful political protesters for a whole weekend in temporary concentration camps with total impunity due to this physical power imbalance, which resulted a few years later in an amazing $800M civil rights violation settlement (paid for out of tax money, of course; none of the police who orchestrated the illegal mass kidnapping suffered any negative consequences). At higher levels, both "sides" are fully in agreement about the total commitment to continuous war and widespread illegal domestic surveillance. It seems that there are absolutely zero available political choices for "no widespread unchecked surveillance, no forever war" in the US any longer. ...and so the problem continues unabated.
spodek 7y ago
> Images are stored for 45 days and can be used only for criminal investigation. Anyone who believes that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. > [Police Commissioner Michael] Harrison sees no privacy concern. I can see him saying he considers the crime fighting value of data gained greater than the privacy lost, but to see no concern sounds like lack of empathy, compassion, and competence.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Understandable response. But this is far from the first city to do this. Previous cities, the company involved is separate from the police force, and requires a warrant to reveal any footage. Any slipup, they lose their contract. So some incentives to keep it honest.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    > Any slipup, they lose their contract Who enforces it? How can they know?
  - bathtub365 7y ago
    I noticed you didn’t mention anything about the citizens who might have been affected by a “slip up”. What have those cities done to compensate the victims?
  - noad 7y ago
    That is much, much worse. If it's a private company they can skirt FOIA and coverup abuse much more easily. The government is getting too good at this outsourcing of all risk and liability.
- google234123 7y ago
  I like how you take one sentence from the guy and infer the worst.
  - spodek 7y ago
    He's also flying a plane over a city surveilling everyone -- "the most comprehensive surveillance ever imposed on an American city in the history of the country" in one attorney's opinion. He also said, "There is no expectation of privacy on a public street, a sidewalk. . . while you are outside, there is no expectation of privacy." I didn't infer the worst, which might be malice or self-serving, not incompetence.
verytrivial 7y ago
Radiolab ran a story from the "Note to Self" podcast in 2015 about trials for persistent surveillance of this sort. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s... "Then, once we realize what we can do, we wonder whether we should."
thecybernerd 7y ago
There’s an excellent book on this surveillance technology and the ramifications called Eyes in the Sky. Talks about the military’s development of Gorgon Stare and many of the domestic startups using the similar technology to watch us.
- bookofjoe 7y ago
  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film)
loup-vaillant 7y ago
> Sorry, this content is not available in your region. GDPR wall?
snt 7y ago
Browser: Will you allow www.wbaltv.com to access your location? (I presume they're also recording my movements)
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Clearly the 'film only public spaces' argument is specious. It films everybody in their back yard, in their walled lot, in their private green space. It can't distinguish public from private from 10000 feet. As I understand how its used, somebody robs a liquor store and drives away. Maybe 10 days later a detective gets a warrant for the footage from that day, finds the part where they drove away, then follows the footage backward to the part where they left their house. Then drives over and arrests them. Kind of like a time machine, or Minority Report in reverse.
- malyk 7y ago
  RadioLab did an episode about this that ran through an example of a police officer murdered in an ambush in Juarez, Mexico. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s...
- phyzome 7y ago
  I think the movie you're looking for is Enemy of the State.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Enemy of the State is in real time. I guess at the time nobody could assume we would be able to record widely enough and store the video for long enough to retrospectively pursue people.
    - bookofjoe 7y ago
      If you liked "Enemy of the State" you will like "Eye in the Sky" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film)
- abower 7y ago
  Take a look at Eyes in the Sky, it's an interesting read. https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare-ebook/dp/B07FK9567C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38Z0O3I22SYY4&dchild=1&keywords=gorgon+stare&qid=1588733479&sprefix=Gorgon+%2Caps%2C497&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare-ebook/dp...
peterwwillis 7y ago
I would actually be fine with this kind of surveillance of my movements, except that it's inaccurate. It could lead to falsely accusing people due to circumstance, like why were you in that bad neighborhood so often? You must be a drug mule. Or we saw a car just like yours go back and forth between the scene of this crime, and we don't have proof it was anyone else behind the wheel, so it must have been you. I would actually feel better if this was used in conjunction with even more surveillance. That way there's more data to rule out coincidental or misleading information. It still wouldn't be great, but it would be better than this method alone. (They do already use cameras on cop cars to record license plates of passing cars, and cameras at intersections that flag when they register the sound of gunshots. This still isn't enough to correlate the complex movements of organized crime across the city) Another more positive way it could be used is for community outreach programs to contact at risk youth, before they get deeply involved with gangs. Or to document and protect the LGBT POC homeless youth, one of the most vulnerable class of people in the US. Or to inform programs on overhauling public transportation, to update bus routes or plan a new rail line better. Or public health programs to battle drug addiction. Or to fine companies that dump waste into the watershed that makes its way into the harbor. You could potentially use this data for a lot of good. Sadly, Baltimore's police have a long record of corruption, including planting evidence, a private hit squad, violence, and abuse of surveillance methods such as Stringrays. So even if I'd like to play devil's advocate, this is not a city with a great track record. They need to make this program very transparent to show it isn't abused.
- taborj 7y ago
  I will never be fine with this kind of surveillance, in part because it can never be accurate about intentions. Here, watch this, it's a good talk about why voluntarily providing information will generally backfire on you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
solarkraft 7y ago
"Sorry, this content is not available in your region." I see, you're also disrespecting people's privacy where it is legal. Alright. http://archive.vn/sR0Xo http://archive.vn/sR0Xo
dilandau 7y ago
Just wear a mask.
tomohawk 7y ago
There is a murder in Baltimore just about every day. It is an incredibly violent city. This interview with David Simon "The Wire" provides insight. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on... Beating up on the police department has become a favorite past time of the politicians, with the predictable result that officers are unwilling to go after criminals unless it is very cut and dried. This is likely why this plane is being pushed - it would provide clear evidence without hard police work that is impossible to do in the political climate of the city.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Wasn't Baltimore that was in the news all over the world a few years ago because of police officers blatantly pursuing black people?
  - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
    It was more nuanced than that given the population. Interestingly the writer of the wire and the original cast announced a new show about Baltimore and the police specifically is in the works.
- Communitivity 7y ago
  Yes. Baltimore has various nicknames such as Murdermore. It is also the place where Edgar Allen Poe lived, where amazing wineries can be found, where some say the best crabs in the country are, where Johns Hopkins Hospital is - the No. 1 hospital on US News Honor Roll of Best Hospitals 2013-2014. Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Yes, he was actually talking about the Penn family trying to buy the governor off to veto defense spending, but the quote's sentiment is still valid. Surveillance technology can be a good thing, but only if policed very well with adequate checks and balances. I don't usually see those checks and balances in place when surveillance is rolled out.
papito 7y ago
Or maybe the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is doin' some testing. After all, the NSA is in Baltimore. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-multibillion-dollar-u-s-spy-agency-you-havent-heard-of-trump/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-multibillion-dollar...
- dx87 7y ago
  > After all, the NSA is in Baltimore. No it isn't.
  - papito 7y ago
    Really? You are going to split those hairs?
    - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
      It’s almost equal distance between d.c. and Baltimore.
    - Communitivity 7y ago
      Baltimore and Odenton are a decent distance apart, about a 30 minute drive. Also, very few federal agencies are in just any one location; they tend to have offices spread out across different states, or over the tri-state area.
neverartful 7y ago
How are individuals identified? It's one thing to have street-level cameras, but something else entirely when it's a plane flying at 10,000 feet. Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems like it would be extremely difficult to accurately identify a person that way (barring NSA/CIA/military level technology and sophistication). What am I missing? Even with my doubts, I'm extremely opposed to such surveillance!
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  Would a demo of what is possible at 4000 feet suffice? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L80HDdS7Wg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L80HDdS7Wg (4min33sec) Or what was state of the art at DARPA in 2013? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA (4min40sec) Edit: Or more commonly available, just search for "Nikon Superzoom" on youtube, and watch some short demos there. And then imagine those pointed in all directions downwards, the videostream(s) saved to some small storage array, or even transmitted live to some ground station(s), indexed and overlaid on something like google maps, just better, with a time slider. Mark some car at some point (in time) and see where it moves...and so on. Edit: like THIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSeU-OnI8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSeU-OnI8E (3min13sec) Edit: Oh! And something from 2016 about "The Surveillance Firm Recording Crimes From Baltimore's Skies" (7min29sec) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRa-AucbN6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRa-AucbN6k Another demo of the same thing from the same person/company in another town, also 2016: "The Eyes in the Sky That Catch Murders on Tape" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJLr0KMsRAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJLr0KMsRAA (5min) So why is this news?
  - neverartful 7y ago
    Thanks for providing the links. Despite the impressive cameras and processing capabilities to go with them, I believe that it would be simple to counter. Adding any of baseball caps or other hats, sunglasses, jackets, face mask, or gloves should make it far more difficult to identify a person. Carry a backpack of accessories and change them to further confuse. A person can make their movements harder to track by traveling non-direct routes, back-tracking, and moving in and out of buildings. The bigger problem is that ordinary citizens shouldn't be under that kind of surveillance EVER. It's good to have these things brought to light and discussed (especially the downsides and all potential for abuse).
el_don_almighty 7y ago
how many watts of LED powered infrared light is required to overcome the camera's contrast capability? If I wear a tinfoil hat with a giant beam of infrared light coming from the top, what do they see? what if we all do? I'm off to walmart for some reynolds wrap
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
Obligatory link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare
foolzcrow 7y ago
China + domestic operatives attacked free world.
jonnydubowsky 7y ago
Does anyone know the resolution of this surveillance footage? I.e if I have a house with lots of glass ceilings or greenhouses can it see at that detail? Does this matter?
tw04 7y ago
So if someone is murdered in their backyard, and this thing filmed it, they just won’t use the footage? What if it’s the mayor? The chief of police? The president (yes I know he doesn't live in Baltimore and would be surrounded by secret service)? Call me skeptical...
grimjack00 7y ago
Maybe they'd get a better reaction if they said it would be used to enforce social distancing edicts.
paypalcust83 7y ago
Technologies used in neocolonial occupation and conquest will eventually be applied domestically. It's only a matter of time before the US government elites have a real-time panopticon like China and Reapers fire weapons from the air at civilians.

119 points by jbegley 7y ago

Chris2048 7y ago

Sorry, this content is not available in your region.

smcleod 7y ago
Out of interest where are you located and what browser are you using? (Works in Australia. (iOS))
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  doesn't work in Europe, OK from US
- kratom_sandwich 7y ago
  Does not work in Germany - I suppose because of GDPR ...
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  Not working in the UK. We got some really weird EU rules a year or two back which fucks about with a lot of content.
- sschueller 7y ago
  Doesn't work in Switzerland, no GDPR here.
  - netsharc 7y ago
    Also from Switzerland. I never thought the lack of geographic^Wgeo-political knowledge of the average American would affect me...
    - kube-system 7y ago
      This is the website of a local TV station on the other side of the planet. It is just as likely that their legal counsel is aware that the Swiss were contemplating new data protection laws at the time of GDPR implementation and advised they err on the side of compliance. I bet the management at TeleBärn doesn’t spend much time having nuanced legal discussions about the difference between US and Canadian law either.
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
https://pastebin.com/VQTDQkcH https://pastebin.com/VQTDQkcH

kratom_sandwich 7y ago

Quick google search turned out an alternate source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/baltimore-surveillance-planes-aclu.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/baltimore-surveillance...

chrisbuc 7y ago

Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200505113005/https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-police-surveillance-plane-starts-flying-recording-everyones-movements/32346318 https://web.archive.org/web/20200505113005/https://www.wbalt...

dividuum 7y ago

Probably related Radiolab episode covering a similar/same(?) system: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s...

madradavid 7y ago

Naive question here. Is it illegal to build counter surveillance tech, I mean you have companies that specialise in building these things for governments would it be illegal to start a company that does the opposite, build tech that helps people beat this sort of surveillance?

dpwm 7y ago
Naive answer: if lawmakers disapprove, they can just ban companies from helping people counter mass-surveillance efforts.
Teever 7y ago
Better idea -- make products that let the public track law enforcement and politicians in the same way that law enforcement is tracking people. If police don't need a warrant to do something that probably means that it's legal to do, right?
- sneak 7y ago
  This is an excellent way to learn about how criminal law is not applied equally in the United States, but instead is wielded as a weapon selectively against anyone who would challenge the status quo. There was a famous case recently where a judge ruled that searching someone's trash didn't require a warrant as they had discarded it and it was no longer "theirs", so cops were within their rights to search through it. Presumably having been granted permission, some journalists then took it upon themselves to inventory and publish the exact contents of the judge's trash, including prescription medicine packaging and such. If I recall correctly, it didn't end well for the journalists. There are two different sets of laws, for two different sets of people in the US.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Well, of course there are. "Warrantless search" is one category, and "search by random person" is another. The 2nd is closer to harassment, in some opinions. It's not quite fair to compare actions by an officer of the court with that of the general public. By design.

TheAdamAndChe 7y ago

"It can't film onto private places" they say as they record private property across the city. This is a disgusting encroachment upon our lives. Even if they can find a technical loophole to make it legal, it's the kind of action that degrades trust in the government and strengthens militias and anti-government behavior.

mtharrison 7y ago

There was a great Radiolab episode about this system back in 2015: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s...

AlecSchueler 7y ago

So they feel that it's ok because there is no expectation of privacy in public places? Could I really choose someone and follow them every time they left their home? Or is there also an element of it being indiscriminate at play? This is so ridiculous and outrageous to me. I'm a European myself but it sounds like everything America was set up on the hope of avoiding. What about all those people who advocate gun rights? Why aren't they up on arms, either metaphorically or even literally, about this?

sneak 7y ago
Sadly, most of the gun rights supporters in the US seem to fall in the partisan camp that unwaveringly supports the police and the military, no matter how many civil and human rights those organizations seem to infringe. (It's confusing to me, too.) (An aside: Posting a similar wonder as you just did recently got me permbanned from Twitter after 12 years of daily use and ~10k followers. You're apparently not even allowed ask questions about guns and cops in the same sentence over there, even if it's not your own guns you're asking about. No response whatsoever to support/appeal inquiries. It's toast.) The other team, they make noises about human rights and equal protection, but have no practical means to induce the police to comply, due to decades of having voted in those states to deny themselves even optional/opt-in access to the types of weapons the police carry in every single police vehicle just meters from them on a daily basis. Meaningful nonviolent physical resistance in most of the more populated places in the US is thus now totally infeasible, as we have learned in places like Ferguson or New York City as the police are significantly better armed than any group that they wish to subdue, legally or illegally. (For a long time I thought this was a new development until eventually learning about Kent State when I was in my mid 20s.) For example, during the 2008 RNC in New York just before W's second term, the NYPD were able to illegally imprison several thousand peaceful political protesters for a whole weekend in temporary concentration camps with total impunity due to this physical power imbalance, which resulted a few years later in an amazing $800M civil rights violation settlement (paid for out of tax money, of course; none of the police who orchestrated the illegal mass kidnapping suffered any negative consequences). At higher levels, both "sides" are fully in agreement about the total commitment to continuous war and widespread illegal domestic surveillance. It seems that there are absolutely zero available political choices for "no widespread unchecked surveillance, no forever war" in the US any longer. ...and so the problem continues unabated.

spodek 7y ago

> Images are stored for 45 days and can be used only for criminal investigation. Anyone who believes that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. > [Police Commissioner Michael] Harrison sees no privacy concern. I can see him saying he considers the crime fighting value of data gained greater than the privacy lost, but to see no concern sounds like lack of empathy, compassion, and competence.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Understandable response. But this is far from the first city to do this. Previous cities, the company involved is separate from the police force, and requires a warrant to reveal any footage. Any slipup, they lose their contract. So some incentives to keep it honest.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  > Any slipup, they lose their contract Who enforces it? How can they know?
- bathtub365 7y ago
  I noticed you didn’t mention anything about the citizens who might have been affected by a “slip up”. What have those cities done to compensate the victims?
- noad 7y ago
  That is much, much worse. If it's a private company they can skirt FOIA and coverup abuse much more easily. The government is getting too good at this outsourcing of all risk and liability.
google234123 7y ago
I like how you take one sentence from the guy and infer the worst.
- spodek 7y ago
  He's also flying a plane over a city surveilling everyone -- "the most comprehensive surveillance ever imposed on an American city in the history of the country" in one attorney's opinion. He also said, "There is no expectation of privacy on a public street, a sidewalk. . . while you are outside, there is no expectation of privacy." I didn't infer the worst, which might be malice or self-serving, not incompetence.

verytrivial 7y ago

Radiolab ran a story from the "Note to Self" podcast in 2015 about trials for persistent surveillance of this sort. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s... "Then, once we realize what we can do, we wonder whether we should."

thecybernerd 7y ago

There’s an excellent book on this surveillance technology and the ramifications called Eyes in the Sky. Talks about the military’s development of Gorgon Stare and many of the domestic startups using the similar technology to watch us.

bookofjoe 7y ago
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film)

loup-vaillant 7y ago

> Sorry, this content is not available in your region. GDPR wall?

snt 7y ago

Browser: Will you allow www.wbaltv.com to access your location? (I presume they're also recording my movements)

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Clearly the 'film only public spaces' argument is specious. It films everybody in their back yard, in their walled lot, in their private green space. It can't distinguish public from private from 10000 feet. As I understand how its used, somebody robs a liquor store and drives away. Maybe 10 days later a detective gets a warrant for the footage from that day, finds the part where they drove away, then follows the footage backward to the part where they left their house. Then drives over and arrests them. Kind of like a time machine, or Minority Report in reverse.

malyk 7y ago
RadioLab did an episode about this that ran through an example of a police officer murdered in an ambush in Juarez, Mexico. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/eye-s...
phyzome 7y ago
I think the movie you're looking for is Enemy of the State.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Enemy of the State is in real time. I guess at the time nobody could assume we would be able to record widely enough and store the video for long enough to retrospectively pursue people.
  - bookofjoe 7y ago
    If you liked "Enemy of the State" you will like "Eye in the Sky" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film)
abower 7y ago
Take a look at Eyes in the Sky, it's an interesting read. https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare-ebook/dp/B07FK9567C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38Z0O3I22SYY4&dchild=1&keywords=gorgon+stare&qid=1588733479&sprefix=Gorgon+%2Caps%2C497&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare-ebook/dp...

peterwwillis 7y ago

I would actually be fine with this kind of surveillance of my movements, except that it's inaccurate. It could lead to falsely accusing people due to circumstance, like why were you in that bad neighborhood so often? You must be a drug mule. Or we saw a car just like yours go back and forth between the scene of this crime, and we don't have proof it was anyone else behind the wheel, so it must have been you. I would actually feel better if this was used in conjunction with even more surveillance. That way there's more data to rule out coincidental or misleading information. It still wouldn't be great, but it would be better than this method alone. (They do already use cameras on cop cars to record license plates of passing cars, and cameras at intersections that flag when they register the sound of gunshots. This still isn't enough to correlate the complex movements of organized crime across the city) Another more positive way it could be used is for community outreach programs to contact at risk youth, before they get deeply involved with gangs. Or to document and protect the LGBT POC homeless youth, one of the most vulnerable class of people in the US. Or to inform programs on overhauling public transportation, to update bus routes or plan a new rail line better. Or public health programs to battle drug addiction. Or to fine companies that dump waste into the watershed that makes its way into the harbor. You could potentially use this data for a lot of good. Sadly, Baltimore's police have a long record of corruption, including planting evidence, a private hit squad, violence, and abuse of surveillance methods such as Stringrays. So even if I'd like to play devil's advocate, this is not a city with a great track record. They need to make this program very transparent to show it isn't abused.

taborj 7y ago
I will never be fine with this kind of surveillance, in part because it can never be accurate about intentions. Here, watch this, it's a good talk about why voluntarily providing information will generally backfire on you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

solarkraft 7y ago

"Sorry, this content is not available in your region." I see, you're also disrespecting people's privacy where it is legal. Alright. http://archive.vn/sR0Xo http://archive.vn/sR0Xo

dilandau 7y ago

Just wear a mask.

tomohawk 7y ago

There is a murder in Baltimore just about every day. It is an incredibly violent city. This interview with David Simon "The Wire" provides insight. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on... Beating up on the police department has become a favorite past time of the politicians, with the predictable result that officers are unwilling to go after criminals unless it is very cut and dried. This is likely why this plane is being pushed - it would provide clear evidence without hard police work that is impossible to do in the political climate of the city.

marcosdumay 7y ago
Wasn't Baltimore that was in the news all over the world a few years ago because of police officers blatantly pursuing black people?
- ganoushoreilly 7y ago
  It was more nuanced than that given the population. Interestingly the writer of the wire and the original cast announced a new show about Baltimore and the police specifically is in the works.
Communitivity 7y ago
Yes. Baltimore has various nicknames such as Murdermore. It is also the place where Edgar Allen Poe lived, where amazing wineries can be found, where some say the best crabs in the country are, where Johns Hopkins Hospital is - the No. 1 hospital on US News Honor Roll of Best Hospitals 2013-2014. Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Yes, he was actually talking about the Penn family trying to buy the governor off to veto defense spending, but the quote's sentiment is still valid. Surveillance technology can be a good thing, but only if policed very well with adequate checks and balances. I don't usually see those checks and balances in place when surveillance is rolled out.

papito 7y ago

Or maybe the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is doin' some testing. After all, the NSA is in Baltimore. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-multibillion-dollar-u-s-spy-agency-you-havent-heard-of-trump/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-multibillion-dollar...

dx87 7y ago
> After all, the NSA is in Baltimore. No it isn't.
- papito 7y ago
  Really? You are going to split those hairs?
  - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
    It’s almost equal distance between d.c. and Baltimore.
  - Communitivity 7y ago
    Baltimore and Odenton are a decent distance apart, about a 30 minute drive. Also, very few federal agencies are in just any one location; they tend to have offices spread out across different states, or over the tri-state area.

neverartful 7y ago

How are individuals identified? It's one thing to have street-level cameras, but something else entirely when it's a plane flying at 10,000 feet. Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems like it would be extremely difficult to accurately identify a person that way (barring NSA/CIA/military level technology and sophistication). What am I missing? Even with my doubts, I'm extremely opposed to such surveillance!

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
Would a demo of what is possible at 4000 feet suffice? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L80HDdS7Wg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L80HDdS7Wg (4min33sec) Or what was state of the art at DARPA in 2013? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA (4min40sec) Edit: Or more commonly available, just search for "Nikon Superzoom" on youtube, and watch some short demos there. And then imagine those pointed in all directions downwards, the videostream(s) saved to some small storage array, or even transmitted live to some ground station(s), indexed and overlaid on something like google maps, just better, with a time slider. Mark some car at some point (in time) and see where it moves...and so on. Edit: like THIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSeU-OnI8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSeU-OnI8E (3min13sec) Edit: Oh! And something from 2016 about "The Surveillance Firm Recording Crimes From Baltimore's Skies" (7min29sec) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRa-AucbN6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRa-AucbN6k Another demo of the same thing from the same person/company in another town, also 2016: "The Eyes in the Sky That Catch Murders on Tape" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJLr0KMsRAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJLr0KMsRAA (5min) So why is this news?
- neverartful 7y ago
  Thanks for providing the links. Despite the impressive cameras and processing capabilities to go with them, I believe that it would be simple to counter. Adding any of baseball caps or other hats, sunglasses, jackets, face mask, or gloves should make it far more difficult to identify a person. Carry a backpack of accessories and change them to further confuse. A person can make their movements harder to track by traveling non-direct routes, back-tracking, and moving in and out of buildings. The bigger problem is that ordinary citizens shouldn't be under that kind of surveillance EVER. It's good to have these things brought to light and discussed (especially the downsides and all potential for abuse).

el_don_almighty 7y ago

how many watts of LED powered infrared light is required to overcome the camera's contrast capability? If I wear a tinfoil hat with a giant beam of infrared light coming from the top, what do they see? what if we all do? I'm off to walmart for some reynolds wrap

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago

Obligatory link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare

foolzcrow 7y ago

China + domestic operatives attacked free world.

jonnydubowsky 7y ago

Does anyone know the resolution of this surveillance footage? I.e if I have a house with lots of glass ceilings or greenhouses can it see at that detail? Does this matter?

tw04 7y ago

So if someone is murdered in their backyard, and this thing filmed it, they just won’t use the footage? What if it’s the mayor? The chief of police? The president (yes I know he doesn't live in Baltimore and would be surrounded by secret service)? Call me skeptical...

grimjack00 7y ago

Maybe they'd get a better reaction if they said it would be used to enforce social distancing edicts.

paypalcust83 7y ago

Technologies used in neocolonial occupation and conquest will eventually be applied domestically. It's only a matter of time before the US government elites have a real-time panopticon like China and Reapers fire weapons from the air at civilians.