7 ms·
Where is the conspiracy? I thought the US government had been surveiling its cities via aerial technology. Is the conspiracy that these are unsecured?
by ikeyany 6y ago
Where is the conspiracy? I thought the US government had been surveiling its cities via aerial technology. Is the conspiracy that these are unsecured?
- dehrmann 6y agoIANAL. It's also surveying something openly visible from public space, so even distributing it accidentally isn't illegal, per se. Now, it's obviously fucked, and abuses and mistakes like this should make public officials think twice about building a surveillance state. My main hope is news outlets that pick this up tie it to the encryption debate.
- jjoonathan 6y agoI don't think people have internalized the fact that the US gov has surveillance drones in holding patterns over most US metropolitan areas. Every time I've seen someone poke around one of those persistence ADSB/radar maps, they have gone through the stages of discovery: "What are those circles?" "Surveillance drones." "Haha, no, really, what are they? Planes circling the airport?" "No, that (points to thin circle) is a plane circling the airport. The heavy circles are surveillance drones. Really." "Uhh.... (shifts uncomfortably) so where do you want to go for lunch today?"
- baconomatic 6y agoHave an example of this? Would be interesting to see it.
- 09bjb 6y agoSeconded.
- danso 6y agoBuzzFeed News had a big feature and analysis here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/spies-in-the-skies https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/spies-in-t...
- ikeyany 6y agoThis isn't about drones, but here is an article from last year about the DoD using surveillance balloons that use radar from 65,000 ft to generate high-res images of the ground: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-government-testing-surveillance-balloons-2019-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/us-government-testing-survei...
- jeffbee 6y agoIt's so funny how you can whip up conspiracy theories just by adding superfluous adjectives. Instead of just saying "radar" you say "wireless radar device", as if prior radars used wires, and then you say it creates "high-resolution images using radio pulses", as if this did not apply to every radar ever built. We have been using aircraft to track vehicles since the invention of aircraft. The people and their government have a legitimate interest in doing so. Nobody has a right to go about in a vehicle anonymously and privately. https://www.modbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/bee-investigator/xqxuin/picture144963059/alternates/LANDSCAPE_1140/JBL%20Speed%20Sign%201 https://www.modbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/bee-inv...
- ikeyany 6y agoWhere did I say there was no legitimate interest to do this? I am in agreement with you in saying this surveillance is not new and is not a conspiracy.
- jjoonathan 6y agoIt's possible for something to be not new and not a conspiracy but also not good and not right, all at the same time.
- ikeyany 6y agoThen it should have been posted in technology, security, or news subreddits.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
- Datenstrom 6y agoNot a map but it being done openly in Baltimore. https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-police-spy-plane-lawsuit-20200424-2ncxogcqr5akjjfd2fvaotvnby-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-c...
- fossuser 6y agoThis book is the best source on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare/dp/0544972007 https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare/dp/05449...
- jmwilson 6y agoThere are twitter bot accounts that post live when they detect aircraft flying in circles: @SkyCirclesSF @SkyCirclesLA @SkyCirclesDC
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- MiroF 6y agoI don't think people really think about it. Another example: most cities have systems that can pinpoint a gunshot to a block radius anywhere in the city so that police can respond quickly.
- renewiltord 6y agoIt's funny. I remember a court case where Shotspotter had a pinprick on one block and the news said "the shooting actually occurred a block away". Haha, that's nuts. Crazy accurate. The expert testimony did have the engineer saying "The accuracy is invented by sales and marketing. The pinpoint is just a starting point. It's in a radius around that." Which I found amusing because it seemed obvious to me. It did improve my ability to sell, though. These caveats are useless when you're selling. You can always explain afterwards.
- m-ee 6y agoOakland has shotspotter and my understanding is that it's been considered a failure
- MiroF 6y agoReally? Why? In DC, I think it's been pretty successful because lots of gunshots do not result in police calls.
- m-ee 6y agoLooking into it more it's less clear than I remembered. OPD considered scrapping it in 2014 saying the costs weren't justified and they'd rather have more money for their helicopter. Other cities have said they're not confident in its effectiveness but that doesn't seem to be a large factor here. They ended up keeping it. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Oakland-cops-aim-to-scrap-gunfire-detecting-5316060.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Oakland-cops-aim-to-scr...
- fapjacks 6y agoThis is an interesting system. I have worked with this technology on large and small scales, and it's a lot less accurate than you'd think. You have no hope of sending a police cruiser to check out a single gunshot based on the outputs of this system. But a single gunshot won't generate a police call in many cities as it is, so no change there. But a gang war? Sure, that will get the phone lines going and also generate many data points to help pinpoint the location using this system. So many factors affect the speed of sound through air, that the problem becomes one of those logarithmic "How many more microphones do you want to install to eke out this tiny bit of accuracy?" kinds of things. I'm not sure it's useful to point to what cities are saying about it, either. The technology itself is a Hard Problem, but I'm also 100% sure many law enforcement bureaucrats will use any excuse to keep money flowing into their budgets, even if the money is earmarked for something that doesn't work (or doesn't work well).
- chillingeffect 6y agoSome thoughts on pole surveillance: https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/pole-camera-surveillance-fourth-amendment/ https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/pole-camera-surveillance-f... It's not 100% consistent, but part of it is a reasonable expectation of privacy, compared to what the public would normally see. E.g. having a camera up in the air is not what the public normally sees. Which in some cases violated suspects' rights. That means LE should have warrants for these cameras. Plus, they're not allowed to go on fishing expeditions.... These cameras aren't designed to only look at one place, but a wide area... Which means public oversight is required to keep LE honest. If there are no public records, then it's unreasonable search.
- tren-hard 6y agoAlso worth noting that just about every redlight intersection has cameras mounted on top pointing at traffic in each direction. It's pretty much impossible to navigate through a city anonymously in a vehicle. Now with facial recognition software getting so advanced I'd water it's impossible to walk through a city anonymously as well. They don't necessarily need aerial imagery when every intersection has HD cameras pointing at you.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThey’re not cameras, they are metal/RF/infrared/whatever detectors used to detect vehicles waiting at the intersection so lights don’t stop traffic for no reason. Source: I’ve had to call municipal governments to get the detectors rotated or angled properly due to them not detecting cars and therefore not changing the light to green. Of course it’s technically possible they also contain cameras, but I have yet to see any proof.
- kube-system 6y agoYes, optical detectors are often used for traffic control. Traffic cameras which stream visible-light video are also very common. https://www.weatherbug.com/traffic-cam/ https://www.weatherbug.com/traffic-cam/
- catalogia 6y agoI'm not sure why you've been downvoted. Traffic-aware traffic lights are generally implemented using induction loops built into the road surface: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_loop Today, many have cameras for other reasons. But this is not ubiquitous and the prevalence of these cameras varies from location to location. Many traffic lights don't have cameras (many don't even have induction loops, and work off timers instead.)
- nucleardog 6y agoIn areas where the ground is covered in a foot of snow and ice all year those aren't particularly effective and they do use devices that look kinda like cameras and everyone assumes are cameras. They're actually just small radar devices. It's a much simpler problem to solve across a wide variety of conditions to simply point radar at the ground and when the distance suddenly drops 4-8' assume a vehicle is there. These devices don't have any sort of lens assembly which should be your first clue, but they also are pretty easily differentiated if you own a radar detector as well...
- fossuser 6y agoYour comment isn't totally true in the narrow sense that it's not being done domestically by the USG specifically (at least at the time I was reading about it). The best book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare/dp/0544972007 https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Sky-Secret-Gorgon-Stare/dp/05449... The primary domestic use was by the Baltimore police department and it was supplied by an individual billionaire interested in funding the project. Interesting fact in that book was that the initial spark for the project was someone in government watching Enemy of the State in the 90s and thinking "we should be building this". Somewhat comically the guy who worked on the camera effects in the movie also has a defense company and was asked to help build the real thing.
- imglorp 6y agoTrue if you don't count JLENS, and ARGUS, which have been deployed wherever they feel like for years. Further muddied is that there are federal grants to let local law enforcement buy this gear. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-rapid-rise-of-federal-surveillance-drones-over-america/473136/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-rap... https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/harford/aegis/bs-md-jlens-blimp-loose-20151028-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/harford/aegis/bs-md-jl...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- abstractbarista 6y agoAlways enjoyed that movie. I suggest everyone check it out!
- kfrzcode 6y ago> comically Synergy!
- catalogia 6y agoWhat do you mean by "conspiracy"? I'm not trying to be funny here, I think it's worth examining what precisely you mean by that word when you use it. It's a word with a specific meaning that is frequently abused in wishy-washy ways, often used to describe loony beliefs not grounded in reality, or beliefs that run contrary to the official narrative.
- ikeyany 6y agoIf the official narrative is that we aren't being constantly surveilled, then this submission pales in comparison to what should be on the front page. But I don't think that is the official narrative, per se.
- kfrzcode 6y agoIs the official narrative posted on the official narrative report somewhere for reference?
- catalogia 6y agoNote that if you're using the term "conspiracy" in the strict sense, it's not contrary to the official narrative. The official narrative for 9/11 for instance, the 9/11 Commission Report, is terrorists conspired to crash airplanes. In the colloquial wishy-washy sense, that report is not a conspiracy theory, despite being a theory about a conspiracy. However every other theory that disagrees with it is a conspiracy theory.
- LatteLazy 6y agoIt's an opportunity for people to fein surprise. And people always like a little treasure hunt...