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Can we get a federal bill with the same prohibitions? It would be absurd if the right to be free from fear of automated death from the skies is left to a patchw

• mulmen 3y ago
  I get the argument for federal laws but honestly I think it is misguided to want state laws promoted to a national level immediately. This is how law in the US evolves. The patchwork is a feature. A federal government with the agility to implement this law at a national level would have far too much power. The system is working.
  • craigmcnamara 3y ago
    We should promote this patch to production ASAP
    • mulmen 3y ago
      Works on my machine. Or is that in my neighborhood?
  • ryandrake 3y ago
    I agree. It's helpful to remember: for every law you like and want promoted to the federal level, there's another law you probably don't like that someone else thinks would be great to promote to the federal level. Although moving states to flee terrible laws is a burden, it's not as much of a burden as fleeing your entire country. Laws should be as local as practically possible.
    • banana_feather 3y ago
      > Laws should be as local as practically possible. You guys are every lawyer's dream. Yes, please, continue believing you're following some great American tradition of strong local government by submitting to the whims of your local Boss Tweed and the five judges in your county, I play golf with them once a month. Oh, you have a legal problem and need to navigate the rats nest of weird local laws? Great, you can choose from one of three tax attorneys that know the local tax regime as it applies to your business. I play golf with them too, and (coincidentally) we all bill $1,100 an hour.
      • ehvatum 3y ago
        [flagged]
        • some_random 3y ago
          You guys are every esthetician’s dream. Yes, please continue believing you’re following some great skincare tradition by submitting to the whims of your local sephora and the five skincare instagram influencers in your local county, I play volleyball with them once a month. Oh, you want a tattoo and need help to navigate the lawyers nest of weird local tattoo parlors? Great, you can choose from one of three instagram tattoo artists that know the local tattoo regime as it applies to your section of skin. I play volleyball with them too, and (coincidentally) we all bill $110 an hour.
          • nsxwolf 3y ago
            You guys are every fast food worker's dream. Yes, please continue believing you're following some great culinary tradition by submitting to the whims of your local drive-thru and the five foodie Instagram influencers in your local county, I play dodgeball with them once a month. Oh, you want a custom T-shirt and need help to navigate the crafters' maze of local thrift stores? Great, you can choose from one of three Instagram crafters that know the local thrifting scene as it applies to your fashion statement. I play dodgeball with them too, and (coincidentally) we all make $15 an hour.
  • abeppu 3y ago
    In general, I understand and am sympathetic to the idea of the states as being laboratories for democracy, etc. However, in this case: - The US federal government already has and has used drones as weapons overseas, including to kill US citizens. This now includes smaller/cheaper drones. - The US federal government has materially supported the militarization of police forces, including by giving them military equipment. - Federal law enforcement agencies operate everywhere in the country, and IIUC their behavior isn't limited by those state laws (e.g. the state of CA can't pass a law that removes the CBP "100-mile border zone" and restricts them to only operating at borders and ports), and IIUC the FBI already flies surveillance flights (though the facial recognition prohibition likely doesn't apply here).
    • froh 3y ago
      the militarization of the police force is the issue here, isn't it? at a most fundamental level what's debated is if civilians and police should be demilitarized as much as possible or not. Who benefits and who doesn't if all legislation strives for a civic society without deadly force? that's the "Elefant in the room". The counter-argument to a demilitarized civic society usually is that you couldn't possibly control the bad guys. The empirically sound ground truth is that it takes 1-2 generations to get there, and that you will get there if only you want to get there, as a nation, as evidenced by a number of countries who wanted to essentially get rid of everyday knives and nunchucks and tonfas, let alone firearms, and who in fact essentially did get rid of them. The US, as a civic society, needs to discuss which kind of a civic society they want to be. the answer to "shall police have gun drones" flows from that. just like the answer to "shall school students need gun drills".
  • nathan_compton 3y ago
    Doesn't this kind of depend on the law? Do you really think "guns and and facial recognition on drones" is the kind of thing we have to do experiments on? I kind of get where you're coming from in the sense that it is scary for so much power over so many people to be concentrated in such a small place, but, on the other hand, when the case is simple or the moral calculus is clear enough, I think we ought not feel a strong compunction against action at a federal level.
    • mulmen 3y ago
      No, it doesn't depend on the law. I think all laws need experimentation regardless of the subject matter because no law is perfect. I also think a federal government that can quickly enact laws is far too powerful an entity to exist in a country of 330,000,000 people. While some "good" laws might get enacted sooner "bad" laws will as well. Remember we are a country guilty of genocide. As an exercise try writing down the name of all the politicians you can off the top of your head. Then consider if you like and agree with them or not. Then ask yourself if you really want an agile federal government. Thinking only the laws you like will make it to a federal law free of unintended side effect is naive fantasy at best. The laboratory of democracy is working. Please, lobby your representatives, get involved, but don't confuse lack of federal law for malfunction.
      • abeppu 3y ago
        I don't think anyone would accuse our federal government of being "agile" or able to "quickly enact laws". And I agree that in almost all things getting the right law is more important than getting a law quickly. However, your insistence that "it doesn't depend on the law" makes me view your whole stance more critically; the answer in complex areas is very rarely "it doesn't depend". There's a bunch of domains where stuff just happens across state lines so frequently that a patchwork would only create confusion. It would be really disruptive if NY made it illegal to drive on gas you bought in NJ b/c NY officials hadn't specifically tested it to confirm that all additives were acceptable; it's easier if we just have federal standards.
      • nathan_compton 3y ago
• abeppu 3y ago
  To be clear, I _also_ would strongly prefer the facial recognition prohibition be national (and also apply to non-drone-based cameras that police have access to). But clearly literal killer drones are worse than mere spy drones.
• xtreme 3y ago
  What are good counters to these arguments?
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • reaperducer 3y ago
    What are good counters to these arguments? Mostly it comes down to the companies that make these things have to "maximize shareholder value." Who cares if people get killed? It's good to see Illinois get ahead of this, considering that politicians in Illinois keep getting caught taking bribes from these policing equipment companies that peddle gadgets like red light cameras. Just yesterday it was revealed that the newly elected mayor of Chicago authorized the extension of the ShotSpotter contract another ten years: One of the very things he promised to kill when he was campaigning. It's all been "Oops! Is that my signature!? I didn't know that other people have the ability to click a button and sign my name to multi-million dollar contracts. Oh, well, maybe next decade!"
    • Ajedi32 3y ago
      I don't see how that addresses any of the three points in the root comment.
  • abeppu 3y ago
    I'll bite: The response to "then only criminals will have armed drones" is: Ok, let's give all the cops a lot of drugs and child porn, because it would be bad if only criminals had that stuff, and maybe we can give them anthrax and components for a dirty bomb, because it would be bad if only terrorists had those. Or maybe, that's a broken line of reasoning and law enforcement isn't a war in which enemies must be met with equal means. The answer to "sometimes police have to use deadly force; isn't it better if their lives aren't at stake is": We live in a world where kids having fun on the internet will have other people 'swatted'. This is only possible because police are willing to arm themselves and suddenly and forcefully enter a situation where they have _no credible information_ about any kind of threat. Until they demonstrate some capacity to consistently identify whether a situation requires deadly force, it's irresponsible to give them more of it. The response to the "police who use deadly force inappropriately may have felt their life was at risk" is ... all the videos of police killings where an unarmed person is running away, an unarmed person is already effectively restrained, etc etc. Police use deadly force even when there is clearly no threat. Making police safer isn't the solution; the rest of us need to be safe from the police.
• glitchc 3y ago
  A federal law can only apply to FBI, National Guard, Coast Guard and other federally managed law enforcement bodies. It cannot apply to the various state and county police authorities. Governance of those is a right explicitly granted to each state and county, and the states/counties will fight tooth and nail to retain it.
  • bigbillheck 3y ago
    Usually what happens is the feds don't legislate it directly but tie it to acceptance of federal funding.
  • karaterobot 3y ago
    They'd just use federal funding as leverage. "If you want these federal dollars, you'll abide by the following..." If the 10th amendment went to war with the Spending Power clause, I know who I'd put money on!
  • MereInterest 3y ago
    That doesn't quite make sense to me. A federal policy or a federal executive order only applying to federally-managed bodies, I could understand. But federal laws outweigh state and local laws.
    • glitchc 3y ago
      This power stems from the Tenth Amendment, which states that any power not delegated to the Federal government becomes the purview of the State. Given that the state has a number of laws, it must operate its own police force to enforce those laws. Therefore, since a state is required to operate said police force, governance of that force falls under the purview of the state and cannot be delegated to an external authority. If that were possible, the federal government could take control of a state police force to enforce laws contrary to the state's own laws. It sounds circuitous, but the meaning is clear: The state has to be able to govern and control its own police force if it wants to enforce its own laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_constitutional_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_co...
• karaterobot 3y ago
  The argument against it being federal is that such a bill would likely be the result of a lot more compromises, chipped away at by a lot more parties. Which makes sense, as it would have a lot more stakeholders, and a lot more at stake. The feds also have a stronger tendency to make bigger, dumber, more invasive enforcement mechanisms that end up creating new and unforeseen problems.
• dpratt 3y ago
  There is no way this would ever even pass initial consideration at the Federal level, in that there is no incentive for the Federal government to limit the weaponry available to it's law enforcement apparatus. They would see such a law as containing no upside for the government itself, and therefore it will be, at best, laughed out of committee and more likely any Congressman or Senator who proposes it will mysteriously find that a lot of his or her donors are suddenly turning on him.
• thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
  >> Can we get a federal bill with the same prohibitions? It would be absurd if the right to be free from fear of automated death from the skies is left to a patchwork of state and local restrictions. >> - Sometimes law enforcement must be able to use deadly force. Isn't it better if in those situations, officers aren't also putting their lives at risk? What about drones that can be used to deploy non-lethal weapons? For example, if police need to employ riot control gas (https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/riotcontrol/factsheet.asp https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/riotcontrol/factsheet.asp) to disperse a violent mob, a drone could fly over the mob and drop the gas. Should that be permitted?
  • throwbadubadu 3y ago
    Nope, "violent mobs" are something that if it exists and rich enough modern democratic societies (and others) that is effect of some cause that needs immediate fixing, even beating them just down is maybe too much - I know I'm a bit too idealistic and romantic (: But no, please let us not starts with robots/machines fighting our own society but fix it, drones in warfare are already enough of an ethical problem..
    • godelski 3y ago
      I think for the vast majority of cases I agree. If there are public riots, the system fucked up. This doesn't mean that the public riots are directed at the appropriate solution or have correctly identified the underlying issue, it just means that something broke and that thing is serious. Almost nothing is going to lead to a public riot overnight. It is because the problem was left unsolved and the pressure built. I'm perfectly okay if there are severe consequences for authorities who do not attempt to solve problems that cause pressure to build. If you play with a pipe bomb, you gotta be careful and attentive.
    • UncleEntity 3y ago
      I assume you mean to apply this theory equally to more than just the leftists?
    • thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
• hanniabu 3y ago
  Probably won't happen, but I bet they'll pass something like that for civilian drones
• nradov 3y ago
  We already have a federal bill that prohibits dangerous weapons on drones. It is the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. As far as I can tell the law doesn't have any exceptions for civilian law enforcement. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/drones-and-weapons-dangerous-mix https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/drones-and-weapons-dangerous-mi...
• EMCymatics 3y ago
  Put that in the assault weapon ban.
• deleted 3y ago
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• deleted 3y ago
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• numpad0 3y ago
  Not a US resident and certainly not a lawyer, but are armed vehicles legal in the first place? I thought weapon mounts on airplanes and drones are forbidden by FAA regulations, and BATFE rules on ground vehicles. Weapons that fire more than once per one depression of a fire button are also defined machine guns and are regulated. Military branches including national guards are exempted from all above, but it’s generally illegal in a modern nation, even some dictatorships, for a military branch to be both an external facing defense force and an internal facing police organization at the same time by mission, as allowing it leads to unrests and coups. So handling of such vehicles and devices can’t be normally outsourced to military. I think this is just another case of honest but uninformed people adding more and more ad-hoc and redundant laws without enforcement. Not that I oppose the spirit of this particular law though.
• tekknik 3y ago
  > Irresponsible arguments that I would totally not be surprised to hear to push in the opposite direction: I don’t disagree with some of your statements, but why are you trying to preemptively shut the conversation down?