8 ms·

> The innocuous appearance of many of the videos raises questions about whether the surveillance was necessary. In one “auto boost/strip”-related call, the dron

by dannyw 3mo ago

> The innocuous appearance of many of the videos raises questions about whether the surveillance was necessary. In one “auto boost/strip”-related call, the drone follows two young men in their car, at least one of whom is described in police records as having been identified as a “suspicious person in a vehicle.” Then the two men emerge onto a basketball court and start playing, and the drone departs. https://archive.is/dychh https://archive.is/dychh

lazide 3mo ago
I mean, they evaluated and left? What should they have done, creeped on them as they played?
- vrganj 3mo ago
  I can't help but wonder what skin color those young men had that made the police suspicious in the first place...
  - lazide 3mo ago
    Well, everyone knows white boys can’t jump.
  - stronglikedan 3mo ago
    [flagged]
    - vrganj 3mo ago
      Thanks! It's important to be aware of how unjust an organization who's origins are groups that hunt for escaped slaves is, and how fucked up the way they treat black people is to this very day.
      - deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
  - rationalist 3mo ago
    [flagged]
    - EdwardDiego 3mo ago
      That they're well aware of the well-attested and evidenced prejudices within society in the wide, and law enforcement in the narrow, that are sadly still prevalent in the USA? What does your oddly aggressive reply say about you? Other than your username is at best, aspirational, and good luck with that.
      - deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
    - ceejayoz 3mo ago
      That they're not willfully blind to the reality we live in?
      - akimbostrawman 3mo ago
        You mean the reality of using patterns and data points such as statistics to determine likelihood of danger? Like you and me do every day even if you don't notice? Would the same have happened if they where two women which are statistically less likely to be a danger than men?
        ceejayoz 3mo ago
        Somehow, when it's dark, black and white motorists commit similar levels of traffic offenses, but when it's light out, there's a disparity. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-redu... That's a pattern/data point/statistic, for sure, but I'd happily assert it supports my point effectively.
        pandaman 3mo ago
- fitblipper 3mo ago
  They should have never been deployed to begin with. How expensive are drones? Way less expensive than a police officer. They can be deployed at scale. You can imagine a world where every move everyone makes is tracked. If you don't think public spaces hold any 4th amendment protections, they can also see much better into private property that police officers can't see from the street. Back yard, second story windows, all angles into windows, and that is only considering if they use regular cameras, imagine when they have thermal cameras or other sensors.
- stronglikedan 3mo ago
  They didn't do anything to even be "evaluated", but you already knew that...
- dannyw 3mo ago
  my opinion: we need a lot more context here. It is dystopian to have advanced and arguably “stealth in an urban environment” drones conducting surveillance for benign activities. What was the suspicion? Matching the skin colour of an APB, or something more? I’m sure most people have no problems with drones being used for hot pursuit, appending those charged with murder, etc; but this is highly advanced technology that deserves more scruinty and accountability.
01284a7e 3mo ago
No drone has ever followed me when I am on the way to go play hockey.
- ceejayoz 3mo ago
  How would you know? From the article: > Curry and Robert were struck by the fact that, in all the videos they watched, no one ever looks up at the drone or makes an attempt to hide from it—perhaps evidence that, given their size and altitude, the flying cameras are virtually invisible to the targets of their surveillance. “You’re just watching from above, and no one is aware that the drone is there,” Curry says. “It felt kind of creepy.”
  - joshspankit 3mo ago
    The current reigning social script is that drone enthusiasts are piloting all the drones. I know this will change as articles like this come out but for now the police are in a very convenient bubble of essentially undetectable surveillance
- EdwardDiego 3mo ago
  Yet.
maxlybbert 3mo ago
I don’t understand the problem. Police saw something they thought was suspicious, took a closer look, and then decided there was nothing illegal happening. I don’t think there’s a constitutional right to know when you’re being tailed. Or to be notified every time a police officer does a double-take.
- ceejayoz 3mo ago
  Part of the problem is it leads to stuff like this: https://www.404media.co/footage-shows-cop-stalking-woman-he-met-on-a-tv-set-after-surveilling-her-with-a-license-plate-reader/ https://www.404media.co/footage-shows-cop-stalking-woman-he-... > The cop, Lamar Roman, wasn’t trying to pull over a suspected criminal. He was tracking and chasing a woman that he met and harassed on the set of the AppleTV+ show Bad Monkey, which he had worked a security detail shift on a few weeks prior to pulling her over. After meeting the woman, catcalling her and harassing her for her full name and Instagram details, the cop illegally looked up her vehicle information on DAVID, a Florida Department of Motor Vehicles database for law enforcement. He then put her license plate details on a surveillance “hotlist,” meaning he would get a notification in real time anytime she drove by an AI-powered license plate surveillance camera. Or this: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/georgia-deputy-charged-with-using-flock-camera-personally-track-license-plates/VU5BJAI4VNBRFCLV7PDNHHOCOM/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/georgia-deputy-charged-with... Or this: https://fox11online.com/news/crime/tehrangi-chapman-milwaukee-police-department-detective-flock-cameras-license-plater-readers-stalking-misconduct-public-office-criminal-charge https://fox11online.com/news/crime/tehrangi-chapman-milwauke... Or this: https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/10/pasadena-police-sergeant-resigns-while-under-internal-investigation-council-member-cites-alleged-misuse-of-flock-camer/ https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/10/pasadena...
  - maxlybbert 3mo ago
    That’s a valid concern. Of course, the example chosen for the article didn’t involve anybody abusing their authority. It involved police doing what I’d expect them to do. But I’ll acknowledge that if all of the relevant details were different, then I’d also be concerned.
cyanydeez 3mo ago
>suspicious person in a vehicle suspicious; odds of it just being a minority? 1:100.

by dannyw 3mo ago

lazide 3mo ago

I mean, they evaluated and left? What should they have done, creeped on them as they played?

vrganj 3mo ago
I can't help but wonder what skin color those young men had that made the police suspicious in the first place...
- lazide 3mo ago
  Well, everyone knows white boys can’t jump.
- stronglikedan 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - vrganj 3mo ago
    Thanks! It's important to be aware of how unjust an organization who's origins are groups that hunt for escaped slaves is, and how fucked up the way they treat black people is to this very day.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
- rationalist 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - EdwardDiego 3mo ago
    That they're well aware of the well-attested and evidenced prejudices within society in the wide, and law enforcement in the narrow, that are sadly still prevalent in the USA? What does your oddly aggressive reply say about you? Other than your username is at best, aspirational, and good luck with that.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
  - ceejayoz 3mo ago
    That they're not willfully blind to the reality we live in?
    - akimbostrawman 3mo ago
      You mean the reality of using patterns and data points such as statistics to determine likelihood of danger? Like you and me do every day even if you don't notice? Would the same have happened if they where two women which are statistically less likely to be a danger than men?
      - ceejayoz 3mo ago
        Somehow, when it's dark, black and white motorists commit similar levels of traffic offenses, but when it's light out, there's a disparity. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-redu... That's a pattern/data point/statistic, for sure, but I'd happily assert it supports my point effectively.
        pandaman 3mo ago
fitblipper 3mo ago
They should have never been deployed to begin with. How expensive are drones? Way less expensive than a police officer. They can be deployed at scale. You can imagine a world where every move everyone makes is tracked. If you don't think public spaces hold any 4th amendment protections, they can also see much better into private property that police officers can't see from the street. Back yard, second story windows, all angles into windows, and that is only considering if they use regular cameras, imagine when they have thermal cameras or other sensors.
stronglikedan 3mo ago
They didn't do anything to even be "evaluated", but you already knew that...
dannyw 3mo ago
my opinion: we need a lot more context here. It is dystopian to have advanced and arguably “stealth in an urban environment” drones conducting surveillance for benign activities. What was the suspicion? Matching the skin colour of an APB, or something more? I’m sure most people have no problems with drones being used for hot pursuit, appending those charged with murder, etc; but this is highly advanced technology that deserves more scruinty and accountability.

01284a7e 3mo ago

No drone has ever followed me when I am on the way to go play hockey.

ceejayoz 3mo ago
How would you know? From the article: > Curry and Robert were struck by the fact that, in all the videos they watched, no one ever looks up at the drone or makes an attempt to hide from it—perhaps evidence that, given their size and altitude, the flying cameras are virtually invisible to the targets of their surveillance. “You’re just watching from above, and no one is aware that the drone is there,” Curry says. “It felt kind of creepy.”
- joshspankit 3mo ago
  The current reigning social script is that drone enthusiasts are piloting all the drones. I know this will change as articles like this come out but for now the police are in a very convenient bubble of essentially undetectable surveillance
EdwardDiego 3mo ago
Yet.

maxlybbert 3mo ago

I don’t understand the problem. Police saw something they thought was suspicious, took a closer look, and then decided there was nothing illegal happening. I don’t think there’s a constitutional right to know when you’re being tailed. Or to be notified every time a police officer does a double-take.

ceejayoz 3mo ago
Part of the problem is it leads to stuff like this: https://www.404media.co/footage-shows-cop-stalking-woman-he-met-on-a-tv-set-after-surveilling-her-with-a-license-plate-reader/ https://www.404media.co/footage-shows-cop-stalking-woman-he-... > The cop, Lamar Roman, wasn’t trying to pull over a suspected criminal. He was tracking and chasing a woman that he met and harassed on the set of the AppleTV+ show Bad Monkey, which he had worked a security detail shift on a few weeks prior to pulling her over. After meeting the woman, catcalling her and harassing her for her full name and Instagram details, the cop illegally looked up her vehicle information on DAVID, a Florida Department of Motor Vehicles database for law enforcement. He then put her license plate details on a surveillance “hotlist,” meaning he would get a notification in real time anytime she drove by an AI-powered license plate surveillance camera. Or this: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/georgia-deputy-charged-with-using-flock-camera-personally-track-license-plates/VU5BJAI4VNBRFCLV7PDNHHOCOM/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/georgia-deputy-charged-with... Or this: https://fox11online.com/news/crime/tehrangi-chapman-milwaukee-police-department-detective-flock-cameras-license-plater-readers-stalking-misconduct-public-office-criminal-charge https://fox11online.com/news/crime/tehrangi-chapman-milwauke... Or this: https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/10/pasadena-police-sergeant-resigns-while-under-internal-investigation-council-member-cites-alleged-misuse-of-flock-camer/ https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/10/pasadena...
- maxlybbert 3mo ago
  That’s a valid concern. Of course, the example chosen for the article didn’t involve anybody abusing their authority. It involved police doing what I’d expect them to do. But I’ll acknowledge that if all of the relevant details were different, then I’d also be concerned.

cyanydeez 3mo ago

>suspicious person in a vehicle suspicious; odds of it just being a minority? 1:100.