from deconstruct@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 2023 00:36
https://lemm.ee/post/6222940
The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.
“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.
The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.
“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”
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Ah, it wouldn’t be the police if they didn’t try to violate people’s rights before lawmakers can tell them no.
They shoud have to fire and not rehire half the police force every time this kind of thing haopens
There’s a book I think everyone should read, and it’s not Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
I always think Fahrenheit 451 is more appropriate. They’re all about banning books after all.
America in general, yes; but I thought NY was one of the nice places?
America in general, yes; but I thought NY was one of the nice places?
NYPD is one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet.
You control the airspace of your property, I don’t think they can legally fly over without permission.
No, you don't. Not in the sense that you can prevent overflight. The FAA certainly isn't going to let you stop plans from flying over your house.
True but you may be able to get a judge to agree that it can’t be used as evidence in court.
Also, a drone hovering high over the street can probably see your back yard just as well as if it was hovering directly over your property.
Sorry what’s the problem with a party?
the way folks in the city throw them, sometimes, there are more problems than party
Belive me, I agree that there are a lot of shitheads in the world that make it a crappy place to live.
But I still think this kind of surveillance is overreach. The people doing the surveilling are not good people either.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
in a city whose physical geography is small in comparison to the enormity of humanity crammed into it, everyone's gotta behave or people die. simple as that. say what you like, but the communities must be policed, and if police can't see what you're doing if there's a problem or emergency, from the street, then air it is
Might as well preemptively lock everyone in a cell. That’d be the safest way to do it.
I think it is country what is wrong, where Declaration of Human Rights used as toilet paper.
See: article 20(relevant to topic) and article 3(irrelevant to topic)
I would guess that when people start calling the cops to complain about an assembly, the assembly is no longer considered peaceful.
It doesn’t work this way. At least normally.
If you’re too loud, the cops may issue a citation, and ask you to be quieter. They do not typically dissolve the assembly.
Is it illegal to have house parties in NYC? Why is the NYPD busting up keggers like campus police?
It becomes illegal when there are too many people there, or there is violence, underage drinking, drug usage, and if it's too loud, the attendees are parking in the street blocking traffic, fire risks all sorts of shit
So the cops and fuck with your backyard party if you smoke a joint?
How would a drone know? Other than capacity and street violations, there’s nothing that a drone should realistically be able to identify.
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I think the drone operators would do the identifying part
Joint? Nah, hard drugs, fo sho (unless you are a billionaire).
How they will distinguish cigaretes, joints and hard drugs?
Skin color
What a waste of time and resources.
no, as grass is legal in nyc now, but if you're blowing lines and smoking crack, trippin balls, or tweakin, they probably should, you know, for the kids in the neighborhood you nincompoop
Stfu. No.
They are not responding to complains, they are searching themselves
Are they doing this in white, affluent communities?
We should try to make them
Those sound like things they need a warrant to learn about in a place with a reasonable expectation of privacy.
That’s all stuff people can call the cops for, no need for surveillance.
So you didn’t read the article?
They say ‘if a caller reports a large crowd, they’ll send a drone’, not ‘if a crime is reported’. That’s still surveillance, being in a large crowd isn’t a crime by itself.
It was an incomplete article that did not properly explain what the supposed legitimate issue is.
So people having fun is a problem for you lol
someone should manufacture net launchers for cheaper than $1,000 on average.
How is this the bottom comment right now?
I think the probability of the cops catching you using a net launcher is too high.
I think a diy directional emp would be a better choice. https://techlinkcenter.org/news/heres-the-armys-now-patented-emp-rifle-attachment-for-taking-out-small-drones#!
For the more technically inclined, I would imagine something like a software defined radio with a powerful transmitter could take control of the drone and go park it in the Hudson.
I'm pretty sure all of these options are highly illegal. So this is just for informational purposes only. :)
i hope they can be dazzled/jammed in a way that is not illegal. just have bright lamps pointing up or something
Or slingshot it, then claim you thought it was a perv and not a cop drone because they have no discernable markings from so far up.
I like this one, it's difficult to blame anyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIOh9-RoAaE
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): piped.video/watch?v=NIOh9-RoAaE
piped.video/watch?v=NIOh9-RoAaE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Based on the amount of Ukraine drone strike videos I've seen, these things are near unnoticeable as high up as they are.
Just FYI, interfering with any drone, even a hobbyist drone flown by a perv spying on you, is a VERY serious crime. The FAA doesn't fuck around with that, because drones are considered aircraft under their jurisdiction. They'll go after you as hard as they would if you took down a fully-occupied 747.
More often than not, you'll get in worse trouble for interfering with a drone than the pilot will for whatever crimes they may be committing with it. It's not worth it. Your best bet is to just report it and go inside.
I mean, one kills people, that seems like it would be treated different
Any object falling uncontrollably out of the sky can kill somebody.
Helium balloons and fishimg line
Jamming may cause problems with FCC
This all seems stupid.
If you have a party big and crazy enough to justify airborne surveillance, the police will be able to figure it out just by showing up at your door. No drones are needed.
That being said, NYC has been flying helicopters for decades, so really nothing new privacy wise other than the size of the aircraft and the fact that “drone” invokes fears that drive clicks.
Use your own drone to say hi…
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This is as bad as Russia. Or even worse. Congrats on achieving new bottom.
oh no is russia
Russia doesn’t control party sizes.
Still bitter that they were never invited to any parties in high school and college. Seriously though, they need to back the fuck up. We have an amendment that requires them to get a warrant to spy on us on our own property or in our own house. Civil liberties groups need to stop raising questions and sue the fuck out of the police, judges, Mayor, and legislature. I hope someone knocks those drones out of the air. This kind of shit is infuriating. And no this isn’t a sci-fi scenario, this is a clear and present dystopia.
Is it illegal to blind drone cameras with lasers yet?
I wouldn’t risk life in prison to find out, they might just call the drone a helicopter to arrest you
Edit: To be clear, fuck the police and their spy toys. I just don’t wanna get caught doing something that will ruin my life, and I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
They’ll try destruction of property charges
Yes, the FAA treats it as a serious violation.
Reading comments defending cops for launching drones to surveill people in their homes really boosts my morning faith in humanity.
I’m not from US - why is it forbidden to have a large group of people in the backyard?
As for the drones - just wow…
Probably due to the lead up to 9/11
It isn’t.
But, you see, yes, all.
It’s not forbidden.
Any excuse to use surveillance cameras to spy on people will be used. It’s not forbidden to have a party, but the shithead cops want to spy on people anyway just in case they might catch them breaking some laws.
There is also a nationwide program being implemented to feed the video from private security cameras into police surveillance systems. It’s called FUSUS and they use equipment installed in private networks to upload the private security cameras’ video to the police surveillance systems. Lots of people are signing on to this horrific program - businesses, schools, churches, community centers, etc. The police can use it to track people with video surveillance without a warrant. Security cameras anywhere you go could be potentially tapped into by government authorities to monitor you. It’s already all over the USA and being rolled out in the UK now too.
Just as it is in the UK with their surveillance cameras everywhere, this is the future that George Orwell tried to warn us about.
It’s not forbidden. This is a huge overstep by the police but typical of American police, who are allowed to violate our civil rights with impunity.
Yeah this is nothing compared to shooting people.
what a crazy abuse of power and resources fuck the police
Easy fix. Take a picture of the ground, using a drone. Then get a big marquee and have that picture painted on the marquee.
Your party is now invisible.
easy
Pervert cops hate this one simple trick.
This was actually done for entire blocks during WWII, specifically in Southern California where aerospace design & mfg companies where located. The covers were painted to look like dirt lots or undeveloped spaces to hide the actual buildings & roads from potential aerial assaults.
Seems a great use of an anti drone gun
For people wanting to take down drones, I think a directed energy weapon would work. It uses a beam high frequency radio waves or microwaves to disable electronics. Since there’s no projectile, it would be easier to use without getting caught.
The inverse square law will ensure that anything you have that's powerful enough to disable a drone in flight will be at least the size of a semi truck.
Electromagnetic radiation is great for communication, not so much energy transfer.
The military already uses such devices. They look like bulky sci-fi rifles and are quite man-portable. They aren’t frying the drone, they just need to send a signal stronger than its control signal so the inverse square law works in its favor.
Are they legal in the US?
As long as you don’t use them, sure. They are composed of basic parts, just well adjusted to the purpose. But if you do decide do use them, be aware that you cannot interfere with any radio communications in any way and/or destroy someone’s property. Which does not mean I am against shooting down someone’s drone on your property that is spying you, it’s just not really legal per se.
There are already effective “guns” for jamming drones that are the size of a large rifle.
We can shape EM “beams” – lasers, directional antennas, etc. Inverse square law is far less of a concern for collimated beams.
Yeah my initial response to the dispersal problem is to see if we can’t weaponize Pringles can WiFi into something that can either physically disable the electronics or interrupt communication between the spybot and home base.
Inb4 someone gets charged with assaulting an officer for being impolite to an NYPD robot
I have a dream of engineering a drone to hover while it engages an rf jammer for some set amount of time.
Unless someone would stumble upon a combination of microwave magnetron that “just so happens” to fit a satellite dish LNC mount. I can neither confirm nor deny that such combinations might exist.
It certainly would seem a very good way to impart… “energy” into all and sundry besides the intended target, and as such horribly dangerous and irresponsible.
The inverse square law only applies to undirected things, because the surface area of a sphere is proportional to the square of radius. The parent specified directed, like a laser.
Then you will get the FAA and FCC involved.
Got it.
Land of the not even slightly free.
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Every day I thank god I live down here in Florida and not that shithole up north
They totally won’t use this to perv on girls sunning themselves on their private property. They have already been busted multiple times perving on girls walking in midtown but they would never do anything like that again and again and again.
So I’ve installed and operated PTZ cameras for multiple television shows and events, sometimes with junior operators - or just production assistants or other crew. These are in places where people know cameras are present. I can guarantee it doesn’t take long for people at the camera control unit to learn they can zoom in on people’s phones on set or follow girls around - and these are all professional people.
Cops with a drone that can zoom in on people unwittingly, in their back yards?! Oh, they are certainly going to do shit like this, or worse - they’ll likely record for themselves.
Oh no, not a large crowd on private property - this deservers police spying! /S
I be establishing an anti drone firing squad in NYC. We will shoot down any law enforcement drones we find. Fuck the NYPD. fuck the mayor. If your drone flies over my property in NYC it will be shot lol.
The faa regulates air traffic .including drones. You shoot down an nypd drone, you’re gunna get the feds involved.
You know i’m not a fan of guns but this makes me think about buying an anti aircraft weapon…
Breaking federal laws doesn’t sound like a good way to do anything but go straight to federal prison. The FAA laws on shooting down aircraft are pretty serious.
What about accidentally spraying them with a hose?
This is a perfect example of something unethical being lawful. Should we break unethical laws?
Just get an anti-drone eagle
Better: We will train the america (i think it’s a bald eagle) eagle to take down a drone. The FAA can’t do shit, the cops can’t (legally) do shit about the eagle and the drone will at worst sustain some damage.
Remember when bill of rights?
Replace drone with helicopter and this isn’t tech news. This isn’t any different a tactic, either.
A helicopter is very obvious when it’s nearby, a drone is far less so. One could be watching you right now and you probably wouldn’t know unless you were looking for it.