

Bay Area sheriff seeks drone for thermal imaging and surveillance - truebecomefalse
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2012/oct/19/alameda-county-sheriff-seeks-drone-thermal-imaging/

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lsiebert
Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose
of such a drone. Growers may insulate their walls, but probably have not done
so with their ceilings.

Of course people with terrariums and other heat sources may be victims in the
cross fire of the War on Drugs.

Incidentally, afaik, current US law says aircraft must fly five hundred feet
above any man made structure. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights>

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refurb
There was a Supreme Court decision that said thermal imaging of a person's
home is a "search" and requires a warrant.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States>

Before this decision they could do a thermal image of your home and if it gave
off a certain heat signature, the police could use that a probably cause to
get a warrant to search the home.

Now, they need a warrant just to do the thermal imaging.

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ihsw
But is it enforced?

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refurb
Not sure what you mean by "enforced".

Do cops currently do thermal scans of random citizen's homes? Probably.

Can they go to a judge and say "the thermal scan says this house has a
marijuana grow-op in it, give me a warrant"? No.

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jrs235
But they can file bogus paperwork saying an informant told an officer that the
house has drugs in order to get a warrant.

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ck2
If people aren't up in arms about the TSA at airports groping them, they sure
aren't going to do a darn thing about drones watching them.

Police know people are lazy and/or complacent.

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ChuckMcM
I wonder what sort of shotgun load you need to take out a drone, would that be
more like a pheasant or a goose load?

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sukuriant
The drone will probably be considered a military officer just like dogs.
Either that, or it's the same as shooting a police officer's car when he's not
in it. Don't forget about the consequences.

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ChuckMcM
Probably correct. And probably a bad idea to blind it with laser pointers too.
But as a person concerned with the continuing erosion of civil liberties I get
a bit frustrated.

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ams6110
Prediction: it will be shot down within the first month of operation.

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softbuilder
I'm sure it will be shot _at_. Shooting something _down_ is pretty hard.

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wyclif
I predict the first US citizen to shoot down one of these will instantly
become a folk hero.

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ww520
Plenty of drones with camera are available. The problem usually is the length
of time they can stay up there. Battery power has not caught up with the
current demand.

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theevocater
stuff like this really drives home my fear of a dystopian future where police
bots patrol the skies using all sorts of cameras and sensors to find 'the bad
guys'. Facial recognition, thermal cameras, speech patterns and other tech we
haven't even though of yet all used to find 'Bad People'. Creepy.

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jeffool
Casual use of thermal cameras is indeed too much (and as someone else pointed
out, illegal.) Other things, like matching faces, speech, or even listening in
public places, seem fine to me. (Someone else pointed to laws about flying so
low, but if that can be worked around...) I know that's a popular image, but,
if this is a new tool for officers patrolling, then I don't see what's so
dystopian about this.

As long as we're not talking about cutting other officers and patrols, I would
fully support police stations hiring a couple of people to alternate flying a
dozen or so drones around the city. Just put some charging stations on top of
light poles or city buildings, and have them automated to fly back when power
is sufficiently low.

I really don't get why people are averse to such things so long as we keep in
mind that they are tools are to help people. They're not magic robots that can
not completely take the place of people. If we ever get to a point where it
even seems like that, then that's another conversation to have. But we're not
there yet, and I see no reason to not use tools if they seem worthwhile.

/edit: I understand that any tool can be abused, but can someone explain to me
why this is met with such anger? Barring thermal or other vision modes, what's
the huge difference in this and patrolling? (Aside from not being seen.)

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theevocater
Constant surveillance is one of those societal boundaries where the line is
hard to find. We all agree that public spaces are... public but if a plane can
follow everywhere you go and record all of it, you start to get into weird
creepy stalker territory. If that plane is controlled by the state then it is
doubly creepy.

There aren't easy answers but it ultimately goes back to the 'Why do you need
to hide anything if you don't do anything bad?' argument. And we already know
plenty of answers to that argument.

