

EFF Demands Answers About Predator Drone Flights in the U.S. - ari_elle
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-demands-answers-about-predator-drone-flights-us

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_djo_
I still think that by focusing on drones as a unique form of surveillance the
focus is being diverted.

In concept there's no difference between a police department flying a
helicopter with an electro-optical surveillance turret and it flying a UAV
equipped with the same. Why is one ok but the other not? It can't be about
UAVs flying higher up so they can't be seen or heard, as helicopters are
becoming quieter and sensors better so that they can view scenes from much
further away without being heard either.

Similarly there are vehicle-mounted optronics masts available to police
departments that can capture video footage of areas kilometres away. I know of
an arrest and successful prosecution that happened recently in South Africa
that relied on video of a crime that was captured by one of these vehicles 3.5
km from the scene.

The real issue here is persistent video (mostly aerial) surveillance,
something which has theoretically been possible with police helicopters until
now but has not been done because the logistics make it impossible. That will
not necessarily remain true forever.

Fact is UAVs will be used by police departments under the same authorisation
and rules that make it legal to use helicopters, purely because the cost and
flexibility will be irresistible, so trying to ban the domestic use of UAVs is
doomed to fail.

Instead, there should be public pressure to strongly regulate how, when and
where police departments can collect video and what they're allowed to do with
it. That will have the benefit of not only restricting what police UAVs can do
but also police helicopters and vehicle-mounted optronics masts.

~~~
wladimir
I kind of agree. Personally I have no problems with drones being used where
police helicopters are now. It's cheaper, safer, and probably more effective
too.

 _However_ , and this is a big issue, drones are thus cheap making it possible
to use them much more than police helicopters are now. It's just hardware, you
can buy a lot of it. I dread thinking about a future where drones will be
swarming everywhere, collecting information aspecifically, to collect and
process and find every tiny violation, obliterating any sense of privacy.

I agree that's not a technology problem. And regulating technology won't solve
it. But it should not be ignored either. Advancing technology does open a lot
of debates about what we want life to be really like. A much-heard argument
against a 1984-like scenario in the 80's used to be "it's too expensive". It
isn't anymore. And drones are only a small part of that.

~~~
_djo_
Agreed. As I said I think the problem is one of persistent surveillance. This
is only going to get worse as technology develops and it becomes possible for
governments and police departments to deploy hundreds or thousands of insect-
sized drones through our cities.

That's why I think focusing on drones obscures the real issue and makes it
more difficult to have the serious and very necessary debate about whether we
want to live in societies where the state is able to track you persistently in
any public space.

We already have the beginnings of something similar in cities like London,
where thousands of CCTV cameras are every bit as invasive of our privacy as a
police drone flying overhead would be.

In other words this battle against the police use of drones like the Predator
could be 'won' and it would probably not make any difference to the police's
ability to track you with video and audio surveillance.

~~~
wladimir
Yes, I think the underlying reason that drones are brought into these kind of
discussions is because people are terrified of armed drones, especially
autonomous ones. They make war cheap in the same way as CCTVs make
surveillance cheap. But that's a completely different issue and shouldn't
distract from the domestic surveillance one which is (at the moment) much more
pressing.

------
ck2
They already said they are just going to put commercial airtraffic beacons on
the drones.

Of course then certain law enforcement types who feel they are above any law
(ie. most of them) will disconnect or disable them.

After they accidentally kill people it will be written off as the cost of
enforcing the law, ala the nightmare of the TSA which everyone seems to put up
with for some unknown reason.

Remember this phrase in a few years "drones, oh well what can you do, fact of
life, they make me feel safer".

BTW, federal courts have already said it's legal for cops to put cameras on
your property without a warrant, so a drone is just an extension of that.

Hopefully the video on the drones won't go accidentally missing after they
raid the wrong home and kill your dog while they arrest you for resisting
arrest.

~~~
jsight
I find parts of this comment to be unnecessarily paranoid. One of the major
challenges for getting UAVs into the national airspace system is to integrate
them with existing air traffic rules and systems.

Beyond that, I don't see them physically being treated much differently from
traditional police helicopters. I don't really see any evidence that police
are disconnecting the transponders on those either.

OTOH, I do have some concerns about the massive increase in numbers that these
may bring, due to the decreased cost. It seems to open up some avenues for
abuse.

~~~
jsymolon
Another item is that the drones are very cheap to operate for long periods.
Where a helicopter needs re-fueling and maintenance after x number of hours of
flight, drones can fly for days(?).

~~~
_djo_
The maintenance needs of drones are the same or higher than comparable manned
aircraft, so they're subject to the same restrictions. What they have is long
endurance, which is really measured in hours not days for the size of drones
that police want to operate, but then that's little different to the endurance
of police fixed-wing aircraft.

In fact, in most cases drones are actually _more_ expensive to buy and operate
than fixed-wing surveillance aircraft, because their control systems are more
sophisticated and require more maintenance, they need expensive ground
stations which themselves require constant maintenance, they need dedicated
comms links which also need maintenance and they can't fly in bad weather.

In the short to medium term I fully expect the police fascination with drones
to recede dramatically once they realise just how expensive they really are.
Sticking a pilot and observer in a helicopter or fixed-wing plane with an
electro-optical turret is often a lot cheaper.

------
BUGHUNTER
Programmers should just obey! Do not think about the orders you get! Are you a
good patriot or are you against us?!? Do not criticize your leaders! OBEY!

Build a startup, try to get rich, and never ever talk about anything serious!

~~~
_djo_
What's that all about? The fact that this story has been voted so far up the
front page indicates that HN's readers believe it's a serious issue worth
reading about and discussing.

~~~
wladimir
He's not trying to illustrate what HN readers think, but the mindset of people
that try to use technology for purposes of control. Either by having
programmers build software for surveillance tech, or by making them build
backdoors into other software making surveillance possible. Even though we
(collectively, as technologists) make this all possible, we hardly have a say
how it will be used, even against ourselves.

~~~
_djo_
That's what I thought he was talking about until I got to his second
paragraph, which seems HN-specific.

~~~
cynoclast
It isn't HN-specific.

It is about how we all individually see the problem, but do nothing about. It
is a choice. Be a cog in the machine that makes your life livable, but makes
everyone's just a little bit worse by doing so instead of trying to change the
system.

A single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood.

If we all, just the technologists all got together and said, hey, quit it with
that war shit and refused to make new or maintain old war making machines, war
would end almost immediately. But the system has made the consequences of an
individual or a minority doing that disastrously bad for them if they do it
alone. It is a cage of fear. Legitimate fear. Fear of what would happen if we
end up standing alone in our rebellion.

But we don't. We read HN and talk about making money. And that economic
output, that money will be used against us to make things worse for everybody
but the plutocracy that controls the political duopoly.

~~~
Hannan
How would that work? As in, what percentage of the technologists would need to
agree to that to have it happen?

It seems to me (with my extremely limited view of economics), that it would
just create shortage of supply, and so the technologists that would continue
to participate would make a _lot_ more money. That in turn would make it more
difficult for the techs that might agree with your position, but are currently
in dismal financial circumstances for whatever reason, to refuse to
create/maintain the "war machines."

Perhaps I'm too pessimistic, and am the problem you're speaking of. But it
seems like a "boil the ocean" proposition to me, at least from any way I can
try to envision it happening.

~~~
wladimir
Perhaps putting a social stigma on the people that do 'cooporate with the war
machine' could avoid that, similar to that on people that work even though a
certain group is on strike. I'm pretty pessimistic as well, but I don't think
it's impossible. A group can collectively bargain for rights, it would not be
the first time in history that happens.

------
thwest
Anyone tried to find themselves in the publicly available UAV surveillance
data? <https://www.sdms.afrl.af.mil/index.php?collection=csuav>

------
cynoclast
I know this is childish, but all I can think about it is, how if we slide much
further into tyranny how fun it is going to be to shoot down everybody's
unmanned drones in defense of freedom.

------
abecedarius
I keep reading of lawsuits over FOIA requests; has it become a norm to ignore
the requests until someone shows they really mean it? Has anyone faced
significant consequences for stalling?

------
mtgx
And none of the 2 candidates will accept discussing this, which means most of
the people will be unaware of it.

~~~
venus
"It's not red vs. blue, it's purple vs. you"

~~~
cynoclast
The choice between Democrat and Republican is not freedom, it is a box to
contain you.

------
dguido
Why are predator drone flights on the agenda for the EFF? I thought they were
about "your right's online"? Did they stop working on those issues? Problem
solved, let's move on to drone flights?

If I cared about these issues, I would donate my money to someone else. If I
care about my right's online, now I'm not sure who is supporting them because
it doesn't seem to be the EFF...

~~~
JakeSc
I think you're being downvoted because people disagree with you. The EFF,
being the _Electronic_ Frontier Foundation, aims "increase popular
understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in
computing and telecommunications." [1]

The issue of drone flights and privacy absolutely relates to the mission of
the EFF.

[1] See the EFF mission statement at:
<http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/SJG/?f=eff_creation.html>

~~~
GHFigs
It's much easier to understand the EFF if you recognize them as a libertarian
organization at heart.

------
cafard
Doesn't "Predator" suggest "armed"? Not that surveillance shouldn't be kept
within very strict limits.

~~~
_djo_
No. The Predator as first designed was an unarmed reconnaissance UAV and it
did not carry weapons when it entered service in 1995. It was modified to
carry and fire Hellfire missiles in 2001 and first flew with them
operationally over Afghanistan late that year.

The 'Predator' moniker likely referred to the UAV's role in hunting down
targets through surveillance, especially as there was no intention to develop
an armed version when it first entered service. That need only arose after the
US's experience in the Balkans in the late '90s.

------
goatforce5
Floating speed/red light cameras in the sky!

