Use of drones inthe US

We had talked about this before.here is an article for Dec 2011 detailing the actual use of a drone in conjunction with law enforcement. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211

So what's the issue?

We were talking about the use of drones in the US. Most of us thought that it is not only seems wrong from a domestic spying stand point and we know that if they have it they will abuse it...it also seems a bit unsafe.  Wha tif they lose control of a drone in a big city and it crashes into a building full of people. So what's the issue?

I would personally say it raises 4th amendment issues. I'd be interested to know if any of these platforms contain SIGINT gear as well. > > So what's the issue?

what's the difference between a drone flying about and a cop on the beat? ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: > > what's the difference between a drone flying about and a cop on the beat? > The drones are looking for Sarah Connor....? It's a little eerie, actually, the similarity to some of these drones and the flying death robots from Skynet.

It's the abilities to see in places a cop on the street may not be able to see.  One example is you could be in your backyard, behind a fence, smoking a joint and a cop on the street may not see you, but a drone flying 2 miles up will.  Imagine you have a fairly private back yard where no one can see you from outside of your property...none of the neighbors houses are all enough to se in, you are relatively secure in that you have complete privacy in your back yard.  So it's a nice day out and you and your spouse/significant other are working in the back yard and you have a Cialis moment.  Under normal circumstance, you have no worries about becoming the next new amateur porn stars...with a drone...well say cheese... It's some of the same concerns people bring up about having cameras on every street corner.  Big brother is watching. what's the difference between a drone flying about and a cop on the beat? ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

that makes sense. the person in their back yard has a reasonable sense of privacy. Now what if its a rape or murder? ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: > that makes sense. the person in their back yard has a reasonable sense > of privacy. Now what if its a rape or murder? > Cops don't care about rape and murder, only drugs and national security.

just trying to understand the boundaries of acceptable use here. What you're mentioning is similar to the police using IR systems to discover grow operations. I could be wrong about this but my flawed memory says that such a system was OK to use. In that case dones are just a logical extension. On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Casey Dougall - Uber Website Solutions <casey@uberwebsitesolutions.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I don't think it's right on any level, not even to find grow operations, which shouldn't be illegal in the first place. On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Grow operations on public lands with booby traps and armed guards should be illegal. That's the problem we have with forests in Oregon, at least. But, yes, in general I agree with you that growing shouldn't be illegal. Judah ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I agree with that, and I have seen some stories about them in national parks and the like. They would dry up quick enough if we could get some common sense drug laws on the books, or even just reschedule marijuana. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I think most people have objections to that as well. just trying to understand the boundaries of acceptable use here. What you're mentioning is similar to the police using IR systems to discover grow operations. I could be wrong about this but my flawed memory says that such a system was OK to use. In that case dones are just a logical extension. > > On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> that makes sense. the person in their back yard has a reasonable sense > of privacy. Now what if its a rape or murder? The crime, to me, does not matter. It's the judicial approval process (or general lack there of). You could have a cop do a drive by of the house that cops have some suspicions about without raising much of a civil liberties concern. Hell, probably ask a car from each shift to drive by and keep an eye out on the way back to the precinct and not need a warrant. Now contrast this with a drone. You can have a drone do continuous monitoring of a house for 20 hours non-stop (according to the linked article). It is my understanding that newer generations of drones can go for days at a time. They are recording high resolution video footage and heat sensor information at the very least. I'd personally bet on LIDAR (ground penetrating radar) and directional audio mics plus a bunch of stuff I don't even know about. And it's all invisible to the naked eye. And currently done without a warrant. And there aren't any rules on how long agencies get to keep all the raw data. Or who it gets shared with. Or how to exclude information about people who aren't an investigation target. All that last stuff? That's what I have a problem with. It's technology jumped way ahead of law, once again. I'm not opposed to judicious use of drones for very specific monitoring situations as long as there is a warrant process, judicial oversight of evidence collection and firm rules on evidence usage and sharing with substantial penalties for overstepping bounds. The legal framework needs to come back to the forefront and we need to build out a first-principles based legal notion of a right to privacy and a frame work for strong protection of 4th amendment rights in a modern technological society. Until we get there, we need to push back, hard, on every little potential encroachment because it has been shown time and again that even the smallest leeway will result in our rights headed to a black site somewhere. Judah

Much more eloquent than I could hope to be. Thanks. On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Judah McAuley <judah@wiredotter.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

This is what I do not understand. Why are they approving the use of new technology, without also changing the laws governing rights to privacy and civil rights to include these new technologies? Why rush ahead to update one and leave the other languishing or untouched? On 30 May 2012 11:46, Judah McAuley <judah@wiredotter.com> wrote: > > And it's all invisible to the naked eye. And currently done without a > warrant. And there aren't any rules on how long agencies get to keep > all the raw data. Or who it gets shared with. Or how to exclude > information about people who aren't an investigation target. > >

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Vivec <gel214th@gmail.com> wrote: > Why are they approving the use of new technology, without also changing > the laws governing rights to privacy and civil rights to include these > new technologies? > Why rush ahead to update one and leave the other languishing or untouched? If you are waiting for lawmakers to catch up to technological innovation, you will be waiting a very very long time. -Cameron -- Cameron Childress -- p:   678.637.5072 im: cameroncf facebook <http://www.facebook.com/cameroncf>; | twitter<http://twitter.com/cameronc>; | google+ <https://profiles.google.com/u/0/117829379451708140985>;

Because the decision to approve the use of new technology is largely budgetary in nature, so generally an easier decision than the complex discussion that has to go into a well thought out approach to balancing privacy concerns with law enforcement efficacy. When "the good guys" say that they'll use a shiny new piece of equipment to do a better job of defeating "the bad guys", it's easy to say yes and hard to say no. Judah On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 6:46 AM, Vivec <gel214th@gmail.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

simple idea, until the law can catch up with the technology there's a gaping hole that can be exploited. It happened with telephones and the telegraph, so the same works with modern tech. On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Vivec <gel214th@gmail.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

So in cases of rape and murder we waive our 4th amendment rights? On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

The cop can't see over your fence? The cop doesn't have IR/UV/Thermal vision? On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> The cop can't see over your fence? > > The cop doesn't have IR/UV/Thermal vision? I am pretty sure that Atlanta's PD helicopter has all of these capabilities. -Cameron ...

As am I. I'm not a huge fan of them either. On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Cameron Childress <cameronc@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> As am I. > > I'm not a huge fan of them either. Fair enough. I find a helicopter to be a much closer comparable to drones then a ground unit. -Cameron ...

Helicopters, however, are pretty visible and audible and they aren't able to keep the same place in surveillance for 20 hours on end. Pretty significant difference in scope there. Judah On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Camer ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> Helicopters, however, are pretty visible and audible and they aren't > able to keep the same place in surveillance for 20 hours on end. > Pretty significant difference in scope there. True, but closer than a car. Unless you're talking about the Delorean from Back to the Future. But then if you could travel through time, why would you need a drone? Then you could go back in time and meet Stewie Griffin's alter ego, Stu. This logic simply cannot be argued with. -Cameron ...

Didn't you see the episode of Harry's Law where she shot one down because it was spying on the wrong house? They had a court case about using the drone to find the teacher making porn movies to help her income since teaching doesn't pay much. We had talked about this before.here is an article for Dec 2011 detailing the actual use of a drone in conjunction with law enforcement. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211