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New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns (apnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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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[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago

I miss the early 2000s WokFi craze -- wifi and cheap off-the-shelf solutions are so widespread these days.

I used to "borrow" internet from the library that was 2 miles away. I waterproofed a USB wifi dongle and zip tied it to the feedhorn of an old Direct TV dish. I brought the setup anytime we had a LAN party at a house that didn't have broadband internet.