This short piece talks about current trends in using drones for law enforcement. The author follows some of the concerns highlighted by the group that presented its proposal in class today.
Even though drones are praised as useful tools for fighting crime, several cities, as Seattle, have pushback its use due to legal an cultural issues.
Its interesting to wonder why drone surveillance is seen as more controversial than surveillance from a helicopter, It might that the high cost of helicopter surveillance prevents police departments from abusing their capabilities. The low cost of drones may allow large cities to have “eyes in the sky” everywhere. While such a policy may be extremely unpopular today, I could see it becoming an issue within the next few decades.
The idea to use drones in law enforcement is a great idea. But, there are so many questions and unattended aspects of it, that people are wary. I think that once people can see the benefits and restraints of the practice, drones will be adopted in more jurisdictions.
I feel like this is the start of a Blackmirror episode. Like, it sounds amazing and I’m all for it, but I’m worried about privacy concerns and living in a creepy dystopian future where Big Brother is always present. In other news, sounds like people like drones!
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/police-drones/553406/
Thanks for sharing, I think this is precisely why smart state legislation such as the model bill we proposed in class is important. State legislatures need to address police use of drones before they acquire them and put them into use. Safeguards need to be put into place to protect liberty and privacy interests. The model bill we proposed in class achieves these functions in numerous ways. If states fail to proactively address these problems, there will be issues in the future because adoption of this technology is inevitable.