Police In American Cities To Use Drones On Its Citizens
One of the big worries for opponents of the use of drones within the US is that they could potentially be used spy on and control American citizens, and up until recently it was just a worry but with the FCC allowing several police department to use drones across the US that worry is becoming a reality.
As being reported by CBSDC:
The Federal Aviation Administration has allowed several police departments to use drones across the U.S. They are controlled from a remote location and use infrared sensors and high-resolution cameras.
Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas told The Daily that his department is considering using rubber bullets and tear gas on its drone.
“Those are things that law enforcement utilizes day in and day out and in certain situations it might be advantageous to have this type of system on the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle),” McDaniel told The Daily.
So not only are drones being considered for spying err surveillance uses but police departments are considering ‘weaponizing’ these drones to use against Americans.
This of course has the ACLU up in arms and actively trying to stop this type of use. ACLU lawyer Catherine Crump says that part of the problem with this idea is the fact that the drones can be controlled from a remote location and may end up shooting at civilians without all the information that t hey need to make those kinds of decisions.
Crump also suggested that the use of armed drones could be interpreted as an unconstitutional use of force.
This is something I think we will end up seeing going all the way to the Supreme Court at some point.
via io9
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Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
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