10.26.2012

more of this, please

Seattle Police held a community meeting yesterday to discuss their intended use of aerial drones in the city. It did not go well:

The first community meeting seeking public opinion on the department's plans to use unmanned aerial systems, or drones, for law enforcement was taken over by protesters who prevented McDonagh from talking for more than half of the two-hour meeting.
The meeting, held at the Garfield Community Center, was attended by about 100 people. A few sat quietly and tried to listen, a few wanted to see the drones for themselves, but the majority were there to challenge police powers.
"We don't trust you with the weapons you do have," shouted a man who said his name was General Malaise. "We are not going to tolerate this in our city. This is unacceptable," yelled Emma Kaplan from The October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. "NO DRONES!"
Some days I really do love this town.

Most troubling (besides the fact that they would be used at all) is that the guidelines that SPD claims will limit how drones will be used in the city will be a matter of police policy, rather than city ordinance. In other words, completely unaccountable to the public.

This is also disappointing:

That causes concern for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which has called for police and city leaders to tightly regulate what kind of information can be collected by drones, who can collect it, how the information can be used and how long it will be kept.

Screw that. If anyone should be taking a hard line on drones, it's the freaking ACLU. "Tight regulation" means little more than letting the camel's nose under the tent, especially when we are talking expansion of police powers. The ACLU ought to know that better than anyone.

3 comments:

RW said...

Statism at its finest, eh?

Mr. D said...

Most troubling (besides the fact that they would be used at all) is that the guidelines that SPD claims will limit how drones will be used in the city will be a matter of police policy, rather than city ordinance. In other words, completely unaccountable to the public.

Right. And that's how it usually works.

Bike Bubba said...

And we'll ignore the even more obvious question; since when is it a better use of personnel to have a guy looking at screens and piloting a drone (and at what wage?) than it is to have a set of shoes on the street?

People forget so quickly that the old (and somewhat cruel) stereotype of the "donut-eater" simply goes back to the day when the beat cop knew all the businessmen and a good portion of the residents of his district. The donuts were simply the way that smart business owners got to know the police, and how the police got incredible G2 about what was going on.