UK Police Plan To Use Military-Style Spy Drones 390
krou writes "According to documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, the UK police plan on deploying unmanned drones in the UK to 'revolutionize policing' and extend domestic 'surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering,' which will be used in 'the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies.' The documents come from the South Coast Partnership, 'a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan' in conjunction with BAE Systems. The stated aim is to introduce the system in time for the 2012 Olympics. Initially, Kent police stated that the system would be used to monitor shipping lanes and illegal immigrants, but the documents reveal that this was part of a PR strategy: 'There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a "good news" story to the public rather than more "big brother."' However, the documents talk about a much wider range of usage, such as '[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving,' as well as 'road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert urban surveillance.' Also, due to the expense involved, it has also been suggested that some data could be sold off to private companies, or the drones could be used for commercial purposes."
Missing Tag (Score:4, Insightful)
1984
Re:Missing Tag (Score:5, Insightful)
and Blue Thunder
Why not arm them while we are at it, after all its for the children.
Re:Missing Tag (Score:4, Funny)
Why not arm them while we are at it, after all its for the children.
Indeed. Evil Britons won't try sneaking recyclables into their garbage bin when they know there may be a Hellfire missile pointing their way.
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Interestingly, that's one way the UK is notably *ahead* of other countries - the police aren't routinely armed. When I visited the US or other countries where armed police are routine, there was a noticeable uneasy feeling. It's a rather more obvious expression of state power over the individual than a camera - a camera can't kill you.
The surveillance still sucks, of course. It's not as pervasive as the stories on Slashdot suggest, but there's still more than enough.
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No. No! It's "Skynet, meet Mr. 1984's Brave New World."
There's Only One Way To Boil A Frog (Score:2)
If you crank up the heat too fast, the frog jumps out of the pot. Turn the heat up slowly, and the frog will not notice until it's too late.
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That's actually a myth, as it turns out.
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There's a second way to boil a frog: knock it over the head before you toss it in the pot.
Anyway, who boils frogs?
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More appropriately, airstripone
Big Brother? (Score:4, Insightful)
But Big Brother wasn't bad, he was always there to protect you...to watch out for you. He would never hurt you.
What is really amazing isn't that they're implementing this system, it's that their rhetoric is so very similar to that from 1984. They don't call the system or the watchers big brother, but they tell you that it's for your protection, only bad people have anything to fear, and generally have a nearly indistinguishable attitude about it. The only difference is the name. But not many actually read 1984 I suppose (from the general populace, geeks here not included) so most people I imagine don't realize the similarities in rhetoric.
This is obviously a bad thing, and makes me very cautious about even wanting to enter the UK. Yikes.
Re:Big Brother? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have more choices than "government that never interferes" and "government that controls your life". There are shades of grey possible here.
Re:Big Brother? (Score:4, Insightful)
You left out police department, fire department, EMS, contract enforcement and a standing military.
No one has suggest that the government can protect you from everything. But it has to protect you from some things. Even the staunchest Libertarian would agree that the government sbould enforce contracts, and probably go farther than that. Therefore, the question is where the line should be drawn. I understand the emotional appeal of drawing a "nothing" line, but since you no doubt don't really believe that, please explain to me what the determining factor should, and leave the strawman at home.
Wait, you don't think the government should protect children from molesters? Really? I must have read that wrong.
Maybe you object to certain tactics, but I think everyone has to agree with the goal.
Stravation seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to protect against in children as well. Should they have to drop out of school and work in a sweatshop?
Re:Big Brother? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have 4 mod points, but I've just got to reply to this.
All the things the GP listed (bar one) are organised by the distant and (from a view point here over the ocean) corrupt as hell, inefficient US Federal Government.
All the things you list (bar one) are controlled by the various local and state governments.
I keep seeing this argument where one person lists massively corrupt, inefficient, and in many cases hurtful Federal programs they want scrapped and instantly others spring up and thinking that they're oh so witty turn on the sarcasm..."ohoh and roads and police and the military too!" thinking that they are ever so clever...not seeing the absolute ignorance they are displaying to the whole world about their own countries system of governance...
Here's a lesson from a foreigner, your state governments are responsible for building roads, the police and ambulance.
Your Federal Governments number one job is a common defence of the States, rather than each state having a standing army, they all pool their resources and have just one big one. It's number two job is making sure that the states play nice with each other. That is pretty much the entirety of the purpose the states created it for.
It's the Federal Government now thinking it can *do anything it wants* that small government types have 99% of a problem with.
Perhaps you and the dimwits who modded you up should go and learn a little bit about Federalism and the foundation upon which it was built. Hint: it wasn't an all powerful single central government that can do anything it wants.
Commercial purposes? (Score:4, Insightful)
'[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving,'
They're either going to have tens of thousands of them or hoping to get really lucky.
Also, due to the expense involved, it has also been suggested that some data could be sold off to private companies, or the drones could be used for commercial purposes
So we'll see TV shows featuring footage captured by drones?
Google might buy it too but if its targeting people it'll make obscuring faces harder.
Re:Commercial purposes? (Score:5, Funny)
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And another excellent invention, the bounty hunter. Wonder what sort of bounty a drone would be worth??
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In the UK, the hoodie [wikipedia.org] serves that purpose, and has grown in popularity pretty much in parallel with the deployment of CCTV in the cities.
Re:Commercial purposes? (Score:4, Funny)
Great Britain, I'd like to introduce you to this American invention we call the "cowboy hat". It's related to some older technology (the sombrero) and serves to protect the face (and neck) from sunburn and observation by aerial surveillance drones.
American, I'd like to introduce you to this great British invention we call the "hoodie". It's related to some older technology (the hooded cloak) and serves to protect the body from cold and the face from observation by CCTV & aerial surveillance drones.
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The cowboy hat makes you look like a moron.
Not if you wear the accompanying handlebar mustache. What you're married? Be a man, grow a lip ferret!
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You're gonna lose too many UK residents with that kind of terminology. Tell them it's good for keeping the rain out of their shirts.
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I'm sure celebrity nude sunbathing shots are expected to be the primary revenue generation source.
Given how successful the ten jillion cameras in London have been at preventing crime I expect this will finish the criminals off.
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Instead of selling the data, sell the drone (Score:3, Insightful)
the undersides and such or have it tow a big big banner.
This Surveillance Drone is sponsored by Big Brother, MTV 7pm daily.
More than likely the revenue model will be new crimes for which there is a nice monetary penalty attached. Perhaps we can combine this with the Global Warming cabal and fine people for barbecue grills or too much outdoor lighting.
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Marketing information. They will gather information about the amount of foot traffic down a certain road, the demographics (white, male, middle age, family...), and the time of day they get the traffic. Companies will pay good money for that, especially one trying to determine the best location for their specialty shop.
Or, lets put a powerful projector on these, and let them project commercials directly in front of someone.
Oh! How about changing these to helicopters and hang signs on them.
Good thing they took your guns away. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the United States, we'll shoot at helicopters with actual people in them. If Homeland Security tried to spy on us with drones, it would become a sport to shoot them down. And they WOULD go down, too. Lots of expensive wreckage.
I hear in the UK you've got people dropping tires on traffic cameras and setting them on fire. Your hearts are in the right place, but it's tough to get a tire over a UAV.
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If Homeland Security tried to spy on us with drones, it would become a sport to shoot them down. And they WOULD go down, too. Lots of expensive wreckage.
But I guess they'd have footage of the culprit who shot it down and let him pay for the expensive wreckage...
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Indeed, anyone wearing long sleeves, long pants, a hat, facemask, and sunglasses needs to watch out. When your suspect has no discernible features, everyone's a suspect.
Re:Good thing they took your guns away. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fortunately, unlike the US the UK hasn't placed so many restrictions on hobbyist UAV's or as we English speakers prefer to call them, model aeroplanes.
They don't even need to be armed, even without guns an aircraft as one weapon left and the Japanese perfected it's application.
You never need to fight harder, you need to fight smarter or as Sir Winston put it:
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In the United States, we'll shoot at helicopters with actual people in them. If Homeland Security tried to spy on us with drones, it would become a sport to shoot them down. And they WOULD go down, too. Lots of expensive wreckage.
These drones go 20,000ft high, you can't even see them yet alone shoot at them.
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In the United States, we'll shoot at helicopters with actual people in them. If Homeland Security tried to spy on us with drones, it would become a sport to shoot them down. And they WOULD go down, too....
Really? I remember at the Republican National Convention in NY in 2004, there was a Fuji labeled blimp (balloon, actually, it was tethered) overhead the entire time and it was supposed to be there for surveillance. I don't recall anyone taking shots at that and it was a big, stationary target.
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However you neglect to mention death and injury from drones falling out of the sky. I doubt people will take pot shots at UAVs in the UK, however a cheap laserpointer would render it blind or cause it crash.
This would not go down well stateside, first lawsuit and it's all over.
This is just the next step... (Score:2)
They've been doing this for a while now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h31VSf1_rk [youtube.com]
Antisocial driving? (Score:5, Funny)
preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving
What the heck is 'antisocial driving'? A car driving separate from the other cars because it is shy and lacks social skills?
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Police Helicopters (Score:3, Insightful)
Apart from being far cheaper and safer, how is this different from police helicopters they already use and have been using for over twenty years?
Re:Police Helicopters (Score:4, Insightful)
I would guess the cameras are very steady and will have much better vision than human eyes from 500ft.
Helicopters are also usually out assisting ground units in specific cases. Meaning, the ground units need an eye above them for a _limited_ amount of time to track a fleeing suspect or to just keep an eye open in the even a situation they are engaging in turns into a chase situation (IE: meth lab bust, etc).
Drones can just go up and stay up. They aren't there to follow chases and they aren't there to provide lighting. Drones can simply stay up recording anything a controlling officer finds interesting to look at.
Basically, helicopters are specific use and drones are whatever the camera operator wants it to be.
At least, that's the way I see it.
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Great opportunity for housewives in the UK (Score:2, Interesting)
Since wage-slaves can't be paid enough to focus on monitors for hours on end, just recruit the populace. The upside is that if you're an especially good snitch they can let you pilot a drone as a reward. Then they can make a TV show about that, a weekly feature to show off the citizen response to the dangers of knife crime and truancy.
Who needs a community of people working for the common good when technology can step in and ke
WE ARE EURASIA. (Score:2)
The State Surveilance Handbook. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The State Surveilance Handbook. (Score:4, Funny)
Politicians take note: George Orwell's Ninteen Eighty-Four is not a manual for statecraft.
That's just paranoia and coincidence. They really do have your best interests in mind. And they do hope you'll be showing up at the patriotism rally the day the citizen-protecting drones are launched from Airstrip One.
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Don't mind him. I hear he was spotted carrying a heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the cover. [wikipedia.org].
Why the outrage? (Score:2)
Helicopters are already here. I don't see any outrage over those.
Besides, it's a little late to say "oh you know we may have privacy issues" in the UK of all places. There's a camera on every street corner and then some.
I'm not for this or against it. IMHO it's just like a helo circling all day which in some places, like LA, is not too far from the current reality.
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In principle its the same as a helicopter, but due to the reduced cost I would imagine you could put lots more of these in the air. I think that's where the concern is.
Not sure about airspace though, I would imagine airspace over much of the UK is pretty busy.
Eeek (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the laws going to be on probable cause to stop someone that is on "candid camera"?
What I mean is, if it spots you jaywalking, can they just follow you around and order local units to stop you? If you're walking by a street vendor and they see you reach into a bin, then moments later just happen to put your hand in your pocket, are they allowed to detain and search you?
Anecdotal evidence here, take this as you will.
A few years back I joined a "Citizens Police Academy". Basically, at its core, it is a PR program setup to bring the community and its police together. We got to basically take a free 10 week course meeting once a week where we went over the basics of all the police duties.
Personally, I got to partake in classes where they taught you about evidence gathering, etc. We got to do mock pull overs in the parking lot (quite interesting scenarios), I got to go on ride alongs (4 hours "on the beat" with an officer), I got to fire their weapons at their range, and I also got to partake (although limited) in on site SWAT training where I got to be the bad guy and we basically played hide and seek.
The most enlightening part of the whole experience, as well as my point, lie in the ride along.
Once nighttime hit, we were patrolling the back roads and an out of town car was just going along doing its thing. The driver, as far as myself and the officer were concerned, was obeying the traffic laws. However, the officer I was with had a hunch that this kid might be up to "something".
We followed him for a bit waiting for him to screw up. Although, we were certain he knew we were behind him (crown vic headlights are easily spotted when you know what they look like). Eventually the car we were following pulled off onto a private driveway.
The officer still was suspicious of his activity and wanted a reason (probable cause) to stop him. So we quickly u-turned and headed out to a "lookout" spot above the side street the officer expected him to exit from. The reason he wanted a good lookout spot was to see if he would not come to a complete stop at a particular stop sign.
Interestingly enough, the kid did come out the way the officer was expecting, however, he did come to a complete, 2 second, stop. No probable cause.
We followed him for a while longer and finally, the kid didn't come to a complete stop at another stop sign. Bam, cue the flashing lights and Signal 6.
While I wasn't allowed out of the vehicle, I noticed him take his time in talking to the driver. Smelling for smells and looking for things to see.
In the end, no ticket was written and it was a simple stop. However, I'm sure the kid had no idea we were 100% focused on stopping _him_ for the better part of half an hour.
We had no reason to suspect anything and simply followed him long enough until he made a simple and honest mistake. At that point the noose was tightened and we had Probable Cause to interrupt his night for no other reason than to quench the curiosity of a random police officer.
**For the record I want to state I didn't sense any malice or any power trip from the officer I was with. I also want to state that I won't second guess the intuition and gut feelings of police officers who deal with scum on a day to day basis. You never know when they will be right, then again, shoot a gun blindly into an ocean enough times and eventually you'll catch dinner.**
Now is this same thing going to be commonplace with drones overhead? Are officers going to look for anyone they find interesting and purposely waste time following them until the person does _anything_ to trip probable cause?
This just reeks of abuse of power and reeks of "show me your papers". Sure, you'll still need Probable Cause (hopefully) to stop the person, but with an unseen eye watching your every move from above, what are the chances you _won't_ do _something_ to trip PC and have your privacy invaded?
The potential here is scary...
Quantum patrolling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quantum patrolling (Score:4, Insightful)
"How about we get some cameras and record what happens, then in court we can just use the videos as evidence."
And why would we need video in court unless in adds to the officer testimony? We already have the officers sworn testimony. The video can be deleted after the officer writes the report. This is how it happens in interrogations already and it is perfectly legal. Why would it be any different for video.
The police have the best of both worlds in many cases. If the evidence backs them up, preserve it. If it is less than ideal, write it up and discard it because it isn't needed.
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video footage was often used to the defendant's advantage in court.
Dear me, what a waste (from the point of view of the troopers, that is). Why not just get a court to rule that camera evidence supporting the defendant is to be classed as "hearsay"? Then they'd have the terrific situation where it could only be used in court if it's to the defendant's disadvantage.
I suspect that such a ruling will eventually come about, probably from the UK since automatic surveillance is so prevalent there. Afterwards it will take only a short time to spread to every jurisdiction in the w
Nothing to see here (Score:2, Troll)
Exactly what the difference between using these UAV's and the helicopters that they have already been flying for over a decade, these helicopters have long had the ability to do infrared/night vision. So don't act shocked. Also I see a couple references to 1984 and some fear mongering about it "peering into the windows in my home"; well that is simply fear mongering and don't stress yourself out mentally over it.
These UAV's fly at a certain elevation like they do in America they have to register with their
I love Big Brother (Score:4, Insightful)
Strong and peaceful, wise and brave, Fighting the fight for the whole world to save, We the people will ceaselessly strive To keep our great revolution alive! Unfurl the banners! Look at the screen! Never before has such glory been seen! Oceania! Oceania! Oceania, 'tis for thee! Every deed, every thought, 'tis for thee! Every deed, every thought, 'tis for thee! Every deed, every thought, 'tis for thee!
Even less effective than street level cameras? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I guess this had to happen. Full fail for street level cameras for billions, so the only option left is to go full retard.
One cannot even argue that this is a responsible use of public funds:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CCTV-cameras-to-solve-just-one-crime-Met-Police-admits.html
Of course, tourist photos must be deleted though, you know, in the name of public safety. Where is the "shake my head in disbelief" animated icon again?
Didn't help before (Score:2)
Didn't they already say that all of their cameras didn't help solve crimes? So why do they need drones now?
Let's gather MORE info that can be hacked (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to data:
To PROTECT it,
Don't COLLECT it.
Britannia is lost (Score:2, Interesting)
Really - only criminals (predominantly of foreign (muslim) origin) carrying guns, police carrying MP5s at every streetcorner, all kinds of surveillance running rampant.
Britain is gone. British no longer have the will or the means to save themselves, they have already in spirit surrendered to muslims and while the process will take some time, it will happen unless they find a fucking clue and stop treating their own brit
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Racism is not the same as being wrong, you can be a racist and right at the same time.
Besides there is a large gray area between racism and being culturally invaded.
Smile for the camera (Score:2)
Crop circles? (Score:5, Funny)
Lets screw drivers AGAIN (Score:5, Insightful)
>> a much wider range of usage, such as '[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving,'
Ahh the truth will out. Has there been an country-wide epidemic of tractor thefts recently? Is it practical to use an aircraft that can't hover to surveil ATMs? I think not. Now guess which one they REALLY want drones for.
I really can't imagine that our wonderful police would generate all those lame excuses just to cover up that they really just want drones as yet another way to generate even more revenue from drivers that momentarily stray over already devisively low speed limits. Surely not.
When will the police actually go after real criminals instead of finding new and devious ways to repeatedly bully soft targets like us road users?
An evolution not a revolution (Score:4, Interesting)
UK Police already have something similar to this in that they've had aeroplanes constantly circling over various cities for the past few years. For example: http://www.gmp.police.uk/mainsite/pages/asu.htm [police.uk] and http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/226/226142_spyplane_warning_over_eid_celebrations.html [manchester...news.co.uk]
Is this really it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this really what my grandad fought to defend with is life in world war 2?
Jaywalking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lots of people are using jaywalking as an example non-crime in these comments. Just so you all know, jaywalking is not generally against UK law; the only places you can't do it are motorways (where anyone going less than 50mph will cause problems), railway crossings while the barrier is down, and small patches of road next to lit pedestrian crossings. Everywhere else, it's your judgement.
Now, for the technology itself, I think it will help catch a lot of minor criminals, rural fly-tippers, and an unexpectedly large number of farm-animal-fancying zoophiles, but it will have very little effect on organised crime. Why? Dazzle from small lasers. What's the cost of a CD/DVD burner?
I don't like perfect surveillance - this country has too many laws for any one person to know, so I have no idea if I'm breaking any or not.
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with a drone recording it.
I would. It would be fun if the public gets access to the video recordings.
I'd set up a website offering a £1000 prize for the first beating caught on video.
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Funny)
first beating caught on video.
Oops.. I meant to say first beating by police caught on video.
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How about the first beating off by police caught on video?
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Oops.. I meant to say first beating by police caught on video.
Little is revealed of the UK's rule outside of Earth, but it is thought that they control worlds in different dimensions and inhabited with a range of species. The UK occupation of Earth, however, is shown to be a brutal police state. In London, a generic European city, Civil Protection units are seen frequently, often conducting random searches of apartment blocks, interrogating human citizens and engaging in random police brutality. The military Overwatch forces of the UK are shown attacking human resista
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Who are you fooling? this is Slashdot...
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Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Informative)
I don't have a problem with a drone recording it.
I would. It would be fun if the public gets access to the video recordings.
I'd set up a website offering a £1000 prize for the first beating caught on video.
The public never get access to police technology. Any evidence that the police have committed a crime magically disappears. The so called 'independent police complaints commission' perform whitewashes on anything that can't be made to disappear.
Police routinely search citizens without even the suspicion of a crime taking place. The UK is now a police state.
Personally I left and I'm very happy I did.
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Huh? Infrared doesn't go through walls the last time I checked.
That depends on the frequency range of the detector. My company makes some parts for a military infrared binocular that can see people through concrete block walls.
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Could i get the NSN for that? I would love to order one and show it to the CDR.
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Got any sample pictures of that that?
I believe this is a lesser version of it: http://www.nightvisionweb.com/thermal_systems/elcan_ph50.html [nightvisionweb.com]
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Going to need a citation on that. Concrete block is fairly dense, I'm not even sure you could get a clear x-ray through one...
Using thermal imaging technology, we can see through cement walls and look at structural integrity of many objects.
http://www.thermalimagingcamera.org/ [thermalimagingcamera.org]
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Informative)
You've been watching too much CSI. I believe what they mean is that they can see if a large heat source exists behind a cement wall. Walls are very good insulators and *stop* heat. With an infrared camera, you can barely even see through a sheet of glass! It's a passive sensor, detecting the heat that the object gives off, and giving that temperature a color in the image. To get an idea of heat blocking capabilities, turn on your reflector space heater, which is a incredibly powerful IR source, shine it at a window, and go outside. Chances are, you wont be able to feel *anything*.
Currently, the only way to see through walls, which *is* possible, is to use THz (link 1 [stormingmedia.us], 2 [ieee.org]), Xray [poc.com], and UWB [softpedia.com]. These are active devices that transmit and receive reflected signals, then construct and image.
And, before someone brings up that infrared is in the THz band, "Low frequency versions of terahertz waves are known as millimeter waves, and they behave much like radio waves. At higher frequencies, the terahertz waves straddle the border between radio and optical emissions." from space.com [space.com]. From the IEEE paper, "(0.6 to 3 THz) offer a greater degree of penetration through architectural and textile materials", so they're using the looow range.
If you're worried about people seeing through your walls, maybe you should turn off your wifi [telegraph.co.uk]! :-o
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:4, Funny)
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I think it's disgusting and yet another sad example of the sheepification of the people that gave us most of our civil liberties.
People are either fooled into believing that it's for their own good or they know they can't fight back in any meaningful way.
The mass civil unrest it would take to fix the UK isn't likely anytime soon.
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I've used this quote before, because it keeps coming up as relevant:
--Frederick Douglass
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You can look at a home with an IR camera and figure out other stuff -- like if they have any strange heat sources that suggest illegal grow operations
And how would you be able to determine whether or not what they were growing was illegal? I've seriously thought of growing tomatos in my basement because the ones you buy at the grocery taste like cardboard, but fear of the War On (some) Drugs keeps me from doing it.
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Then: Open!=Overheard. Now: Open=Overheard (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Recording every inch of public space is (and should be) different from policing public space. At least that's how I see it. We want to keep down crime but we also want people to carry on their lives without everything being dissected and analyzed. Public privacy/anonymity may already be a myth but we don't need to help things along by supporting universal surveillance.
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Exactly. Oh well, it's US and UK. Here we actually have laws in place that if you even want to record video for security, you need to have a clear sign about it outside your store or other place.
I wouldn't ever want any kind of spy drones and I think most people feel the same way.
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Insightful)
On the surface, this does not seem like a bad idea.
It seems like a bad idea to me. I don't like being spied on by my government. Of course, I'm against having secret police* in a "free" society, too. Cops should be visible and wear distinctive uniforms driving distinctive vehicles.
* In the US, the secret police are called "undercover agents", "plainclothesmen", and "DEA". Laws that make victimless crimes are an excuse for having secret police in the first place, and should be repealed.
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Those activities can be combatted without secret police. As can murder, rape, theft...
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it is a terrible idea for citizens, and whoever modded you insightful doesn't live in the UK. Past experience suggests that if you give an inch, they take a mile. Terror laws were introduced on the understanding that they would not be abused. Guess what? They were abused, and not just by the police harassing legitimate protesters, photographers, and just every day civilians. Councils used terror laws to justify snooping on people suspected of lying about where they lived [bbc.co.uk] so they could get their child into a local school, spying on suspected litterbugs, and spying on council employees. There's plenty other cases documenting the systematic exploitation of these laws.
The mere fact that these iditos knew full well there would be a public outcry, and that they should focus on shipping lanes and illegal immigrants in order to spin this, should sending warning bells across the UK. It's quite clear that the police view activists and legitimate protesters as "domestic extremists [guardian.co.uk]", so there's only one reason they want the capabilities of these drones: They're lying bastards who want to infiltrate what little privacy we have left in our lives even further to make us live in fear, and to stifle dissent.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Not a bad idea? Common sense tells me that ANY surveillance of innocent civilians is unjust and directly at odds with liberty.
If I've done nothing wrong, then exactly what right do you have to track me? If I am no threat to the liberty of others, then there is no logical reason for you to track me. That leaves us with malice. A government that spies on innocent civilians is nothing but a glorified stalker.
But let's not overlook the primary reason and goal of programs like this: money. It pulls money through
Re: (Score:2)
There was a recent patent/article about using wifi signals to "see" through walls. Essentially, they look at the wifi signal from several wireless sources, see the change, and do the math to see movement. It would be a bit harder to implement on a vertical scale, but the science is there. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more mainstream 10 years from now.
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are some examples:
Yard has a privacy fence, the couple enjoys outdoor sex and without the drone spying on them they could do it in the privacy of their back yard.
Having a party, someone brings a joint. You and your social circle don't mind, but the eye in the sky does.
You can't make it to a restroom, nobody is around, you duck in the bushes and relieve yourself, but the eye in the sky sees.
You're driving down the interstate and there aren't any cars on a strait away, you can see clearly for several miles and see the median is clear of enforcement officers the entire length of the strait away. You think to yourself, I wonder how fast my car can go. You tap your car out. Nobody was around and nobody cares, except for the eye in the sky.
There are lots of things we do everyday that are completely safe, nothing morally wrong with doing, and don't cause harm to anyone; yet there are laws against them. Under normal circumstances we obey the laws to make the watchers happy, because we know they aren't watching all the time. But we still all break some laws some of the time. Jaywalking. If we had 100% surveillance all the time we wouldn't be safer, we'd probably go insane.
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes this standard can be extended quite far, but as long as we draw a line at the required physical bugging of private property, I'm okay with it.
Which merely means that by the time they do decide that they're going to install cameras in your house, you won't be able to do anything to stop them.
Opposing a slippery slope is much easier at the top than at the bottom where it's approaching with the momentum of a thirty-ton truck with a rocket on the back.
Re:Slipperly Slope (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good thing that airborne drone cameras fly at street level so they can't see into privacy-fenced yards, then.
Oh, they don't? Hmmm...is that another exception to the logical and clear limit?
I think this is the part where you say something like "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide."
Re: (Score:2)
That way you can stop all them tractor thieves and cashpoint burglers.
Right along with the tractor or cashpoint; thus preventing any future crimes involving them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I expect that the main motive in these drones is some company making a profit. Crime did not drop with CCTV cameras so all they really accomplish it to make a couple of people who were already rich, richer.
This is the reasoning behind red-light cameras in the US, as well. A private "contractor" installs and supports the cameras. Said contractor also gets a cut of the ticket "revenue."
Oftentimes, the contractor convinces the locality to shorten the yellow light period, making more people run the red light. In other words, red light cameras simply impose an additional tax on the populace.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you have a misunderstanding of what it is like to live in Britain. Where did you get your information from? Have you actually lived here?