By: Andrew Knapp
All throughout the history of the United States, there have always been issues with surveillance, policing, and a person's right to privacy. With policing and surveillance comes the question of whether citizens' privacy and civil rights are being broken or threatened in any way. The newest threat to this privacy paradigm is the insertion of unmanned police drones to monitor citizen's actions throughout a city. According to Steve Watson at Infowars.com, the city of Seattle has put into place the use of a surveillance drone with infrared cameras to look over and protect the city from crimes or other forms of risky behavior. Seattle is one of the first law enforcement agencies to be granted the use of surveillance drones by the United States government but has consequently faced the issues of citizens' privacy rights.
In this article, Watson claims that with the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration in 2012, " up to 30,000 spy drones could be flying in U.S. skies by 2020." Along with this, surveillance drones equipped with tear gas and rubber bullets are soon to be in the skies as well. Surveillance blimps have also been tested for law enforcement agencies. Watson writes of a blimp the size of football field overlooking a city in New Jersey that was able to check for "suspicious activity", and to "monitor insurgents from above.”
The use of surveillance drones and blimps can be a new and useful way of suppressing crime or eliminated it all together. With the possibility of police drones always being an "eye" in the sky, there could be a panopticon affect to the public. If police drones are constantly watching the actions of the people, there could be a positive affect on the amount of property crimes committed, however we know that surveillance does not have an affect on physical or emotionally driven crimes. It is obvious that the use of police surveillance drones could be useful to suppressing some forms of crime, however, there is the issue of the value of privacy and how far surveillance can go.
With any form of surveillance comes the question of how to balance keeping people safe and not invading the privacy of the public. How can the constant surveillance of people throughout a city without their knowing not be an invasion of privacy? Is the invasion of privacy worth it?
You raised an interesting point about deterrence. It would definitely be difficult to estimate how much these drones will actually have an affect on crime, especially when so many cities already invest an enormous amount of resources into street cameras. I find it hard to believe that career criminals will simply clean up their act because they're being watched from the sky instead of a lamp post.
ReplyDelete-Yo Kamiya
It's very surreal that the topics or ideas that I've read or saw about in science fiction books/movies is appearing in real life. Safety in return for some necessary invasion of privacy may be a great enforcement if used in moderation, but as society gets comfortable and used to the surrounding excessive surveillance - like the "boiled frog syndrome", we could grow to not notice the right and wrongs of surveillance and lose our ability to measure the importance of privacy.
ReplyDeleteJackie Ji Park
Your blog is very interesting, specially because as we saw many week ago, there has been a lot of interest, not only by the police departments but also by other institutions, such as educational to use the help of unmanned drones for research and academic advances. However, as we have come to learn in our class, not all intentions are disclosed or clear enough. We must worry about those other consequences of a futuristic society in which privacy takes a back seat to society's need for a sense of safety.
ReplyDeletePrivacy and security are often conceptualized as being at odds with one another, especially in the context of surveillance. Even in its most technologically sophisticated forms, surveillance cannot guarantee nor achieve true security, no matter how pervasive its implementation becomes in society.
ReplyDelete-Anton Kienast
The use of police drones and surveillance is a huge violation of citizens’ privacy rights. They might suppress some impulsive crimes but the cost is definitely not worth it. Most citizens are law-abiding and their privacy should not be invaded because of the criminal acts of a small number of people. The addition of drones to public law enforcement will lead to a decrease in the legitimacy of the police and possibly the government by ignoring the public’s trust and cooperation.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the use of police drones takes away the judgment and imagination in context. These are important aspects which address the underlying issues and treat the public as people and not as objects.
- Tiffani Toy
Great article. Even though an increase in safety in neighborhoods is beneficial to everyone, I do not think the use of drones should be used at the expense of one's right to privacy. The thought of having machines hovering over our heads and targeting everyone, as if they were criminals, is frightening. The use of drones would be an excessive use of power by the public law enforcement to target a small amount of criminals compared to the whole population.
ReplyDelete- Andres Diaz
Andrew, interesting - and frightening - post. There's a lot to talk about here, like the debate between who controls public and private space or the fact that this is happening in Seattle of all places, but I think the most important piece for me is how we're putting so many resources into potential crime detection instead of into places that would could stop people from ever having criminal thoughts at all. Why don't we put it into education or day programs for teens and adults? This kind of drone society is not a positive one but instead assumes the negative.
ReplyDelete-Catherine Hall
Police drones for surveillance are welcome, since the program will enable the police to monitor the movements of suspected criminals, and mount quick responses by firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters. However, the prediction that the use of drones will deny millions of Americans their privacy rights is not unfounded, considering the fact that as many as law enforcement 30,000 drones are expected to fly in the American skies within the next seven years.
ReplyDelete-Sehun Lee
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post!
I've heard about these surveillance drones in Seattle, and it was really interesting to actually see them in action in the videos posted in this article. However, I doubt that these flying cameras can have any crucial impact on crime reduction. As far as I know it hasn't really been proven if these drones are particularly useful to the police, and I actually read in February that the areal drone program was stopped by the mayor, at least to some extent. Part of this development seems to be an issue of legitimacy as the public's opinion hasn't really been considered with regards to the usage of these drones.
I could imagine them to be useful to the police in a chase to detect a suspect, but this kind of surveillance already exists in form of a manned helicopter, so I don't see these flying cameras as very groundbreaking. Other than that I can't really imagine these drones to be particularly useful, and especially don't see them developing into a form of panopticon surveillance system.
This article brings about an interesting dichotomy between right to privacy and crime reduction. With that being said, I think that the multiple uses of drones are not completely disclosed to the general public. The use of drones can be used to reduce crime, but to what expense. Until all the uses of drones are disclosed to the public, they should not be used for crime reduction.
ReplyDelete-Eric Walbridge
I see the problem that your are pointing out the intersection between personal privacy and surveillance/ crime reduction. However I always find it funny that many police forces or pro surveillance arguments always make the claim that it is for crime reduction. Even though it is proven that these tactics do not result in any crime reduction rather assist in criminal investigation. I also think that it is weird that it is not considered a hindering of personal privacy for these drones to be used.
ReplyDeleteNot being able to stop emotionally driven crimes, is a huge problem to me. However, the deterrence of some is better than doing nothing to solve our overwhelming crime problem. If police drones are truly effective, then idealistically they would overtime stop almost all crimes.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the question of a corrupt and overly powerful government comes it, where do we cross the line on stepping on people's privacy, and in turn liberty? This isn't something that will be a quick solution. Chronic criminals certainly will not just stop what their doing with the existence of drones, unless we buckle down MAJORLY on punishment, which then gets questionable, because we could be overly punishing the good to try to put harsh punishments on the bad.
We need to find way to unmotivate crime on more levels.
I see using unmanned aerial drones similar to police using helicopters for surveillance. They are pretty much the same, except drones are cheaper to run so they can be used more often. It's also much safer to use a drone than an helicopter, if a helicopter crashes there's a pretty good chance that it's occupants will be killed and people in the surrounding area can be killed or severely wounded. If a drone crashes, it might still cause some damage when it hits the ground, but it wont be anywhere near as severe as a helicopter crashing.
ReplyDelete-Randy Coomes
When I consider the amount of privacy the public voluntarily sacrifices through various medium of social networking, I do not think that the way in which drones would invade in our lives is substantial enough to pose a real threat to privacy. They are a more expensive but more efficient version of CCTV, and in many cities across the world people are constantly monitored 'for their own protection.'
ReplyDeleteI really see now significant jump in the threat posed by this and where we are today in terms of surveillance and privacy.
Janat Kiwanuka
Even if the drones and blimps are being put into place for security reasons I do agree that they will ultimately affect the privacy of individuals. But then what can be done to balance privacy and new forms of security? Its hard for me to pick a side because I think its a good thing that security is being enhanced but then I see the other side, which interferes with peoples privacy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that "With the possibility of police drones always being an "eye" in the sky, there could be a panopticon affect to the public". With new drones flying above us, it may eventually turn the public against the police. It may spark protest about how our privacy rights are being interfere.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this would be a potentially useful method in crime suppression due to the panopticon effect. However, this could have a negative result as it could lead to a revolt of the people. This seems like such an invasion of privacy it would be like we were fish in a fish bowl constantly being watch with no real freedoms. Because it is so intense, the people could come together and cause an uproar of violence and crime due to the dissatisfaction of their privacy being so badly invaded.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to specify what these drones will be used for. I think that if there is a privacy agreement between the citizens and the city government that is using these drones, then it seems alright considering it will probably have a fairly large impact on reducing crime. However, if these drones were used for things other than monitoring and stopping crime, and its data got into the wrong hands at the wrong time, people could use it for blackmail or other unjust and intruding purposes.
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog and set of comments: What would Gilliom and Monahan say about framing the issue of domestic law enforcement drone usage in terms of security vs. privacy? How, specifically, do you imagine drones leading to a reduction in crime? Has the use of drones in combat and search for foreign terrorists been proven to reduce war casualties or terrorist acts globally? What about the issue of displacement? Where would drones operate and how might this affect the movement of criminality -- to different places; further underground?? Professor Musheno
ReplyDeleteI never knew that the issue of drone usage was such a hot topic until I took this class. It is a great time to be discussing these things and applying concepts because of the recent evolution in the usage of drones for domestic purposes. I think that it is more valuable to put resources into less reactive and stifling measures than constant over-watch. Injecting resources into directly into the issue and taking a more bottom-up approach as opposed to a top down approach would be more beneficial. This type of drone use has not been studied yet and we may get to see it in the future.
ReplyDelete