Tag: drones

Microscope Monday: Massachusetts’ new drone privacy bill

A microscope, steampunk style.
A microscope, steampunk style.

Since our earlier analysis of the repellent new bill expanding electronic wiretapping was well-received, we’re starting an official series analyzing proposed Massachusetts legislation, called “Microscope Monday”.

In honor of the efforts to organize a new drone privacy group here in Massachusetts, this week’s bill is S. 1664 (Hedlund) / H. 1357 (Garry), “An act to regulate the use of unmanned aerial vehicles”.

State Senator Robert Hedlund is introducing this legislation in the Massachusetts Senate. Hedlund is a Republican and is the Assistant Minority Leader. His district covers Cohasset, Duxbury, Hingham, Hull, Marshfield, Norwell, Scituate and Weymouth. State Representative Colleen Garry is introducing the legislation in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She is a Democrat, and her district covers Dracut and Tyngsborough.

This is not a long bill, but it’s a good one, and we at Digital Fourth commend the sponsors for introducing it. It’s currently in the Committee on the Judiciary (House) and the Committee on Transportation (Senate).

Continue reading Microscope Monday: Massachusetts’ new drone privacy bill

That Didn’t Take Long: Fugitive Accused Cop-Killer Christopher Dorner Accused of “Domestic Terrorism”, Will Become First US Citizen on US Soil Targeted By Drones

If you needed any further evidence that it’s unwise to permit electronic surveillance to catch “terrorists”, USA Today has just provided it:

Dorner has been accused by police of the shooting deaths of three people, one of them a police officer and another the daughter of a former officer. […LAPD Police Chief Charlie] Beck said. “This is an act, and make no mistake about it, of domestic terrorism. This is a man who has targeted those who we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered.”

Dorner certainly seems to be guilty of multiple murders, and to have a beef with the LAPD over racist practices he witnessed as a serving police officer. But it seems that the chief of the nation’s second-largest police force has no goddamn clue what terrorism is.

Continue reading That Didn’t Take Long: Fugitive Accused Cop-Killer Christopher Dorner Accused of “Domestic Terrorism”, Will Become First US Citizen on US Soil Targeted By Drones

By 2020, There Will Be Eyes On Everyone: Implications of Universal, Mass, Peer-to-Peer Surveillance

We’re used to the fact that data storage technologies, once so sensationally expensive, are becoming drastically cheaper. What we don’t yet clearly realize is what that will mean for our everyday lives. Within ten years, it will be reasonably cheap to track every moment of your life. The technology already exists. You could each have a hovering Eye over your right shoulder, keeping an archive of all of your conversations and experiences. If you have an argument with your spouse in 2020, and disagree about something he said, you could simply ask the Eye to track back to that conversation and prove you right. Or wrong.

I sense an impending rise in divorce.

Drones are, as of January 2012, legal in US airspace, and are publicly available for sale. They will only get smaller, more powerful and more ubiquitous.

Continue reading By 2020, There Will Be Eyes On Everyone: Implications of Universal, Mass, Peer-to-Peer Surveillance

Free Essam Attia, Political Artist

Hey, kids! Worried about law enforcement using drones for surveillance? Well, maybe you oughta just shut your goddamn piehole on that, because here in the New America, complaining about that shit can get you arrested.

That’s right. In the home of the First Amendment (my third favorite Amendment, after the Fourth (obvs) and the Ninth (link provided)), if the NYPD doesn’t like you challenging their use of drones by, say, putting up satirical posters on a few phone booths in downtown Manhattan, they’ll throw the book atcha.

essam-attia-drone-poster

After a no doubt thorough tossing of his apartment, Maine-born artist and former military geospatial analyst Essam Attia has been charged with “56 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, grand larceny, possession of stolen property and weapons possession after allegedly having an unloaded .22-caliber revolver under his bed“.

I’m just guessing here, but “forged instrument” presumably means “satirical posters using the NYPD logo for First-Amendment-protected political speech”. The most serious charge, for possession without a license of a small-caliber unloaded handgun, wouldn’t even be a crime in most jurisdictions; Attia claims that the gun is an antique, which under New York state law would not require a permit.

Let’s sum up. The NYPD, in the course of an investigation into an extremely minor crime (described as “kiosk vandalism”, though the kiosks were not in fact damaged), go through every inch of the suspect’s apartment, and find material that under current laws can be used to support over fifty criminal charges. There’s no word from the NYPD or any press source about what the alleged stolen property is. If Attia is correct that the gun is an antique, there’s no basis for the charge. And yet they are still able to launch in, lock him up, and submit him to all the terror and trouble of the criminal justice system, because he embarrassed them in public. They have loaded him up with charges purely to serve as a deterrent to others thinking about criticizing the NYPD – and this is even before the NYPD has any actual drones out in the field.

cartman-autorita

Maybe this is just the NYPD’s artistic response to Attia’s artistic critique. And maybe they should just drop the charges, already. Jeez, people.

UPDATE: My own Congressman, Ed Markey, has just introduced the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act. It’s surely a good idea; but note that even one of the House’s most liberal members can offer up only that law enforcement agencies should be careful about their use of drones, not that we should stop or reverse the process of approving the use of drones for domestic law enforcement purposes.