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Gizmodo reports that the FBI has responded to an ACLU FOIA request by releasing 18 hours of surveillance video from the protests in Baltimore that followed the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. From the article:
According to the ACLU, the videos are all shot from traditional piloted aircraft. But as the ACLU points out drones can be seen in many of the videos. It's unclear if these drones were piloted by police, protesters, curious onlookers, or all of the above.
The videos, which all date from April 29, 2015 to May 3, 2015, switch from infrared (IR) to traditional camera mode and zoom in at various times -- though even at the maximum zoom it doesn't appear that any faces are clearly discernible. All 18 hours of raw video are available at the FBI's website. [The article contains the link.]
[...] After the protests occurred it was revealed in October 2015 that FBI planes using night vision and registered under fake businesses had been operating around the protest locations. This is the first time that footage from those planes has been released. As the ACLU notes, it's not clear what the FBI's records retention policy for videos like these might be and how they could be used for future investigations.
In response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI has released more than 18 hours of video from surveillance cameras installed on FBI aircraft that flew over Baltimore in the days after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015. The videos, which were released to the ACLU before being posted online by the FBI this week, offer a rare and comprehensive view of the workings of a government surveillance operation. While the release of the footage addresses some questions, it leaves others unanswered.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/fbi-releases-secret-spy-plane-footage-freddie-gray-protests
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @11:59PM
They were fired up about what the FBI might be doing using fake companies to schedule a bunch of flights over the protests.
And also: "there should be protections against mass surveillance of people engaged in First Amendment-protected protests and gatherings. At a time when the Movement for Black Lives is urgently mobilizing across the country, community members and activists shouldn’t have to worry that the government eyes in the sky will be capturing images of everything they do during a protest."
The video feeds sometime follow individual people and cars around. They easily get people in fenced off backyards, places most people expect to be private. Better and/or lower sensors can see through walls, do facial IDs, and read car plates. Mass surveillance like that is supposed to be illegal, but it's performed anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @05:25PM
Mass surveillance like that is supposed to be illegal, but it's performed anyway.
Citation needed for the first half.