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ACLU Sues Baltimore Police Department Over Aerial Surveillance Program:
On the first day of April, Baltimore officials approved a deal between the Baltimore Police Department [(BPD)] and Ohio-based company Persistent Surveillance Systems to use drones equipped with high-resolution cameras in order to spy on the city's residents through around-the-clock surveillance despite formal objections filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Defense Fund.
[...] On Thursday, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the BPD seeking to block the program, saying that it will put everyone in the city "under constant aerial surveillance," WBALTV 11 reports.
"It is equivalent to having a police officer follow us, each of us, outside all the time in case we might commit a crime," said David Rocah, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland. "If that happened in real life, everyone would clearly understand the privacy and First Amendment implications, and it would never be tolerated."
[...] The spy planes can cover at least 90% of Baltimore's land area at any given moment. The ACLU fears that the technology can be combined with the BPD's ground cameras and license plate readers and that all of that data can be tied together and used to provide detailed information as to the identities and activities of the city's citizens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @02:41AM (1 child)
Safety - whether real or imagined - is less important than stopping mass surveillance, which threatens democracy and freedom. [gnu.org] This pandemic is being used as an excuse to increase mass surveillance, which will almost certainly not go away even when the pandemic is over.
The US is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, and free and brave people don't sacrifice liberties for safety. The government is a far larger threat than any number of criminals. Though, that's a bit redundant, since the government is filled with criminals.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @04:46AM
Absolutely.
Depends or not if you include stupid in the free and brave bit. Unfortunately, some can't tell the difference - I point you to the idiots that are ignoring the covid safe distancing laws and holding parties and then going out to spread their joys through more contact, because their liberty is more important than some "law" to promote safety.
The problem with broad taglines like "liberty over safety" just allows the dumb and selfish to do what they want and the opponents to use that as ammunition to shoot down your good ideology. Gotta be specific instead, i.e. "Mass surv. over safety", etc.