Denver Drones

[Oscar77]

And I thought, FWIW, that a news article not too long ago (Maybe Boulder???) was already using them.
There was some shooting/man with a gun and they used one.

The future is now old man.

And this whole "privacy thing" ship sailed long long ago.
Drones etc makes no difference.

Having cameras video whatever you want to call up in the air it was settled LONG AGO too.
Its no different - legally- if the Cops were in a plane or helicopter or using a satellite.
I dont agree with it but this "OMG we are losing our privacy" thought process died a long long time ago.

[FoxtArt]

And I thought, FWIW, that a news article not too long ago (Maybe Boulder???) was already using them.
There was some shooting/man with a gun and they used one.

The future is now old man.

And this whole "privacy thing" ship sailed long long ago.
Drones etc makes no difference.

Having cameras video whatever you want to call up in the air it was settled LONG AGO too.
Its no different - legally- if the Cops were in a plane or helicopter or using a satellite.
I dont agree with it but this "OMG we are losing our privacy" thought process died a long long time ago.

Yup. It died because of the way our judicial system was constructed.

Case 1: A absolutely shitty person was caught using something that was a grey area (drone in this case). Judge writes an opinion that justifies the use. It's appealed, appeal writes an opinion that justifies the use because they don't like the shitty person.

Case 2: A true privacy case arises where it is entirely BS, and the drone is a clear invasion of rights. However, Case #1 set a precedent, and now they follow it. Use of the drone is now justified.

Our judicial system unfortunately does not have real checks and balances, and adopted the system from the worst period of the middle ages, and judges are the most-career safe of any profession. The creep is unstoppable because judges rule based on their own discretion of "what they think is right", very few rule against their own concious based on the LAW and the RULES. Sometimes this works out for people, but it inevitably decays expected rights, and the discretion is often flat wrong. For a successful republic, we need the latter, that actually releases a serial killer if they fuck up the arrest/investigation/etc. Because otherwise, the justification to put away the serial killer is also used to put away the political dissident.

[Wulf202]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY

Flock has some security issues. Aurora PD specifically 14:25

[FoxtArt]

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...ravel-patterns

I think this (broad license plate tracking and "suspicious patterns", not re: Border Patrol specifically) is a rare issue where most conservatives, independents, and liberals would agree that all of this sucks.

Of course, there's the Karen's on all parties that would love for us to have minority-report level tracking, going so far as to arrest people before they committed any crime... But I believe they are a minority.

I think the main reason this exists and will continue to expand is twofold.

1) $ talks, more than votes.

2) Governments, by nature, want to defend the current institution from any imaginable threat to that governance (not necessarily about the safety of the populace). This is more like an immune system, which will even attack itself (autoimmune) when any component threatens the status quo. The supposed check-and-balance (judicial) is an ingrained part of this system, and will hardly be the component that threatens the status quo. It will, over time, support the creep of surveillance ("This serial killer can't go free, we need to write an opinion explaining why surveillance is OK"), ignoring and eventually outright destroying clear rights.

Even republics naturally decay into this, a surveillance state provides a natural defense to maintain the status quo of the institutions and the people embedded within it.

I predict, despite how obviously unconstitutional a lot of this is, various courts over the following years will rubber stamp more-and-more until we practically have the equivalent of the Chinese surveillance state... some wins here and there, but largely a slippery slope authorizing more and more use until we have our own social credit score and your facial emotions are logged the moment you step out of your door. The only question is how long this takes... 20 years, at the most?

TLDR: We (US Citizens) are fucked.

[Aloha_Shooter]

https://www.geekwire.com/2025/washin...n-data-access/

Interesting that the cities in question would rather turn off those "automated license plate reader" cameras once the judge ruled the public had a right to access the data they produced. A paranoid might think they were using those cameras for something other than reading license plates ...

[theGinsue]

As always Aloha-Shooter: 100% on the mark!

[battlemidget]

As a former big city dweller, I'm all about safety in the public spaces. The public access of the ALPR data is an interesting wrinkle.

[kidicarus13]

Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."