Bay Area sheriff seeks drone for thermal imaging and surveillance

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2012/oct/19/alameda-county-sheriff-seeks-drone-thermal-imaging/

22 44 14 years ago

lsiebert• 14 years ago

Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose of such a drone. Growers may insulate their walls, but probably have not done so with their ceilings.

Of course people with terrariums and other heat sources may be victims in the cross fire of the War on Drugs.

Incidentally, afaik, current US law says aircraft must fly five hundred feet above any man made structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights

greenyoda• 14 years ago

Actually, the article you linked says this:

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has the sole authority to control all airspace, exclusively determining the rules and requirements for its use. Typically, in the "Uncontrolled" category of airspace, any pilot can fly any aircraft as low as he or she wants, subject to the requirement of maintaining a 500-foot (150 m) distance from people and man-made structures...

So the law says that the FAA gets to determine the rules, and the current rules that the FAA has implemented require a 500 foot distance from structures. However, it would seem that the FAA could change these regulations tomorrow without any changes having to be made to federal law.

tingletech• 14 years ago

It is 1000ft over urban areas, but police helicopters are already exempt. The reason is because they want aircraft to be high enough they can try not to crash on top of a bunch of people or into some building when they loose power (rather than a privacy issue). A helicopter can do an emergency landing with better control in a no power situation. A 4 pound UAV is going to be able to fly lower than that because it is not going to kill a bunch of people when it looses power and crashes into a school or something.

refurb2• 14 years ago

There was a Supreme Court decision that said thermal imaging of a person's home is a "search" and requires a warrant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

Before this decision they could do a thermal image of your home and if it gave off a certain heat signature, the police could use that a probably cause to get a warrant to search the home.

Now, they need a warrant just to do the thermal imaging.

ihsw• 14 years ago

But is it enforced?

jlgreco5• 14 years ago

I know the law doesn't work this way, but there should really be some sort of rule of thumb that states if you need a UAV with special imaging equipment to determine if a crime has occurred, it's not a real crime. A real crime should be detectable in any number of less absurdly sci-fi ways.

If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, should a noise complaint be filed? I'd say no.

nnnnnnnn5• 14 years ago

If a murder happens in my home and no one notices, is it not a crime?

If fraud occurs at my business and is undetected, is it not a crime?

Politically, I am against drug prohibition. Legalize it all, and demand warrants for non-visible spectrum imagery of homes. But the idea that a crime isn't a crime if no one notices just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

wtracy• 14 years ago

I personally know someone who once maintained a heated greenhouse full of tropical plants and chameleons. (He was almost breaking even on his electrical costs by selling baby chameleons for the pet trade.)

He finally quit and sold the house specifically because he was tired of having agents show up on his door step every month, sometimes with guns drawn.

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

The agents were probably showing up based on utility records (much higher than average utility usage) rather than thermal imaging.

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

> Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose of such a drone.

What about LED grow lights? Also, one could rig a heat pump so that the extra heat would be dumped into a backyard "heated pool." This would probably be undetectable.

jrs2352• 14 years ago

I am unaware of led grow lights... Didn't think LEDs output the proper light spectrum.

ams6110• 14 years ago

Prediction: it will be shot down within the first month of operation.

clebio2• 14 years ago

I'd be more concerned with signal interception. Assume they use current RC tech[1], which is designed to elimiate interference or capture error, but that doesn't mean it's infeasible. That would be a troubling twist.

Suppose a related idea would be that the image captures from airport body scanners could be intercepted. I have not seen any reference to such an action, at all. Anyone have ideas about an attack vector for those?

[1] http://spektrumrc.com/DSM/Technology/useDSM.aspx

softbuilder• 14 years ago

I'm sure it will be shot at. Shooting something down is pretty hard.

wyclif• 14 years ago

I predict the first US citizen to shoot down one of these will instantly become a folk hero.

gfodor• 14 years ago

Alternatively you can probably crash an RC plane or something into it

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

I can't imagine how hard that would be. Dealing in three dimensions at a distance is hard.

theevocater2• 14 years ago

stuff like this really drives home my fear of a dystopian future where police bots patrol the skies using all sorts of cameras and sensors to find 'the bad guys'. Facial recognition, thermal cameras, speech patterns and other tech we haven't even though of yet all used to find 'Bad People'. Creepy.

jeffool• 14 years ago

Casual use of thermal cameras is indeed too much (and as someone else pointed out, illegal.) Other things, like matching faces, speech, or even listening in public places, seem fine to me. (Someone else pointed to laws about flying so low, but if that can be worked around...) I know that's a popular image, but, if this is a new tool for officers patrolling, then I don't see what's so dystopian about this.

As long as we're not talking about cutting other officers and patrols, I would fully support police stations hiring a couple of people to alternate flying a dozen or so drones around the city. Just put some charging stations on top of light poles or city buildings, and have them automated to fly back when power is sufficiently low.

I really don't get why people are averse to such things so long as we keep in mind that they are tools are to help people. They're not magic robots that can not completely take the place of people. If we ever get to a point where it even seems like that, then that's another conversation to have. But we're not there yet, and I see no reason to not use tools if they seem worthwhile.

/edit: I understand that any tool can be abused, but can someone explain to me why this is met with such anger? Barring thermal or other vision modes, what's the huge difference in this and patrolling? (Aside from not being seen.)

theevocater2• 14 years ago

Constant surveillance is one of those societal boundaries where the line is hard to find. We all agree that public spaces are... public but if a plane can follow everywhere you go and record all of it, you start to get into weird creepy stalker territory. If that plane is controlled by the state then it is doubly creepy.

There aren't easy answers but it ultimately goes back to the 'Why do you need to hide anything if you don't do anything bad?' argument. And we already know plenty of answers to that argument.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I wonder what sort of shotgun load you need to take out a drone, would that be more like a pheasant or a goose load?

sukuriant• 14 years ago

The drone will probably be considered a military officer just like dogs. Either that, or it's the same as shooting a police officer's car when he's not in it. Don't forget about the consequences.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

Probably correct. And probably a bad idea to blind it with laser pointers too. But as a person concerned with the continuing erosion of civil liberties I get a bit frustrated.

ck2• 14 years ago

If people aren't up in arms about the TSA at airports groping them, they sure aren't going to do a darn thing about drones watching them.

Police know people are lazy and/or complacent.

ww520• 14 years ago

Plenty of drones with camera are available. The problem usually is the length of time they can stay up there. Battery power has not caught up with the current demand.

Bay Area sheriff seeks drone for thermal imaging and surveillance

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