Critics call NYPD’s drone deployment ‘a serious threat to privacy’

Drones are coming to New York City, and that should worry you. 

So argues the New York Civil Liberties Union, which in a Dec. 7 statement blasts the forthcoming NYPD deployment of the flying surveillance bots as “a serious threat to privacy.” The 14 police drones, which the New York Times reports had been acquired by city police in June, are ostensibly to be used for tasks like keeping an eye on large crowds or hostage situations. However, critics see the deployment as the start of a very slippery, privacy-eroding slope. 

After all, large crowds of people often gather together to lawfully protest something like, say, police brutality. Or, as the NYPD specifically notes as a drone-appropriate example (according to the NYCLU), the Women’s March.  Read more…

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