The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.

“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.

The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.

“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”

  • downpunxx
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    212 years ago

    It becomes illegal when there are too many people there, or there is violence, underage drinking, drug usage, and if it’s too loud, the attendees are parking in the street blocking traffic, fire risks all sorts of shit

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      They are not responding to complains, they are searching themselves.

      EDIT: my eyes. They are responding. Still very wierd. Crowd itself is not a crime, article 20 of DoHR says so.

    • @[email protected]
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      272 years ago

      Those sound like things they need a warrant to learn about in a place with a reasonable expectation of privacy.

    • Wookie
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      252 years ago

      Are they doing this in white, affluent communities?

      • Stoneykins [any]
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        152 years ago

        Only in the context of like, fire safety. You can’t have more people in a building than it is designed to safely hold.

        Of course, cops use this safety regulation as an excuse to control people and be dicks…

        • @[email protected]
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          242 years ago

          They say ‘if a caller reports a large crowd, they’ll send a drone’, not ‘if a crime is reported’. That’s still surveillance, being in a large crowd isn’t a crime by itself.

        • wagoner
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          42 years ago

          It was an incomplete article that did not properly explain what the supposed legitimate issue is.

    • Uranium3006
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      132 years ago

      So the cops and fuck with your backyard party if you smoke a joint?