LAPD Acquires Two Drones

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has
acquired drones. According to a short press
release issued by the department, “no decision has been made
whether or not these vehicles will be used.” Last year Reason TV
released “Cops with Drones: Alameda Co., CA Weights Technology vs.
Privacy,” which takes a look at the issues surrounding law
enforcement’s use of these tools. 

The original release date was April 4, 2013, and the original
text is below.

For a long time, drones—unmanned aircraft—were used only by the
military. Now local law enforcement wants them for police work such
as surveillance and search-and-rescue missions. That in turn has
sparked a fierce debate over the balance between cutting-edge law
enforcement technology and the privacy rights of citizens.

In February, Reason TV covered an Alameda County, California,
public protection committee meeting in which Sheriff Gregory
Ahern announced that he planned on using a laptop-sized
drone (he prefers to call it an “unmanned aerial system”) for
search and rescue. “It’s mission specific to search areas for lost
children or elderly or Alzheimer’s patients to search an area that
it would be very difficult for our personnel to get to,” said
Sheriff Ahern.

Residents and civil liberties advocates are skeptical that drone
use would remain so narrowly defined for very long. At the
meeting, Linda
Lye of the American
Civil Liberties Union of Northern California took issue
with the sheriff’s submitted draft
of a privacy policy. She said it’s not specific enough
about what the sheriff can and cannot do with drones.

“If the sheriff wants a drone for search and rescue then the
policy should say he can only use it for search and rescue,” said
Lye. “Unfortunately under his policy he can deploy a drone for
search and rescue, but then use the data for untold other purposes.
That is a huge loophole, it’s an exception that swallows the
rule.”

Lye urged the public protection committee not to approve the
drone until stricter safeguards were in place. She pointed out that
the safeguards were important because the technology will develop
very quickly—and possibly to a point where citizens don’t have
control of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable
searches and seizures. Indeed, Alameda County could serve as the
baseline for police and sheriff’s departments across the country,
so getting it right there may affect all Americans.

The sheriff plans on applying for permission from the Federal
Aviation Administration to fly aircraft above 400 feet and plans to
pay for the drone with a federal grant. MuckRock.com made a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request for the grant
made to the Department of Homeland Security in July 2012. The
request revealed that Sheriff Ahern was looking to purchase a drone
equipped with a something called a “Forward Looking
Infrared camera.” These thermal-imaging devices detect
radiation given off by heat from people or animals, opening up a
wide variety of concerns.

Criminal law experts such as Laurie
Levenson of Loyola Law
School say law enforcement hasn’t been given enough legal
guidance on drones yet.

“If you say we’re going to use it for a manhunt, what do you
call a manhunt? If you say you want to use it to find missing
persons, well, how far can you go with that?” says Levenson. She
says that it’s a matter of drawing lines because it’s just too easy
to become Big Brother without them. What happens, for instance, if
police capture evidence of unrelated criminal activity while
searching for a lost toddler? Can they use that to trigger arrests
and prosecution?

Trevor
Timm of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation points out that it is very hard to
draw lines with police because, once police have a certain power,
they never want to give it up. “Police always seem to want to push
the boundaries as far as the law will take them and sometimes over
those boundaries,” says Timm.

He points to law enforcement and cell phone data as an
example. The
New York Times reported that in 2011, law
enforcement made 1.3 million demands of phone companies for
subscriber locations, text messages, and other information. Because
there weren’t strict privacy rules in place when mobile phones
first exploded onto the market, it made it that much easier for law
enforcement to obtain civilian data without search warrants or
users’ approval or even knowing about the requests.

“Generally there is this real friction between technology and
civil liberties and we haven’t really figured out how to deal with
it,” says Levenson. We don’t know how to deal with it because
technology is developing a lot faster than the law can keep up.
Government cameras are everywhere these days and the laws that deal
with them go back to the time of the framers of the Constitution.
“What did they know about drones?” asks Levenson.

About 8 minutes.

Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Camera by Alex Manning,
Zach Weissmueller, Tracy Oppenheimer, and Detrick.