Alameda County Sheriff Secretly Buys Two Drones

After tabling plans to buy a
drone with federal grant funds in 2013 because of public outcry
over privacy, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern has bought two
drones with $97,000 from the county’s own budget.

“We try to keep our agency equipped with the best technology so
that we can provide the best service to the community and allow our
people to do their job safely,”
Ahern told the San Francisco Chronicle on December
2. Although the sheriff has maintained that the
drone will be used for public safety, privacy advocates have been
skeptical that it will only be used for that.

“This is a troubling example of law enforcement trying to
acquire invasive and extremely unpopular surveillance technology in
secret,” said Linda Lye, staff attorney at the American Civil
Liberties Union of Northern California to the Chronicle.
“There was a huge hue and cry when he did in secret, and he’s done
it in secret a second time,” says Lye.

The first time Sheriff Ahern tried to acquire a drone
began in 2012, when he asked for Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) grant money to fund the purchase but neglected to go to the
public with his intentions. According
to MuckRock.com, who got a hold of
the grant letter proposal, Ahern was looking to use a drone for
public safety and surveillance purposes, pointing out he wanted to
purchase a device equipped with a “Forward
Looking Infrared camera,“ or a
thermal-imaging detection dee.

In February of last year privacy advocates from the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and citizens in Alameda County

voiced their concerns at a public protection committee
meeting. Linda
Lye, a staff attorney with the ACLU, told Reason TV at the time
that strict rules for how the drone would and would not be used was
what she wanted from the department.

“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.”

For more on drones watch, “Cops with Drones:
Alameda Co., CA, Weighs Technology vs. Privacy.”

View this article.