By Nicholas West/Activist Post
The rapid proliferation of police drones and robots shouldn’t come as a surprise for longtime readers, but legislators are now reaching for the next level by removing many of the previous restrictions on when and how they can be used.
It can’t get more obvious about where we are heading than the recent major amendement to police drone use in Illinois: the previous “Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act” is now being called “The Drones As First Responders Act.”
As the article from Patch.com explains below, a mass shooting is what spurred the major overhaul to police policy. For privacy advocates, this serves as a perfect example of why resistance to intrusive police tech must be ongoing, consistent and unwavering. In both Los Angeles and New York, we have seen similiar reversals regarding their use of robodog robots for a widening variety of applications.
Worse still, Illinois has indicated that in addition to expanding their drone coverage to include “special events,” they also will loosen restrictions on the use of facial recognition if there is “a high risk of a terrorist attack.”
For now, the legislation prohibits drone use at “political protests, marches, demonstrations or other First Amendment-protected assemblies.” However, we shouldn’t expect this to be a firm line in the sand, as the line has been moving incrementally and steadily away from freedom for many decades. The fact that this latest initiative in Illinois received overwhelming bipartisan support should tell us everything we need to know.
PERCEPTION RESET 