Casual use of thermal cameras is indeed too much (and as someone else pointed out, illegal.) Other things, like matching faces, speech, or even listening in public places, seem fine to me. (Someone else pointed to laws about flying so low, but if that can be worked around...) I know that's a popular image, but, if this is a new tool for officers patrolling, then I don't see what's so dystopian about this.
As long as we're not talking about cutting other officers and patrols, I would fully support police stations hiring a couple of people to alternate flying a dozen or so drones around the city. Just put some charging stations on top of light poles or city buildings, and have them automated to fly back when power is sufficiently low.
I really don't get why people are averse to such things so long as we keep in mind that they are tools are to help people. They're not magic robots that can not completely take the place of people. If we ever get to a point where it even seems like that, then that's another conversation to have. But we're not there yet, and I see no reason to not use tools if they seem worthwhile.
/edit: I understand that any tool can be abused, but can someone explain to me why this is met with such anger? Barring thermal or other vision modes, what's the huge difference in this and patrolling? (Aside from not being seen.)
Constant surveillance is one of those societal boundaries where the line is hard to find. We all agree that public spaces are... public but if a plane can follow everywhere you go and record all of it, you start to get into weird creepy stalker territory. If that plane is controlled by the state then it is doubly creepy.
There aren't easy answers but it ultimately goes back to the 'Why do you need to hide anything if you don't do anything bad?' argument. And we already know plenty of answers to that argument.
Comments
Casual use of thermal cameras is indeed too much (and as someone else pointed out, illegal.) Other things, like matching faces, speech, or even listening in public places, seem fine to me. (Someone else pointed to laws about flying so low, but if that can be worked around...) I know that's a popular image, but, if this is a new tool for officers patrolling, then I don't see what's so dystopian about this.
As long as we're not talking about cutting other officers and patrols, I would fully support police stations hiring a couple of people to alternate flying a dozen or so drones around the city. Just put some charging stations on top of light poles or city buildings, and have them automated to fly back when power is sufficiently low.
I really don't get why people are averse to such things so long as we keep in mind that they are tools are to help people. They're not magic robots that can not completely take the place of people. If we ever get to a point where it even seems like that, then that's another conversation to have. But we're not there yet, and I see no reason to not use tools if they seem worthwhile.
/edit: I understand that any tool can be abused, but can someone explain to me why this is met with such anger? Barring thermal or other vision modes, what's the huge difference in this and patrolling? (Aside from not being seen.)
Constant surveillance is one of those societal boundaries where the line is hard to find. We all agree that public spaces are... public but if a plane can follow everywhere you go and record all of it, you start to get into weird creepy stalker territory. If that plane is controlled by the state then it is doubly creepy.
There aren't easy answers but it ultimately goes back to the 'Why do you need to hide anything if you don't do anything bad?' argument. And we already know plenty of answers to that argument.