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Comment by diminoten2 | Hacker News Reader

In the hypothetical situation where these drones were taking recorded video of publicly accessible areas of Baltimore ("the streets", so to speak), would you have a problem with that?

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I would have a problem with that, as I still think that the PD should be required to have articuable suspicion to collect information on any and all who may be caught on camera. It's inevitable that some people caught on video camera will not be "potentially" committing a crime. Video cameras might be easier for the legal weasels to defend than the Stingrays (radio waves don't care about walls, and "oh, those people were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and too bad if they are video taped"), but I still find it personally detestable. It's ridiculous for the Baltimore City PD to have the ability to video tape the whole of the Baltimore Metro area's landscape, merely under the guise of some crowds milling about in limited downtown areas. Compare to body-cameras: I have no problem with body-cameras and their potential to capture people in all walks of life. Presumably if a police officer's body camera is going to be focused on you, then the police officer him/herself will also be there, exercising judgment and discretion regarding which people are of interest or are potentially committing a crime. The same can't be said for the use of video cameras on drones.

I bet you find speeding cameras, the ones that only turn on if you're actively breaking a law in front of them, detestable too, don't you?

Instead of smarmily moving the goal posts with these decreasingly relevant questions, why not add some of your own opinions or retorts to the points I've been trying to make?

I don't find speeding cameras detestable, if indeed they are activated by staggered induction/magnetic sensors and are not simply 24/7 video recording cameras.

Nah, I guess I'm just too smarmy to keep going in this conversation.

Ok, no sweat off my back. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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