New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones (404media.co) 60
A draft New Orleans Police Department drone manual briefly published online would have allowed police drones to carry weapons with written approval from the superintendent, according to 404 Media. NOPD says the document was only an early draft and that its current policy (PDF) bans drones from carrying weapons or hazardous materials. 404 Media reports: The current version, live as of July 1, has different language: "The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind," referring to small Unmanned Aerial Systems, or drones. According to the NOPD, the operations manual it published to the internet with the rules for weaponized drones was an early draft. "The manual published on July 1 is the current published version of the policy. Earlier versions were draft versions that were presented for review before adoption of the current policy," NOPD told 404 media. "NOPD has made it clear we are not and will not be equipping drones with weapons or other hazardous materials."
NOPD didn't answer follow-up questions about how or why the draft version of the manual was published. But the publication of a police drone manual that opens the door for weaponized quadcopters is important, and comes as drone companies and police flirt with the idea of putting weapons on their drones. New Orleans has long been a pioneer of camera and drone driven policing and the cops have used controversial tactics to get around public scrutiny and regulations. It shows that what the police are circulating amongst themselves and thinking about privately, what they perhaps want to happen, does not match public policy.
NOPD didn't answer follow-up questions about how or why the draft version of the manual was published. But the publication of a police drone manual that opens the door for weaponized quadcopters is important, and comes as drone companies and police flirt with the idea of putting weapons on their drones. New Orleans has long been a pioneer of camera and drone driven policing and the cops have used controversial tactics to get around public scrutiny and regulations. It shows that what the police are circulating amongst themselves and thinking about privately, what they perhaps want to happen, does not match public policy.
Quick, what's the new excuse? (Score:3)
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You're not going to let Willie Horton go are you?
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Simple: "The computer did it!". Obviously nobody is at fault now.
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i say the blame will sit squarley on the "self-learning" ai
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Also a good one. And no, we cannot show you because "national security"...
Re:Quick, what's the new excuse? (Score:5, Insightful)
What are we going to use to handwave all the 'officer involved shootings' now that the claim that you feared for your life in the face of an imminent threat is no longer plausible? We can't really put these to work until we've decided on suitable legal cover!
The current federal excuse is that anyone that disagrees with the authorities on any level is to be labeled a terrorist. I'm assuming once these start mowing people down, all of those people will be labeled terrorists too. It does tend to shut down the critical thinking of anyone who might otherwise protest, with the added benefit that protesters are now also seen as domestic terrorists. HOORAY! WE'RE FINALLY ALL TERRORISTS!
THey'll just settle for (Score:2)
a couple of ma deuces mounted to their police helicopters. They way there's a human in the loop and on site.
You get the feeling that some cities take "Contempt of Cop" to a whole new level.
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Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone flying your “don’t tread on me” flags, now is your time to speak up. Isn’t this in your purview?
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That ship sailed with Snowden.
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Typical, let the real patriots fight the battle for you
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Why?
Are you trying to start a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert or something....?
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GP I'm responding to is literally asking the real patriots to fight for him you knob.
I took the field personally as a young man during OEF. I've already had my war- I'm a crusty old combat vet and I wont be much help unless younger people start asking very uncomfortable questions... and the best time for those questions was the Snowden leaks.
The second best time is now- but I'm watching a flaccid resistance to tyranny turn on itself in the comments instead. Keep insulting strangers on the internet, genius-
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I'm sure somewhere out there in the 340 million people in America one of them exists. But there are so few of them compared to the fascists pretending they give a shit about civil rights that if they do exist they are completely drowned out by the fascists they hang out with.
Honestly the whole gun thing is just that it's their hobby and their friend group.
I figured that out years ago when a b
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Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
Please stop misusing the term Fascist. That's a political-economy, not "someone I disagree with". Do they promote a totalitarian system of government where the government breaks down the economy by industry and directs production through a corporatist management system? If not, you're using the word wrong.
Wikipedia says:
"Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism, fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum. What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars.
Your implicit assumption that there is anything like consensus regarding the definition of Fascist is at best lame, and at worst disingenuous.
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Most attempts at redefinition after that are directed towards making some other point (like falsely jus
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Everyone flying your “don’t tread on me” flags, now is your time to speak up. Isn’t this in your purview?
No, you misunderstand, those signs are for serious shit like when someone had a pronoun or there are minorities somewhere in the tri-county area. This government overreach is simply not important enough to warrant their attention.
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Because of a draft policy that someone "not in the know" got hold of, informing the public. The immediate and widespread outcry then causes the policy to change back quietly before going into effect, driving the irate drafters back into dark spaces - convinced they are now going to have to wait almost a YEAR (the horror!) before trying to arm police drones again.
Darn meddling kids!
You have 10 seconds to comply (Score:2)
Someone had to, guess it's me Ed.
If you want to send in armed drones into a cartel crack den, I am ok with that. Takes longer to train a good cop than a gangster. But it has to be regulated, proportionate, like SWAT when it's done well.
Re: You have 10 seconds to comply (Score:2)
Isn't SWAT always done well?
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I don't expect so, they wouldn't be good if they didn't have mistakes to learn from.
Re: You have 10 seconds to comply (Score:2)
It was actually a trick question - because they're apparently mostly not "trained well", unless for a singular scope, which is destruction and killing. If they were trained well for what they should actually be doing -- namely a situationally adequate response -- then the phrase "swatting somebody" wouldn't even be a thing.
And incidentally, it's the same thung with automated weapons.
Benchmark of how well they work isn't how well they perform the one task they're made for. It's how well they recognize the si
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I'm lucky, in the UK training is very good for our armed cops. Only a few cops are armed, which always amazes me, but then we have a lot less guns on the street. Knives are our biggest problem.
SWAT must be a very stressful job, mistakes getting made under stress and from the gun-ho. I guess they never know what they are going up against, you guys like your guns. A drone would give them some safety to make better decisions.
Better still, get some guns off the street.
Re: You have 10 seconds to comply (Score:2)
I'm not American :-)
But I also don't buy the "more guns on the street" argument. Switzerland for instance must have a similar amount of guns, every adult male that goes through military training takes their own gun home for free (it's part of the Swiss defense strategy, apparently). Yet their police do just fine without running amok on their own population.
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Interesting, Swiss has always felt like a sensible, calm culture, the unkind might call it boring.
The US was born in violence has been at war somewhere ever since, describing it as aggressive seems fair.
The data [share.google] seems to disagree with you on gun ownership, assuming its accurate
US 4.7 gun homicides per 100K population and its guns for breakfast.
UK 0.015 , hardly any guns.
Swiss 0.19 , lots of guns, domestic and suicide, maybe its a bit too boring and uptight being Swiss for some to bear.
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Debugging
if (is_nigg-ger() == true || is_MAGA() != true)
{
shoot_the_piece_of_shit();
}
Re: Doesn't Need AI (Score:2)
Maybe don't quit your day job.
hazardous materials (Score:4, Funny)
> The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind
Well that eliminates a drone battery.
Tourist Attraction (Score:2)
Weapons of empire eventually used at home (Score:2)
\o/ (Score:1)
Beep me when there's news about drones with claws to collect protection money or steal donuts.
Only in America (Score:2)
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Is that really up to some random superintendent to decide. In most countries it would have to be an act of parliament.
We don't have a parliament. We have a congress. That has worked tirelessly over the last fifty plus years to prove that they are so ineffective at doing anything at all that it's just easier to go around them and wait for the courts to step in to decide if it's OK after the fact. And once that started happening, the courts were subverted by the guys with the jackboots so that they didn't make "the wrong decisions," so, essentially, thuggish government officials have no checks and balances.
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We don't have a parliament. We have a congress. That has worked tirelessly over the last fifty plus years to prove that they are so ineffective at doing anything at all that it's just easier to go around them and wait for the courts to step in to decide if it's OK after the fact. And once that started happening, the courts were subverted by the guys with the jackboots so that they didn't make "the wrong decisions," so, essentially, thuggish government officials have no checks and balances.
That's basically correct. The question now is, who's fault is that and who's job is it to fix the problem? I'll give you a hint. The answer to both is "the voting public."
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And it isn't the policy anyhow.
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Well, the US is set up that way...MOST local power is reserved for the States and the localities within.
The Federal govt is set up to be weak, at least constitutionally it is only supposed to have the limited, enumerated powers and responsibilities listed in the US Constitution.
That has been bastardized greatly over the years, but it also still largely applies.
For the most part, the Feds
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France is currently considering a law that would presume ALL police killings are legitimate until proven otherwise. Basically a license to kill for the police as long as there are no witnesses
Whiny crybabies want more ways to murder us (Score:1)
There are two types of cops: bad cops, and the ones who allow that to go on.
Cops spend more timing complaining that they need to be protected, that their job is dangerous, that people shouldn't have rights because "officer safety" and then they kill innocent people almost daily. "He weaponized his car." No, he drove away from your murderous testosterone-shot addled steroid-induced killer self.
Giving these assholes on roids access to military weapons was a mistake we (people who have not comitted a crime w
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I think the quote from the original Blade Runner said it best:
"You're either Cop, or you're little people"
Yeah! More efficient killing civilians! (Score:2)
So much winning. In other news, the GeStaPo and SS would have loved this tech!
The police is not capable of limiting itself. They always think their concerns are the most important ones and they cannot respect civil rights and personal freedoms. It is an occupational incapability. They must be carefully limited from outside and strictly held accountable. Or things go to hell.
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You assume these are assumptions. You assume wrong.
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of a 9mm shot from a drone? Not sure the mass of a drone would handle the backfire of a weapons fire. Pretty sure that would cause the drone to go out of control and crash...
Well, if they didn't care about collateral damage - and often they don't - they could simultaneously fire a round in the opposite direction and let the two momenta cancel each other. A misfire would really suck though...