The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.
“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.
The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.
“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”
For people wanting to take down drones, I think a directed energy weapon would work. It uses a beam high frequency radio waves or microwaves to disable electronics. Since there’s no projectile, it would be easier to use without getting caught.
The inverse square law will ensure that anything you have that’s powerful enough to disable a drone in flight will be at least the size of a semi truck.
Electromagnetic radiation is great for communication, not so much energy transfer.
There are already effective “guns” for jamming drones that are the size of a large rifle.
We can shape EM “beams” – lasers, directional antennas, etc. Inverse square law is far less of a concern for collimated beams.
Yeah my initial response to the dispersal problem is to see if we can’t weaponize Pringles can WiFi into something that can either physically disable the electronics or interrupt communication between the spybot and home base.
Inb4 someone gets charged with assaulting an officer for being impolite to an NYPD robot
I miss the early 2000s WokFi craze – wifi and cheap off-the-shelf solutions are so widespread these days.
I used to “borrow” internet from the library that was 2 miles away. I waterproofed a USB wifi dongle and zip tied it to the feedhorn of an old Direct TV dish. I brought the setup anytime we had a LAN party at a house that didn’t have broadband internet.
The military already uses such devices. They look like bulky sci-fi rifles and are quite man-portable. They aren’t frying the drone, they just need to send a signal stronger than its control signal so the inverse square law works in its favor.
Are they legal in the US?
As long as you don’t use them, sure. They are composed of basic parts, just well adjusted to the purpose. But if you do decide do use them, be aware that you cannot interfere with any radio communications in any way and/or destroy someone’s property. Which does not mean I am against shooting down someone’s drone on your property that is spying you, it’s just not really legal per se.
Unless someone would stumble upon a combination of microwave magnetron that “just so happens” to fit a satellite dish LNC mount. I can neither confirm nor deny that such combinations might exist.
It certainly would seem a very good way to impart… “energy” into all and sundry besides the intended target, and as such horribly dangerous and irresponsible.
The inverse square law only applies to undirected things, because the surface area of a sphere is proportional to the square of radius. The parent specified directed, like a laser.
I have a dream of engineering a drone to hover while it engages an rf jammer for some set amount of time.
Then you will get the FAA and FCC involved.
Got it.