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.”

  • Uranium3006
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    131 year ago

    So the cops and fuck with your backyard party if you smoke a joint?

    • @3laws
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      111 year ago

      Joint? Nah, hard drugs, fo sho (unless you are a billionaire).

      • prole
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        81 year ago

        What a waste of time and resources.

      • @uis
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        41 year ago

        How they will distinguish cigaretes, joints and hard drugs?

    • @BassTurd
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      81 year ago

      How would a drone know? Other than capacity and street violations, there’s nothing that a drone should realistically be able to identify.

      • @instamat
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        21 year ago

        I think the drone operators would do the identifying part

    • downpunxx
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      -261 year ago

      no, as grass is legal in nyc now, but if you’re blowing lines and smoking crack, trippin balls, or tweakin, they probably should, you know, for the kids in the neighborhood you nincompoop