"It's scary, but what's the difference whether the
drone is up in the air or on the building," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said
today during his weekly appearance on the John Gambling radio show,
when Gambling asked him his thoughts on the use of domestic drones by
the NYPD or any other entity. "I mean intellectually I'd have trouble
making a distinction. And you know, you're gonna have face-recognition
software. People are working on that. ... You can't keep the tides from
coming in. We're gonna have more visibility and less privacy. I don't
see how you stop that."
In December, the New York Times editorial board warned
that "the unmanned aircraft that most people associate with hunting
terrorists and striking targets in Pakistan are on the brink of evolving
into a big domestic industry," and urged Congress to protect Americans'
right to privacy.
"This is something that society really has to
think about, and not by writing a quick piece of legislation," said
Bloomberg this morning. "These are long-term serious problems."
The
issue arose during a discussion about traffic-enforcement cameras.
Bloomberg would like there to be many more red-light and speeding
cameras, but he needs Albany's approval to install them. Thus far Albany
has been reluctant to oblige, in part due to concerns from the police
union that the more widespread use of such cameras will mean fewer jobs.
"We
should have red light cameras everyplace, why not?" said Bloomberg this
morning. "If you break the law, why not do it? And we should not use
our police officers for that. Our police officers have too much to do.
They put their lives in danger all the time. ... It isn't gonna result
in any fewer police officers being employed. It'll just make them more
valuable because they can work on more important stuff, like bringing
crime down or preventing crime to begin with."
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