Well, this didn’t take long to happen.
This weekend, New York police will employ drones to monitor backyard Labor Day festivities.
The revelation was made by Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, during a security briefing on J’ouvert, an annual Caribbean celebration.
Civil rights groups reacted angrily to Daughtry’s plan to utilize police drones to monitor family barbecues.
“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, according to AP. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”
AP reported:
Those attending outdoor parties or barbecues in New York City this weekend may notice an uninvited guest looming over their festivities: a police surveillance drone.
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.
In my part of the country that’s called skeet shooting, right?
