Cali's Lancaster Leaps into Daily Police Aerial Surveillance--At Least It’s Not a Drone?

The city of
Lancaster, California
announced today its “Law Enforcement Aerial Platform System,” a
radar system-camera attached to a single-engine Cessna that’s going
to conduct surveillance over the city for ten hours a day. It’s
kind of like a drone, only not. From KABC in Los Angeles:

The tool has similar capabilities as drones, which are
used by the military to scan warzones and transmit live video from
the battle field. However, the difference is that drones are remote
controlled, whereas the LEAPS technology will be attached to a
plane that will have a Los Angeles County deputy
inside.

Surveillance video will be transmitted directly to the Los
Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, according to
Wired, which notes the company providing LEAPS is a
local one, Spiral
Tech, one the California Commission for Job and Economic Growth
has dubbed a “California Innovation All Star,” no less.

Government
Technology has more on the technology and its
capabilities:

LEAPS uses both visible and infrared imagery for
tracking. City officials said that at the closest level of
surveillance, its new “eye in the sky” can identify the color of a
person’s clothing, but facial details and license plate numbers
will not be visible.

In an e-mail to Government Technology, Lancaster
Mayor R. Rex Parris touted the crime-stopping and prevention
advantages that aerial coverage will provide the city.

“Everyone knows you see more from above, cover a wider range of
observance and are capable of more accurate pursuit with an aerial
unit,” he said. The real-time value of LEAPS, Parris said, will be
the ability to provide ground patrol units information on
criminals’ movements.

LEAPS is reported to cost $1.3 million to launch
and $1 million a year to operate (for 152 days worth of hours a
year). The Lancaster City Council apparently approved it
unanimously. Lancaster’s most recent budget (pdf)
notes over the last five years “an overall loss of $15 million in
the general fund. Public safety costs have risen $6 million over
the same period of time.”  The budget points out
transfer and release of state inmates as an example of “a
number of challenges imposed by federal, state and Los Angeles
County laws and policies that hinder economic development and
threaten community safety.”

Lancaster has tried to push an “aggressive” aerial surveillance
system before. The Los Angeles Times
reported on an effort in 2009 which included this choice two
cents to close:

Antelope Valley blogs have been ablaze with chatter
about the new program, both for and against.

Matthew Keltner, 28, a Lancaster high school teacher, wrote: “If
having a measure of surveillance overhead is going to make the
criminal-minded uncomfortable, and think twice before settling in
Lancaster, or engaging in criminal activity, then what’s wrong with
it?

“I could care less if someone sees me doing water aerobics in my
grandmother’s pool,” he added.

Until, of course, someone
interprets that as a crime!

I’ll be talking about this development in domestic surveillance
on RT America at
4pm ET.

Semi-related: Last year Lancaster’s mayor
proposed broadcasting bird songs in the city.

2012-08-23 15:16:56

Source: http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/23/calis-lancaster-leaps-into-daily-police