Anyway so the police have armed drones now

So this is a thing. 

The attack began Thursday night during a protest about the recent killings by police of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota. Five officers were killed and seven others were wounded. Two civilians were also wounded.

Police Chief David Brown said Friday that his department used a robot-delivered bomb to kill a suspect after hours of negotiations failed. He says the suspect expressed anger over recent killings by police of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

One supposes the reason police would use a robot to do a thing would be to avoid putting officers in a life threatening situation. One also supposes the use of deadly force by police is typically justified only in situations where an officer is faced with an immediate life threatening situation.   What is the reasoning behind use of deadly force by a robot?  Nobody knows.

Meanwhile it's awfully difficult to verify police assertions about the suspect's motive, associations, and possible number of accomplices when they've already killed the suspect with an exploding robot.  Strange since they were quite forthcoming with false information about an innocent person they detained and intimidated.

Anyway I'm sure it all come out when they check the body cam footage. You know, as long as the cams didn't conveniently fall off at the wrong time again.

Robocops

From NOLADefender April 2011:

Thanks to First NBC Bank, officers of one of the Department's Uptown districts (the 6th) will get their own alt-policing method: the segway. NOPD Superintendant Ronal Serpas rode the new crime-fighting segway last night at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of First NBC Bank’s new branch opening in the Garden District.  

After riding it quickly and confidently across the bank’s parking lot, Serpas talked about how it differs from the average tourist Segway carrying Midwesterners through the Quarters. “It has a bigger battery capacity," he said. "The wheels and structure are stronger."

Though the city has problems like potholes, Serpas believes the Segway’s customized larger wheels are “capable of a lot of terrain that you might not expect."

In the photo below (also via NOLADefender)  Serpas demonstrates the super-Segway's enhanced strength when pushed to the extreme limit of its carrying capacity.



It was only a few short months later that Serpas deployed an even more impressive piece of technology. 

On Friday afternoon, the New Orleans Police Department and Chief Ronal Serpas will be unveiling the newest weapon in their crime-fighting tool belt: a $350,000 mobile DWI unit the NOPD has christened the "Batmobile."

Purchased through a grant from the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, the Drunkmobile Batmobile is a 38-foot long mobile unit with room for four citizens to cool their heels while a fifth blows into a tube in the rear of the vehicle.

Holy high-tech drunk tank, Batman! Look for it at a DWI checkpoint near you.

But even as his department has benefited from new technologies, Serpas has run into difficulty maintaining the manpower necessary to operate it.

New Orleans has lost 300 more officers than it hired since 2010 amid what some city leaders are calling a staffing crisis, officials said Wednesday. Even with new recruitment efforts finally underway and the promise of hiring 100 new officers over the next year, the City Council is looking for new ways to put more police on the streets faster. 

According to a status update to PANO's Facebook page, though, it sounds more like the city is running in place there.

Oddly enough, in the midst of the hearing, CAO Andy Koppelin (sic) appeared and stated the City may still have to impose layoffs and LWOP days depending on the cost of the pending consent decrees. That bit of info would seemingly alarm any potential applicants, as well as current employees.

But, hey, the good news is they're buying new tech. 

New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said Wednesday his office is buying hundreds of cameras for officers to wear on their uniforms beginning as soon as late this year. He called the devices “the future of American law enforcement.”

The "future of American law enforcement" begins when every interaction you might have with a police officer.. no matter how insignificant.. is recorded by a law enforcement camera and fed into the burgeoning security panopticon.  How exciting! Are you excited?

Serpas said the body cameras are a major step that other police agencies across the country have embraced, both to protect the public and to forestall false complaints against officers.

“Imagine a day in the city of New Orleans, in the not too distant future, where every single time we pull over a car, we ask somebody who they are or what they’re doing, that that entire incident is audiotaped and videotaped,” Serpas said. “We’re very excited about it. It’s coming.”

See? It's exciting. But this vision of Segway and Google Glass powered Batcops is really just a way station on the path to a better future where we can dispense with manpower altogether and just move straight ahead with the all-drone police force we've been waiting for. Will sure save a lot on pensions that way. 

What could possibly go wrong?

This ain't Battle Bots

Nonsense

The president, in his most expansive public discussion on drones, defended their targeted killings as both effective and legal. He acknowledged the civilian deaths that sometimes result — a consequence that has angered many of the countries where the U.S. seeks to combat extremism — and said he grapples with that trade-off.

“For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live,” he said. Before any strike, he said, “there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.”

So here's a question nobody is asking yet. We're obviously well on the way to replacing the bulk of our workforce with robots.

It is time for not just economists but roboticists, like me, to ask, “How will robotic advances transform society in potentially dystopian ways?” My concern is that without serious discourse and explicit policy changes, the current path will lead to an ever more polarized economic world, with robotic technologies replacing the middle class and further distancing our society from authentic opportunity and economic justice.

And that's bad enough as it is. But add to that the fact that robots are transforming warfare in similar ways.

So then once everyone's army is made up of expendable machines, doesn't that mean the only "targets" of any value will be civilians? It would be fun if we could settle all the world's disputes via remote control, but the whole history of warfare would indicate nothing gets decided until some folks are dead. And if all the folks are non-combatants... well... I guess all war is really just organized terror. And, yes, I realize that's probably the same as it has ever been.

Serpas Signal

First off, Rand Paul's faux filibuster shit fit last night appears to have done absolutely no good whatsoever.

PHOENIX - A bill that would have required law enforcement agencies in Arizona to get search warrants before using unmanned aircraft to gather evidence will be amended to instead create a study committee on drone use, the sponsor said Thursday.

The decision by Republican Rep. Tom Forese of Chandler comes after law enforcement voiced opposition to the bill at a committee hearing last month.

Forese said he's also heard from economic development interests who told him they were worried about the bill's impact to the growth of the technology in Arizona.

Arizona officials are hoping the state will be chosen for one of six drone test sites around the country that the Federal Aviation Administration sought proposals for last month. The agency is required by a law enacted a year ago to develop sites where military and civilian drones can be tested in preparation for integration into U.S. airspace.

Privacy advocates are worried that widespread drone use will infringe on civil liberties and lead to constant surveillance of the public.

Like it or not, the drones is coming.  And, probably sooner than we think, they will carry weapons. 

American police officers may soon be able to use unmanned aircraft not only for surveillance, but also for offensive action. The drones may be equipped to fire rubber rounds and tear gas.

“Those are things that law enforcement utilizes day in and day out, and in certain situations it might be advantageous to have this type of system on the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle),” Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas told The Daily news app as he outlined the possible development.

Today's police drones may be able to carry tear gas and detect weapons but if Ronal Serpas ever decides to buy one (he reportedly turned one down last year) it will have to be armed with breathalyzers and be able to detect drunk drivers.. or possibly donuts.  But until then we're pretty much stuck putting up with checkpoints.

The New Orleans Police Department’s Traffic Division will conduct a sobriety checkpoint, in Orleans Parish, on Friday March 8, 2013, beginning at approximately 9:00 P.M. and will conclude at approximately 5:00 A.M.  Motorists will experience minimal delays and should have the proper documentation available if requested, i.e., proof of insurance, driver’s license, etc. 

Drive safely. Or, if that fails, Senator Paul recommends keeping a pocket constitution on your person. It's not only a handy reference tool, but it's also much more fashionable than the customary head gear.

The usual suspects

Emergency officials thought maybe the Occupy kids were to blame for the power outage because... this is the sort of thing emergency officials think about.

18:26: "Just be advised the FBI's currently tracking the Occupy NOLA movement," advising anyone to who sees members to contact the security operations center. (Occupy NOLA members had staged protests earlier in the day.)

Fairly confident they weren't "tracking" anyone using any of the drones they said they didn't bring in but one never knows. Of course if they had bought the drone, then they'd at least have something quieter than a low-flying orange helicopter to run up and down the parade routes all weekend.




But then how would they ruin your ability to hear the bands?

In any case we're relieved to learn that Entergy has ruled out terrorism or anything like terrorism as the culprit in the power outage.   Jury may still be out on raccoons, though.

Update: Also has anyone considered the possibility that the problem occurred when Mitch Landrieu plugged his heart into the Superdome electrical feed?

Mitch Landrieu expanded for the first time Tuesday on what it feels like to be mayor when the lights go out in the middle of your city's big moment on the national stage. It was not so much what passed through his mind at the Superdome on Sunday, the mayor explained: "My heart stopped."

The State of Our City is a Donut Hole

I caught the beginning of the Mayor's speech, then I had to go do something, then I got to hear the end.  Reading through the tweets and early reports and stuff to glean the middle part.  Looks like a whole lot of nothing so far.

That is until we get the details of these anti-crime initiatives sorted out. From here I'd say some of it looks benign  but worth doing. Mitch is asking for mentoring, counseling, and mental health services... you know.. all the stuff the Governor has spent the last year and a half slicing out of the budget.

Some of it looks like it could be bad. For example, "creating a team of federal law enforcement specialists to prosecute drug kingpins" sounds ominous. Brendan McCarthy tweeted that this mysterious program might be what's referred to here.

The initiative comes from the highest reaches of federal law enforcement; it is the fruit of conversations between Mayor Mitch Landrieu and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The effort appears to be spearheaded by the local office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, better known as ATF, which has for years worked with the New Orleans Police Department on larger-scale gun and gang crimes.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, in a conference call with Phillip Durham, head of the local ATF branch, acknowledged Monday that "additional resources" from the federal government are forthcoming.
"At this time, we cannot provide further details on this," Letten said.

Maybe they're bringing in a few drones, which I'm told are all about good and friendly things now that they're being launched domestically. 

After issuing a statement denouncing Krauthammer’s remarks as “irresponsible” and “dangerous,” Toscano said the AUVSI would go on the offensive against critics. While the strategy is still being shaped, Toscano made it sound like something straight out of a crisis-management textbook — or Orwell. The AUVSI wants to bombard the American public with positive images and messages about drones in an effort to reverse the growing perception of the aircraft as a threat to privacy and safety.

“You have to keep repeating the good words,” Toscano explained. “People who don’t know what they’re talking about say these are spy planes or killer drones. They’re not.” He criticized Salon and other news organizations for using the term “drones,” saying “remotely piloted vehicles” is more accurate.

Anyway, if you want to read the Mayor's remarks they're posted here.  I haven't figured out how to filter out all the stuff about "speaking with one voice" yet, so, sorry about that.

Civilization

Any number of game titles would fit here, I guess, but that one is particularly fun. Maybe Angry Birds would also have been appropriate.

For a new generation of young guns, the experience of piloting a drone is not unlike the video games they grew up on. Unlike traditional pilots, who physically fly their payloads to a target, drone operators kill at the touch of a button, without ever leaving their base – a remove that only serves to further desensitize the taking of human life. (The military slang for a man killed by a drone strike is "bug splat," since viewing the body through a grainy-green video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed.) As drone pilot Lt. Col. Matt Martin recounts in his book Predator, operating a drone is "almost like playing the computer game Civilization" – something straight out of "a sci-fi novel." After one mission, in which he navigated a drone to target a technical college being occupied by insurgents in Iraq, Martin felt "electrified" and "adrenalized," exulting that "we had shot the technical college full of holes, destroying large portions of it and killing only God knew how many people."

Only later did the reality of what he had done sink in. "I had yet to realize the horror," Martin recalls.

Update: Also, they can be used for texting.