At the very least, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by this sort of caper anymore:
Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.
The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.
Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Coppers will claim that this is just a modest extension of existing surveillance techniques. The general public could be forgiven for thinking that it’s akin to something from some dystopian vision of the future scribbled by Philip K Dick. But no, this is Britain today.They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.
As Kevin Drum points out, what’s fiction on 24 is real-life in this United Kingdom.
[Many thanks to RF and AC for the tip.]
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