The New York Police Department (NYPD) will be flying drones over people’s homes to spy on private parties this Labor Day weekend, Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry has warned.
“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,” Daughtry said.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has denounced the use of drones against the public in this way as “sci-fi inspired” and a possible violation of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act.
Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), has also raised concerns, highlighting “how few protections we have against seeing these cameras aimed at our backyards or even our bedrooms.”
Democrat city mayor Eric Adams hailed the “endless” potential of drones in NYC after a visit to Israel, which is in a constant state of low-level civil conflict with much of the population under its control.