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Comment by josu | Hacker News Reader

"The Anaheim Police Department has acknowledged in new documents that it uses surveillance devices known as Dirtboxes—plane-mounted stingrays—on aircraft flying above the Southern California city that is home to Disneyland, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world."

According to the United States Census Bureau Anaheim County has a population of 346,997 (2014). Not being from the US, the fact that a county police from an area with a population of 350k is able to afford to buy and operate airplanes amazes me.

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From looking at the FAA registry[1] and googling, it looks like the Anaheim police department operates 3 aircraft: N226PD, an AS350 helicopter; N326PD, another AS350 helicopter; N508BH, a Cessna 208B.

N508BH, the Cessna, is probably the one they're using for surveillance (See the 2012 OC Register article, "$2.2 million Cessna will help fight crime"[2]).

FlightAware shows that N508BH flies to northern california a lot. You can also see what looks like a probable surveillance flight path at http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N508BH/history/20151128/2...

Three aircraft for a California city with population 350K isn't crazy--Glendale and Burbank together have about 300K people, and their police forces have gone in together to create a "joint air support division" that has 4 helicopters[3].

  [1] http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/releasable_aircraft_download/
  [2] http://www.ocregister.com/articles/air-356706-police-cessna.html
  [3] http://www.mdhelicopters.com/news/pdf/2014/111914.pdf

That's phenomenal.

As a point of contrast, the New Zealand police own 1 helicopter, and contract out flying light aircraft to commercial operators.

Upon saying that, they often call upon the air force for logistical support (in particular for helicopter operations, usually for drug operations, such as airlifting cannabis for destruction, not for raids).

In the US, it is illegal for the military to operate in a civilian law-enforcement context. The National Guard (state militias) can be called into civilian action by the state governor, but do not normally perform civilian tasks.

Helicopter ownership by police departments is common. Airplane ownership is less common, at least at the city/county level - the state police forces frequently have small planes.

That quote doesn't mean that department buys or operates airplanes. It means they own at least one specific kind of StingRay that they can mount in aircrafts that happen to be flying in their precinct.

I will say, being from the US, the fact that any branch of the government would use such a device should amaze me, but unfortunately I have to admit I have heard of worse abuses of power.

Anaheim city pop is ~350k. OC pop is ~3 million.

Their biggest tax payer is Disney, so they are flush with money.

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