NYPD using drones to check out noisy backyard parties over Labor Day weekend

Does an NYPD drone just measure "bulk" noise, or does it become an excuse to smuggle in directional eavesdropping ?

Air rights differ from county to county, and even property to property in some counties. 500ft is a fair ballpark figure.

Either way, you don't need to be above a property to spy on it from the air, although I seriously doubt that type of restraint would be exercised by NYPD. A motivated lawyer might be able to get damages for unlawful search - but you'd be venturing into an area, er, volume where there is probably no precedent.

Wasn't it the NYPD that bitched and moaned about having public oversight of their drone project because they "couldn't do their jobs while being watched" or something? I swear that was a thing a few years ago but I can't find the quote due to the internet being spammed with numerous clones of this article.

Edit/addition: Thoughts of that aside, I am fundamentally okay with the idea of police orgs using drones for something like this. Conceptually. I see this as a preferred outcome to "Annoying bitchy neighbor whines about totally legal backyard party, event #8962376340" where an officer has to physically go to the party, it's some level of disruptive, it wastes the officer's time, it wastes the partygoers' time... As long as the police are willing to provide an itemized list of every drone deployed, available publicly, with exact GPS pathing on an easily-viewed map.

> A few acquaintances have showed me a speeding ticket for 28 in a 25 mph posted speed limit. 3 mph?

How else are speeding cameras supposed to work? They already include some tolerance for imprecise sensors, as does every car's tachymeter.

For every finite actually-enforced speed limit, there's always going to be some discrete value limit for "too fast", and always somebody upset with getting a ticket for being just ever so slightly above that limit.

Automated speeding camera tickets in my state are unenforceable civil fines. Folks in the know just ignore them. It's a tax on suckers driving through the area mostly. There was a whole kerfuffle around the cameras being illegal because they violate the laws on distance notifications required of speed limit changes before sampling the speed, but the city didn't care about that and forced it through pretty quickly regardless. It's clear that these are revenue seeking mechanisms completely detached from road safety.

Not sure if joking or not but for better or worse drones are considered aircrafts and under the FAA rules shooting one down can absolutely put you in a lot of trouble.

I’m wondering if it’s related to the recent recommendations New Yorkers start masking up again (https://www.the-express.com/news/health/110540/new-york-ncov...)

Remember during lockdowns they didn’t want large crowds for fear of super spreading events? I know we’re not in lockdown but wondering if the drones have some new tech on them to a) determine party sizes, and b) determine if masks are being worn.

What better way to train a new AI drone system for crowd gatherings and masking use than Labor Day weekend.

Far fetched yes, but we live in weird times where that theory isn’t too far off of the world we live in.

It is naive to think that the next evolution isn't armed drones, probably excess ones under the 1033 Program of the Defense Logistics Agency, with the excuse that "now decisions to use force can be made without the officer in physical danger" and "now those decisions can be made by a group of people instead of one officer".

This only "seems like a net benefit for the community" in the ridiculously hypothetical and whitewashed world in which the NYPD always does right by its citizens, especially those of color.

Nah.