By John
Vibes
In the months since the CoViD-19 pandemic began, governments
around the world have been utilizing a wide range of technological
devices to enforce quarantines. Advanced surveillance and tracking
have been made possible by cellphone data, CCTV cameras, and
drones.
Surveillance drones were
used during the lockdown in China to monitor neighborhoods to
ensure that residents were staying indoors. Drones were also used
to spray disinfectants during the outbreak as well.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged additional
governments to use similar tactics to enforce quarantines. Police
in Spain have been using drones to patrol the streets and order
citizens to stay home during the lockdown.
Most Americans doubted that these types of measures would happen
at home, but police in California have already announced a plan to
use drones equipped with cameras and loudspeakers to enforce the
recently imposed quarantine orders.
In Chula Vista, a town just outside of San Diego, police
purchased at least two drones from the Chinese company DJI for
$11,000 each.
Vern Sallee, one of the city’s police captains, told
the Financial Times that the drones could be used to “disperse
crowds” without the need for a human officer to be involved.
“We have not traditionally mounted speakers to our drones,
but . . . if we need to cover a large area to get an
announcement out, or if there were a crowd somewhere that we needed
to disperse—we could do it without getting police officers
involved,” Sallee said.
“The outbreak has changed my view of expanding the program as
rapidly as I can,” he added.
Sallee also suggested that the drones could be used to give
homeless people updates or orders about the pandemic, since many of
them may not have access to the Internet and may be unaware of the
current situation.
“We need to tell them we actually have resources for
them—they are vulnerable right now. It might be impractical or
unsafe for our officers to be put into those areas,” Sallee
said.
Spencer Gore, chief executive of Impossible Aerospace, a
California-based maker of high-performance drones used by first
responders, admitted that the idea “seems a little Orwellian,”
but insisted that it could “save lives.”
“What we saw in China, and what we’re probably going to see
around the world, is using drones with cameras and loudspeakers to
fly around to see if people are gathering where they shouldn’t
be, and telling them to go home,” Gore said.
By John
Vibes | Creative
Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com
Image: Antiwar.com
Subscribe
to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an
Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon.
Follow us on SoMee,
Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit.
Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming!
Get a free issue of Counter
Markets today.
Police in California Plan to Use Drones to Enforce Quarantine
Lockdown
