Angelfire

[MorGrendel]

So anyone want to discuss Angelfire flying over Baltimore?

I don't mind it as much as Stingray, but how they paid for it infuriates me.

[Berserker]

I know nothing of this. Can you please explain more what happened?

[hypo]

Hard to find Angelfire on the web seeing as it is the name of a web hosting company (that I thought was out of business). I did find this bloomberg story. I haven't read it yet but here it is: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016 ... veillance/

[Berserker]

Ok, so this looks to be aerial surveillance in Baltimore (crappy at that), funded by a private investor donation.

[MorGrendel]

Pretty much. A private company funded by private citizens is secretly spying on other citizens with the cooperation of the police.

We can bet that the idea would be poorly received and seen as an invasion of privacy and so BPD conveniently circumvented any avenue where there might be distention.

And before someone yells CONSPIRACY NUTBAG, I actually think this proves the opposite. I think it proves what a few determined lone wolfs can do. Perhaps, these individuals are not crashing planes into building or shooting up night clubs, but I don't believe they are playing by the rules or that the people had a stake in the discussion either. And if the Baltimore Police, possibly one of the most inept, understaffed, underpaid government entities can pull this off, what else is there?

Or why 90%* of classified materials last year are marked "means and methods"... which is a euphemism for private contractors.

Also, makes you wonder how many other powerful, rich, and magnanimous people make decisions for us, figuring we don't know what is good for us. . . and leave the government out all together.

Kinda left topic there... Sorry.

* I think I heard the inverse number (10% NOT means and method) on the Dan Carlin Podcast, but I don't know if there is any real documentation to back that up.

[Fritz]

Silly libertarians.

An invasion of privacy requires an expectation of privacy. There is no legal expectation of privacy on public streets. Please explain to me exactly how this differs from helicopter surveillance? As you say, BPD is one of the most understaffed entities in the state. This helps alleviate some of that.

No, "means and methods" is not a euphemism for private contractors. I want to go much further into this, but I can't. I can say that this point has next to nothing to do with the UAS you are complaining about. It is amongst the least sensitive of our collection methods, which should be obvious since private companies are able to supply similar capabilities.

[MorGrendel]

FRITZ... Wow... You were the one person I thought would not respond. Just Wow.

So I shortened the prior message in the hope someone would read it. Yes, I do actually see Angelfire pretty much equivalent to cctv, albeit an expensive alternative to a cash strapped system. So as far as different: it cost 2 million a year, police don't own it, and it does not shoot video. There is some thought that the reason it takes stills (lots and lots of stills) and not video is to circumvent the anti-stills (i.e. you can't video bridges) laws, you know, so it's not illegal.

Next, that was a typo. I meant Private Corporations. . . And more my point was there is next to zero transparency on how deals get made. Wasn't someone going to shine a light on that?

Additionally, my point was more about how does this happen, and not so much the invasion of privacy. You have to agree that it is a little shady to circumvent the entire legislative system when it's not convenient. And the BPD knows it. Stingray still sucks, and it messes up my podcast to work.

I'm not sure which meaning of UAS you mean. If it is Unmanned Aircraft Systems, to my knowledge there are at least two people on board.

[MorGrendel]

And Libertarians aren't silly.
They are smart enough to know you can't hide things on private email servers.
But this take off topic...

[Fritz]

Gotcha. Unmanned Aerial Systems. Figures Baltimore would use a crappy stupid approach instead of drones, which are far cheaper and easier to keep in the sky. I'm don't know much about laws on aerial video, but I know I see plenty of private citizens doing it for the lolz. Seems odd to me that a police force couldn't so it for public safety. Then again Americans love to freak out over big brother spying on them. News flash, I'm too busy trying to find the guy trying to kill you to care that you're looking at porn.

As for Stingray, I definitely can't touch that with a ten foot pole. I'll leave it at SIGINT rules.

And you don't really want to get into how "smart" libertarians are right now. One word: Aleppo.

[MorGrendel]

And we are off the rails.

He misheard the cable news pundit. He clearly looks for help, and they pounce on him. Good luck finding the full interview or transcript. I could not.

If being human is his biggest wart, so be it. He did answer the question, but that is not important to 24 hour sound-byte driven news cycle or Americans in general. Americans don't care about Aleppo, Syria, or the rest of the world for that case.

What is Aleppo - one city - in a war torn country. With over a quarter million dead and 11 million displaced. Today, it's the buzz word because there was a heart wrenching photo. Tomorrow no one will care. Name the city in Greece where the Syrian dead were washing up. I was sickened by the photos of the dead children... but I can't name where. It has been five years, where was Aleppo, or somewhere like it, last election?

[boagrius]

The private investor is the owner of the parent company that makes and maintains the surveillance equipment. This was a dry run to test everything. Nothing was done illegal just unethical. Rumor is he's the one who leaked it to the press to get the story out and now every other city is wondering could this work for them.

I'm not a fan of big brother watching over my shoulder but in public I don't see the difference.
Too often a cop turns a corner and then the crime is committed and goes unnoticed. Look at how fast the just got the guy in New York. If not for cctv that would have been very unlikely. 20ft or 2000ft up what's the difference.

[Berserker]

Nanananananananana batman batman.. This whole thing reminds me of batman. I mean, rich dude funds covert means to fight crime in crime infested crumbling city.. Isn't batman a hero?

[boagrius]

You know what you're absolutely right I'm all for Wayne Enterprises stepping in and helping to clean up the city

[Fritz]

And we are off the rails.

He misheard the cable news pundit. He clearly looks for help, and they pounce on him. Good luck finding the full interview or transcript. I could not.

If being human is his biggest wart, so be it. He did answer the question, but that is not important to 24 hour sound-byte driven news cycle or Americans in general. Americans don't care about Aleppo, Syria, or the rest of the world for that case.

What is Aleppo - one city - in a war torn country. With over a quarter million dead and 11 million displaced. Today, it's the buzz word because there was a heart wrenching photo. Tomorrow no one will care. Name the city in Greece where the Syrian dead were washing up. I was sickened by the photos of the dead children... but I can't name where. It has been five years, where was Aleppo, or somewhere like it, last election?

Lesbos, but the location didn't matter all that much in that situation. The dead refugees could have (and still do by the way) wash ashore all over the Mediterranean. When you don't know where Aleppo is, much less know what's going on there at the moment, you have no business trying to set our government's policy. I'm not talking about an average American who has too much to do they don't have time for the details. I'm talking about someone who wants their job to be setting policy. There are four major locations in Syria you should know if you want to talk about our policy in Syria: Homs, Aleppo, Damascus, and Al-Raqqah. Hell, I'll even forgive if you drop Homs from that list. Not know those basic places betrays a fundamental lack of attention, seriousness, and understanding for an extremely complicated situation.

And he didn't answer the question. He gave a very generic non-answer, meandering into his usual isolationism which he gives for pretty much everything foreign policy related. Because ignoring problems just makes them go away. That's what was happening during the last election, by the way. We were letting Bashar Al-Asad slaughter his own people while we wagged our finger at him. We did that for the first few years of the conflict and then out popped ISIL. Oops.

I'm all for breaking the two party system, but the third party candidates are just as much of a shit show. Johnson begrudgingly acknowledges climate change, but refuses to do anything about it. His solution to everything is isolationism and slashing the budget. Pass. Jill Stein is a god damned anti-vaxxer hippie. Pass. Then there's he-who-must-not-be-named and Hillary. Excuse me while I go make the only obvious choice to ensure we don't have a NATO-hating, Russian-sponsored, racist con-man running our country. I promise I will throw up immediately afterward and then shower for at least an hour.

And here's the full interview. http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/ ... 0358979962
I'm sorry, you don't need any context before hand. The question is just straight up. That's a blatant display of ignorance. He didn't ask 'exactly which part of what's going on in Aleppo do you want to talk about,' which I would consider a legitimate question. There is both a humanitarian crisis and considerable ongoing fighting. However, he just plain didn't know what Aleppo even was. They do indeed pounce on him, but frankly he deserved it.

[boagrius]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_B._Robinson

Crap too late they killed him.