Members of Syracuse's Common Council hear feedback on the police department's proposed "drone as first responder" program. Credit: Patrick McCarthy | Central Current

Four city residents on Monday night shared with the Common Council their concerns about the Syracuse Police Department’s plans to implement a controversial drone program.

The public hearing was the latest installment in a saga dating back to November of last year, when the police department first approached the council for approval to purchase hardware and software from Axon Enterprises to create a “drone as first responder” program. 

Central Current then revealed the city was sidestepping its own established procedures to implement the drone program, prompting a full review of the technology, and renewed scrutiny from common councilors.

Such programs — which send self-piloting drones to the scenes of 911 calls — are sweeping the nation, as local police departments contract with manufacturers touting the drones as what they call “force-multipliers.” 

Advocates, though, say that first responder drones threaten privacy and first amendment rights, and may violate fourth amendment rights through unwarranted and unprompted surveillance of law-abiding Americans.

The four residents who spoke at the public hearing expressed concerns about: 

  • Data sharing and security
  • Lack of protections for protesters 
  • Lack of regulations for reasonable expectations of privacy 

Each resident had just two minutes to speak, but Council President Helen Hudson allowed those present extra time to finish expressing their thoughts. The full public hearing, which spanned about 21 minutes, is available here.

Resident Barrie Gerwanter began the public hearing by referencing the department’s official policy governing procedures for operating an unmanned aerial system, which contains no language governing the operation of a drone beyond the line of sight of the operator.

Gerwanter also criticized the police department’s ambitious expansion of its program’s case uses, which have changed from limited to high-priority calls, to including low-priority calls like vandalism, graffiti, and noise disturbances.

“Reported statements of SPD command also indicate that there’s a desire to use drones for all types of calls, including lower priority calls with no in-process incident or apparent threat of danger,” Gerwanter said. “That’s not acceptable to me.”

While many concerns centered on the technology under consideration, the residents also criticized the police department itself, and suggested that the SPD has not proven itself capable of protecting the sort of sensitive data it plans to collect through its DFR drones, which could potentially subject thousands of innocent residents to unwarranted police surveillance with each flight.

Resident Davis Goldstein said that Syracuse police’s contract with Axon would not truly secure data and video collected on Syracuse residents, because, she argued, Axon could still access it and use it as it pleases. 

The police department’s recent data-sharing debacle with its Flock Safety license plate readers — in which SPD unwittingly exposed Syracuse drivers’ sensitive data to a national network of thousands of law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents — demonstrates the potential for human error, Goldstein argued. She emphasized that the failure to lock down the license reader data had calamitous consequences, as that data appeared in over 2,000 “immigration-related” searches.

“While SPD naively states it doesn’t intend to share data with immigration enforcement, Axon’s contract and their language makes it clear that they are within their right to do so,” Goldstein said. 

Lee Cridland and Aren Burnside with the Syracuse Peace Council condemned local police’s use of military-grade equipment. The Peace Council has been organizing against the use of military and police drones in Syracuse since 2009, Cridland said. Burnside further explained how technology such as the DFR drones currently being considered have origins in far-off battlefields, like Ukraine.

Cridland and the Peace Council called on the city council to honor a 2013 resolution against the use of domestic drones until clear protections for citizens’ privacy and civil liberties were established. 

Goldstein said that the Syracuse community’s overwhelmingly negative response to the DFR program during the city’s public comment period demonstrates a “significant misalignment” between the department’s vision and the public’s expectations.

“Public input on the issue to date has been largely negative, and it is not clear that either the police department or the common council have been listening,” Cridland said.

Goldstein referenced the city’s COMPSTAT report which shows that crime is down in Syracuse by 27% year to date – a statistic Governor Kathy Hochul celebrated earlier in the day at a press conference in Syracuse’ Public Safety building. 

Burnside and Goldstein said the city achieved a reduced crime rate without the everyday help of drones, and called for investment in community oriented programs that they say would reduce crime rather than patrol it.

Council president Helen Hudson said after the meeting that she is looking for answers to some of the questions residents raised in the hearing. Specifically, Hudson said she wants more information on the drone policy discrepancies that Gerwanter alluded to during the hearing.

The few people who did attend the public hearing built on a historically negative community response. No one present spoke in favor of the drones. 

Hudson and some councilors, though, lamented the low turnout to discuss the controversial program after nearly a year’s worth of conjecture.

“I just feel like people need to really pay attention,” Hudson said. “They wait to the last minute when things happen, and then they’re up in arms. When you have an opportunity to come out, and we can stop things in their tracks.”

The police department will have a chance to provide clarity for Hudson and the councilors and respond to residents’ concerns at noon on Tuesday, when the council’s Public Safety committee will host another discussion on the first responder drones.

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...