Editor’s note: After the publication of this story, the Common Council amended the dates on which the meetings are to be held. This story originally said the dates of the meetings were set to be Sept. 2 and Sept. 11. The meeting dates are now Sept. 15 and Sept. 17, respectively.
Syracuse residents will soon have the chance to air their thoughts at a public hearing on the Syracuse Police Department’s intent to launch a “drone as first responder” program.
Councilor Chol Majok on Wednesday announced his intent to host a public hearing on Sept. 15 to hear the community’s response to the police department’s use of first responder drones.
According to the council’s website, Majok has also scheduled a Sept. 17 meeting between the council and the police department to discuss the drones.
Majok, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, did not mention the Sept. 17 meeting during the council’s study session, and ignored a Central Current reporter asking for clarification on the two separate meetings. Majok did not respond to a Central Current reporter’s multiple requests for comment.
The upcoming meetings to once again discuss the drone program continues a 10-month saga that began with city officials sidestepping a surveillance technology review process.
Syracuse Police Department Deputy Chief Richard Shoff welcomed the community input during the council’s Wednesday study session.
“I’ll be looking forward to that,” Shoff told Majok, who has advanced legislation on the drones several times before holding or withdrawing that same legislation.
Lee Cridland, a coordinator for the Syracuse Peace Council, also welcomed Majok’s plan to listen to city residents, but is skeptical that the administration and council will earnestly consider the community’s input.
To the Peace Council, the first responder drones represent the further militarization of American police departments.
“It starts in the military and then spreads out into civil society,” Cridland said. “We need to publicly debate these types of issues, so that there’s an understanding on the part of the public of what these issues mean, but also people who are knowledgeable explaining to us what it’s going to mean in the future.”
Cridland said it was “disturbing” that the city administration and council took ten months to invite in-person input from city residents.
The Peace Council believes the administration does not perform adequate public outreach when considering impactful policies, and has not thoroughly educated the community on the drone program.
Details on the proposed drone program have evolved over the last year, when the council first approved the department’s purchase of the drones last November.
When the police department requested the council’s approval, though, City Hall ignored its own review process for powerful surveillance tools.
After Central Current reported that the city was preparing to launch the technology into Syracuse’s skies – in the process, skipping established procedures to review such surveillance tools – Mayor Ben Walsh reversed course.
The city’s surveillance technology task force then recommended guardrails to limit the frequency and purpose of the police department’s drone use, while the city conducted a public comment period that yielded an overwhelmingly negative response from residents.
Later, the police department expanded its intended use of the first responder drones, which had been initially pitched to respond to high-priority calls like active shooters, missing persons, and hostage crises. In April, police department representatives advocated for the ability to use the drones for any and all calls, including low-priority calls like vandalism, graffiti, and noise disturbances.
Lieutenant Brian Williams also pushed to incorporate the drones into the department’s ATV detail, a case use that would see police drones following illegal dirt bike riders throughout the city.
In July, the department published an updated policy governing its use of all drones – which notably removed previously existing language protecting residents’ reasonable expectations for privacy in their own backyards. The policy does not include explicit protections against the surveillance of protesters.
Cridland, the Peace Council coordinator, said the department’s demonstrated appetite for expansion of its tools, before it even starts using them, demonstrates one of the root problems with the city’s approach to implementing such powerful tools.
While acknowledging that drones could be useful for limited, high-priority calls, Cridland said the Peace Council has grave concerns about the department leveraging the drones for more mundane and intrusive uses.
Those concerns echo warnings from civil rights watchdogs and surveillance technology oversight groups.They have consistently outlined how first responder drones can create Orwellian scenarios, including routine drone patrols and unwarranted surveillance of protesters.
With an eye toward Washington, D.C., where President Donald Trump has federalized the local police department, the Syracuse Peace Council is worried about similar co-opting and militarization of the Syracuse Police Department – and the powerful tools it wields.
The president has also reiterated in recent days his intent to deploy the federal military in other American cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York City.
“It’s a disturbing movement in this country towards a more militarized police and towards bigger, larger, a bit more ability of the police to control crowds and also to control individuals,” Cridland said, “and drones flying around doing whatever they basically want to do is not the world that we want to be living in.”
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