DronesSeattle mayor says no to drones

Draganflyer X6 drone // Source: sadkhabar.ir

Seattle mayor Mike McGinn has shut down the Seattle Police Department’s drone program before it started.

The Seattle Times reports thatMcGinn said the police need to stay focused on “community building.”

McGinn’s community building statement comes in the wake of a Department of Justice investigation that found evidence of biased policing and a routine use of unconstitutional force.

In a statement released last Thursday, McGinn said he along with police chief John Diaz agreed that it was time to end the drone program so the department “can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department’s priority.”

McGinn said the two drones which were purchased by the city through federal funds will be returned to their vendor.

The announcement came just one day after the city held a public hearing to discuss  restrictions to be imposed n drone use by the police departments. Many citizens voiced their concerns about possible violations of  privacy.

The department bought the drones — two Draganflyer X6 Helicopter Tech Drones – with money from a regional Homeland Security grant. The drones were to be use in hostage situations and search-and-rescue operations, as well as in the wake of natural disasters. The  idea of drone use, however, drew “tremendous, widespread concern among the general public,” according to Doug Honig, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington.

“It’s a wise decision,” Honig told the Seattle Times. “Drones would have given police unprecedented abilities to engage in surveillance and intrude on people’s privacy and there was never a strong case made that Seattle needed the drones for public safety.”

Councilmember Bruce Harrell, chair of the Council’s Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee, had his own thoughts about the situation, saying the mayor took “the easy way out.”

“It’s harder to define a policy where, in rare circumstances, (drones) could be useful,” Harrell, who is running for mayor against McGinn told the Times. “We could have been a model for other cities to follow.”

Harrell sponsored  legislation which would have banned the use of drones for general surveillance for flight over open-air assemblies. It would also have forced police to receive a search warrant for all but emergency circumstances.

City councilmember Tim Burgess, who is a mayoral candidate, said the cancellation of the drone program gives Seattle another chance to use the grant money for homeland security, but Burgess also criticized the department’s installation of thirty surveillance camera along the city’s shoreline.

Police said the cameras would give them a sweeping view of the port’s facilities, which could help in the event of an emergency.

“We should also assess the cameras at Alki,” Burgess told the Times. “Unfortunately, there has not been the strong, decisive leadership from the mayor on public safety so these things just occur without the kind of oversight and policy discussions we should be having.”

Last year, King County Sheriff John Urquhart said he returned his department’s drone to Seattle police after he took office.

“I came in and said, ‘We’re not going to fly that.’ We hadn’t done our homework, and I don’t think the time is right,” Urquhart told the Times last Thursday. “What’s happening to Seattle is exactly what I hoped to avoid.”