I think it’s important to know about the larger context that we’re now hearing, that’s the militarization of law enforcement that is progressing at a breakneck pace,” said Susan Harmon of Code Pink, an anti-war group.
The Alameda County Sheriff faced off with the ACLU, other activist groups and local residents before the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety Committee in a hearing on the sheriff’s plan to purchase and deploy a surveillance drone.
A life sized model of a predator drone [actually 1/5 scale] sat menacingly among the protesters at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Thursday. They won’t be flying over the East Bay any time soon, but small, unmanned helicopters equipped with cameras might…
“Although they will argue that it’s being used for, you know, basically good policing, we’re afraid that it’s going to be used to surveil protesters, dissents, you know, people that are against police brutality” — Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild