Baltimore's newly revealed surveillance program raises legal questions

Police program obtained through private contractor, which allows
small plane to film 32-mile section of city, has been criticized as
intrusive and possibly illegal

Baynard Woods in Baltimore
Friday 26 August 2016 13.35 BST

Legal and constitutional questions have been raised over revelations that the Baltimore police department used privately contracted surveillance technology to secretly monitor vast swaths of the city, lawyers and civil liberties advocates say.

The program, confirmed for the first time by police officials on Wednesday, allows a small plane to film a 32 square mile section of the city. The tape is saved and stored and analysts can move about in time and space in order to track vehicles or individuals, although individual human characteristics aren’t discernible. Russ McNutt, the founder of the Ohio-based Persistent Surveillance, likened it to “Google Earth with Tivo.”

The Baltimore police department entered into a trial agreement with Persistent Surveillance in January and the company has filmed the city for 300 hours and provided the police department with over 100 investigative reports. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which broke the story earlier this week, McNutt developed the program for the Pentagon in 2006 and in 2007 it was used in Iraq.

Legal experts, struggling to catch up with a program that police just admitted exists, are questioning how these tactics will hold up in court.

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