The residents of Iowa City, Iowa have moved to ban drones, red-light cameras and license plate readers in what is likely the most thorough action taken by a town yet against modern surveillance technologies.
The Iowa City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to advance an
ordinance that came to fruition earlier this year after thousands
of the town’s 70,000 residents petitioned to ban the emerging and
controversial new law enforcement tools.
If the proposal passes, the city will be unable for two years to:
“Use any automatic traffic surveillance system or device,
automatic license plate recognition system or device, or domestic
drone system or device for the enforcement of a qualified traffic
law violation, unless a peace officer or Parking Enforcement
Attendant is present at the scene, witnesses the event, and
personally issues the ticket to the alleged violator at the time
and location of the violation.”
The ordinance is now scheduled to go up for a second and third
round of votes later this month, but local outlets report that
it’s likely to pass.
If added to the law books, the final draft of the ordinance will
impose a two-year ban on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and
other automated technologies used to track people or personal
property.
Several jurisdictions throughout the US have advanced bills
previously to restrict the use of UAVs, or drones, but the
example in Iowa City shows an attempt to pass the widest in scope
of such laws yet.
American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa Executive Director Ben
Stone told the town’s Press-Citizen newspaper that he has yet to
see a law similar to the one in Iowa City materialize.
“There are a lot of laws and ordinances against traffic
cameras, but in terms of drones, it’s just so early in the
proliferation of that technology,” Stone said.
The effort got off the ground thanks largely to efforts by the
public watchdog group Stop Big Brother, whose members helped
compose the language of the ordinance. According to one member of
the group, even a two-year ban on technologies could be enough to
curb any attempt to install programs that are still in
production.
“The city might say they have no plans (for drones or license
plate readers) but it’s been our experience that this can change
in a very short amount of time,” Aleksey Gurtovoy told Ars
Technica.
Red-light cameras, on the other hand, are already being used
across the state and would likely increase in number during that
two-year span. Some local lawmakers already said that, if the
ordinance is accepted, they’ll fight to bring red-light cameras
back when the timing is right.
“I’m going to have to support it – ‘have to’ is the key word
there – because our state has chosen not to move forward with the
technology,” council member Terry Dickens told the
Press-Citizen. “I’ll be the first one to bring back red-light
cameras as soon as we can.”
This article originally appeared on: RT