A secret purchase of a drone by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) with full knowledge of Mayor Lightfoot and her administration raises all kinds of privacy concerns around 1st amendment activities. It also raises concerns for just how much the Mayor cares about community input in to the massive expansion of police surveillance capabilities at the same time both the city and country are in the midst of the largest unrest in decades stemming from a murder of a black man by a white police officer.

Justice agencies always exploit rare events to expand their ability to surveil the public as they know it is the only way they will be able to win the political argument. In this case Mayor Lightfoot not only had full knowledge of the CPD's acquisition of a drone but encouraged it. She also allowed the purchase of this drone in secret to prevent the public from fulfilling their role as citizens and participating in the discourse around whether this massive expansion of surveillance capabilities that drones bring with them should be allowed. If nothing else the Mayor has shown, like her predecessors before her, just how little she cares about public input.

We only know about the purchase of the drone because of a massive hack of records that were in the possession of the Jones Day law firm. The firm is running an independent investigation in to the handling of the Anjanette Young case. A hacker group was able to get in to their computer system and access a very large trove of city official emails and documents. The treasure trove of emails and documents revealed that the CPD purchased the drone and we setting up an internal system to start testing the drone.

Also on our show today:

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