and a federal judge has ruled in favor of the baltimore police department after they were sued by the a.c.l.u. over the launch of their aerial surveillance program as a result the camera equipped planes could take to the skies as early as next week rachel blevins is following the story she's joining us now with more to this so rachel what is the latest on this case well a federal judge has now ruled today that the baltimore police department's aerial surveillance program does not violate americans privacy rights now in his decision u.s. district judge richard bennett specifically wrote images produced by the air pilot program will only depict individuals as minuscule dots moving about a city landscape the movement of these dots cannot be tracked without significant labor so he's claiming that this program does not violate americans 1st or 4th amendment rights and now that we have his approval we already have the city of baltimore is approval and so there is a chance of this program could be launching as early as next week now we found out about this program from the baltimore police d

cops the spy on you on april fool's day baltimore officials approve the deal between the baltimore police department and ohio based company persistent surveillance systems to use drones equipped with high resolution cameras in order to spy on the city's residents through around the clock surveillance spied for home objections filed by the a.c.l.u. and the legal defense. first of all great name persistent surveillance real subtle subtle about it also if you're from baltimore is this standard april fools day joke or generally an april fool's a joke and baltimore is a few switch out somebody is all big canister with like sugar or salt instead of actual. also the name is perfect i mean i think the only thing that would have been better would have been like stalkers r us and then it would just be like the backwards are from toys r us maybe they can remember blackwater or yeah exactly but the funny thing is actually that name is actually really appropriate persistent surveillance systems because 4 years ago that same company was under heat for flying a spy plane over baltimore to surveil a citizens withou

department. in baltimore the cuts are slated to include furloughs for police officers and firefighters.ates are broke right now just like everybody's broke right now. but while congress has passed roughly $3 trillion in economic relief, only a tiny sliver of that has gone to states and cities that are facing these huge budget shortfalls. and maybe you don't care about that in the abstract. but when states and cities go bankrupt, they have to fire or at least furlough the people who work for them. and the people who work for states and cities tend to be the people who make civilization basically possible. unless you don't particularly care for or need running potable water or trash pickup or cops or people who will come with a truck full of water and hoses if your house catches fire. top senate republican mitch mcconnell first said that states should just go bankrupt. then he said maybe congress could help the states, if the states all agree to certain republican political priorities. if the idea is to prop up the economy, though, why aren't police officers and teachers and firefighters