Elizabeth, New Jersey is using a Chinese firm's drones to make sure citizens are employing proper social distancing. Reports in the past have suggested that these drones are feeding data to China.
Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage is deploying the drones to give warnings to Elizabeth citizens who are walking too close to one another while outdoors. The drone blares sirens and says "Stop gathering, disperse and go home!"
Bollwage is very dismissive of the critics of his approach.
“If these drones save one life, it is clearly worth the activity and the information that the drones are sending,” they Mayor said during an interview with MSNBC on Friday.
More on the story from Dally Caller:
New Jersey is considered a coronavirus hotspot — more than 3,000 in the state have died from the virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, before skipping across the globe and landing in the United States, where it has killed more than 30,000 people. The drones might not be benign.
Past reports suggest DJI poses a substantial security threat to U.S. infrastructure.
A 2017 memo from the Los Angeles office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau said officials had “moderate confidence” that DJI’s commercial drones are giving critical U.S. “infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government.”
The memo cited first- and second-hand anonymous sources inside the drone industry. ICE has not responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment about the memo, which was initially reported in November 2017 by The New York Times.
The memo also stated that officials had “high confidence the company is selectively targeting government and privately owned entities within these sectors to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive U.S. data.” The U.S. Army banned the use of all DJI drones in 2017, citing “cyber vulnerabilities.”
DJI is dismissing ICE’s claims and said the company gives full control over the drones to the users.
Many government officials are playing a dangerous game with the American people. You can't completely disregard the Constitution due to some people suffering from a virus.
