Baltimore police tested a city-scale aerial surveillance system for months before the public—and even key city officials—were told.
Privately funded pilot → 32-square-mile imagery → months of use → disclosure only after investigative reporting
EVIDENCE LIBRARY · AERIAL / DRONES
What changes when observation can be rewound?
Persistent aerial surveillance, police drones, wide-area imagery, incidental collection, retention and the legal consequences of turning public movement into searchable history.
The surveillance plane created evidence defendants could not request because they did not know it existed—and the imagery was retained longer than the public-facing policy suggested.
Citywide imagery archive → undisclosed evidence source → public defenders raise exculpatory-access concerns
A federal appeals court held Baltimore's renewed persistent aerial surveillance program unconstitutional.
Citywide daytime movement record → six-month pilot → en banc Fourth Circuit blocks access to collected data
One month of police-drone operations produced 537 videos—and a major privacy problem over what the cameras captured on the way to calls.
Drone response flights → 91+ hours of video in one month → incidental private-space footage → years of public-records litigation