LA Police Harness Big Brother Via Driverless Cars

404 Media reports:

The Los Angeles Police Department obtained video footage from a Waymo driverless car as part of its investigation into a hit-and-run in which a separate, human-driven car hit a pedestrian. The LAPD published the footage, which has a note on it that reads “Waymo Confidential Commercial Information,” on its YouTube page to ask the public for help identifying the driver of the vehicle.

The situation shows that police in Los Angeles are now looking at Waymo robotaxis as potential sources of surveillance footage to investigate crimes that the vehicles’ cameras and sensors may have witnessed. In 2023, Bloomberg reported that police in both San Francisco and Maricopa County, Arizona, had issued search warrants for Waymo footage. Police have also requested footage from Teslas, Ring cameras, and Cruise autonomous vehicles.

Gizmodo reports:

Look, solving violent crimes is obviously a good thing, but what’s not so good is living in a society where your every waking move is recorded for potential future law enforcement scrutiny. More and more, that’s the society we’re living in. Teslas come equipped with a trove of sensors and cameras, which is why many of the people who have recently decided to take out their anger about Elon Musk and DOGE on the cars have been caught relatively quickly.

In short: more automation clearly means more surveillance—there’s just no two ways about it. The more robots and automated vehicles roam the roads and airways, the more the American public is going to be under constant watch. In a time when the federal government is illegally rounding up people and shipping them off to foreign prisons, excuse me if I’m not super excited about that.

The LAPD’s video 7-second is below.