By Derrick Broze

Baltimore police recently held a press conference announcing new details regarding secret surveillance flights taking place over the city for eight months.

Baltimore Police have released new details on a controversial partnership between law enforcement and a private company that operates a fleet of surveillance planes. At a press conference last Friday Baltimore Police released flight logs for the plane owned and operated by Persistent Surveillance Systems.

The logs show the plane flying about 314 hours over a period of 8 months beginning in January 2016. The plane flew over the city close to 100 times and took more than a million pictures. During the months of January, February, June, July, and August the plane flew between one and five hours. The flights reportedly ended on August 7. Bloomberg Businessweek was the first organization to report on the flights, but specific details were not released until the press conference.

Over the 8-month period Persistent Surveillance Systems was able to create a visual chronological record of the city of Baltimore. PSS began working with the BPD in January under an agreement to possibly lease out the surveillance plane. The arrangement was not disclosed to Baltimore’s mayor, city council, elected officials, or the public. Popular Mechanics reports that Baltimore police stated they will use the plane again as a “terrorism prevention tool”during the Baltimore Marathon on Oct. 15 and “Fleet Week” next week.

The program is opposed by Baltimore residents, activists and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union who worry about the loss of privacy. While activists look for local and state legislation to protect them, Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis says the program is an opportunity for law enforcement to more effectively track down criminals.

“We have a real opportunity to police smarter,” Davis said. “The old days of looking at a spike in violence, and marching orders to stop everyone that moves in hoping of identifying a suspect or a witness — we have to move away from that type of policing.”

Ron McNutt, president of Persistent Surveillance Systems, told The Baltimore Sun he is considering selling aerial footage of the city to auto insurance companies to track accidents and claims. McNutt also flies up and down the East Coast to survey land before and after hurricanes. “I have an internal incentive to hold to my privacy policy,” McNutt told the Sun.

Still, the fear that a corporate entity may begin initiating surveillance measures in order to monetize the data and sell it to governments, or insurance companies is a legitimate one. How exactly this data will be protected or stored will likely depend on how much the public pushes back. As far as Baltimore is concerned, the BPD has a history of violence, racism, and aggressive surveillance. In November 2015 Anti Media reported on internal documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation reveal that surveillance planes the agency flew over Baltimore and Ferguson during highly-publicized protests also operated thermal imaging equipment. It was also revealed that Baltimore Police used “Stingray” cell phone surveillance technology more than 4,300 times.

Unfortunately, the issue of mass surveillance is a national problem. More specifically, the issue of surveillance planes flying over major cities and towns is increasingly becoming a major concern. As recently as March of this year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation received new records related to the U.S. Marshals aerial surveillance program. The EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice shortly after The Wall Street Journal revealed a cell-phone monitoring program operated by the U.S. Marshals Service. The program involved the Marshals using Cessna planes mounted with cell site simulators, also known as “Stingrays” or “dirtboxes.”