,

ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project

October 30, 2026

Subscribe to the Free Future Newsletter

Or get immediate notifications of new posts via Substack

Free Future home

We’re seeing a rapid expansion of what are known as “Drones as first responder” (DFR) police drone programs — under which police send a drone to your house or other location when you dial 911. From the start, one of the big civil liberties questions about these programs is whether they’ll morph into routine aerial patrols over communities. We discussed DFR programs in this 2023 white paper , in which we explain why we’re deeply skeptical of them. But already, drones are being used for far more than responding to particular calls for service.

Police departments around the country know that high-tech aerial surveillance is a touchy issue — especially now that an anti-Flock social movement has emerged.…