Occupy Wall Street's 'occucopter'

Tim Pool's 'occucopter' is a response to the police eviction of Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zuccotti Park, New York.

The police may soon be watching you in your garden picking your vegetables or your bottom. As police plans for increasing unmanned aerial surveillance take shape, there is a new twist. Private citizens can now buy their own surveillance drones to watch the police.

This week in New York, Occupy Wall Street protesters have a new toy to help them expose potentially dubious actions of the New York police department. In response to constant police surveillance, police violence and thousands of arrests, Occupy Wall Street protesters and legal observers have been turning their cameras back on the police. But police have sometimes made filming difficult through physical obstruction and "frozen zones". This occurred most notably during the eviction of protesters from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, where police prevented even credentialed journalists from entering.

Now the protesters are fighting back with their own surveillance drone. Tim Pool, an Occupy Wall Street protester, has acquired a Parrot AR drone he amusingly calls the "occucopter". It is a lightweight four-rotor helicopter that you can buy cheaply on Amazon and control with your iPhone. It has an onboard camera so that you can view everything on your phone that it points at. Pool has modified the software to stream live video to the internet so that we can watch the action as it unfolds.

Polish protesters send up ‘Robokopter’ drone to spy on police
Video: #OccupyAirSpace: -Protesters Launch 'Robokopter' Drone

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Comment by TommyD on December 23, 2011 at 12:54pm: DON'T F**K WITH THE TECHNOGEEKS!!!!!!

Comment by Metalchemist on December 22, 2011 at 6:13pm: Anything they can do, we can do better.

X-Y axis......

You know the slogan, When all else fails vote from the rooftops.

Comment by TommyD on December 21, 2011 at 6:06pm: This is cool. I am wondering though, how long before stasi snipers start taking "enemy" drones out?

On the lighter side...I have got to get me one of these....lol

Comment by truth on December 21, 2011 at 5:11pm

Comment by truth on December 21, 2011 at 4:17pm: Michael Bocchieri / Getty Images

Drones have been utilized by police in the past to monitor large crowds of protestors but this might be the first time a drone has been used by protestors to monitor the police. Tim Pool has modified a Parrot AR Drone to provide a live feed of Occupy Wall Street from above, offering an angle unique from all the other Occupy live feeds already providing footage of the protests across the globe.

The Parrot AR Drone is a fairly inexpensive quadracopter which can be piloted via smartphone or iPad. Its built-in video camera and $300 price tag make it a pretty accessible tool for protestors, no matter what the cause.

(PHOTOS: Occupy Wall Street Protests in New York and Beyond)

According to The Guardian, Pool is attempting to make it so multiple people in a crowd can assume control of the drone, just in case the pilot gets busted by the police. He also hopes to create a 3G controller to allow people to pilot the drone remotely.

As the line between advanced surveillance drone and remote control toy blur, we can probably expect to see a lot more amateurs fiddling with drones like this in the future. Indie filmmakers are already using drones to get stunning aerial shots that previously would have required expensive permits and equipment rentals.

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http://techland.time.com/2011/12/21/occupy-wall-streets-new-drone-t...