Hi and welcome to Cyber Reasons malicious life podcast I'm Ran Levy.

This is the second part of our mini series on facial recognition in law enforcement.

One month before the New York Times published the story of Robert Williams,

police officers killed George Floyd.

We all remember the weeks that followed.

The protests that broke up around the country the

weeks that followed, the protest that broke up around the country, garnered attention around the world.

It was so engrossing watching those scenes of civil strife that an otherwise remarkable part of the story went almost entirely under the radar.

In 15 cities, the Department of Homeland Security deployed planes, helicopters and drones

to watch over the protesters.

The aircraft hovered over protesters in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, feeding customs

and border patrol command centers, which then streamed the intel to police forces and

National Guard on the ground. In Minneapolis and DC, a RC-26B reconnaissance plane worked with special ops on the ground

streaming video feeds to an FBI command center.

In another instance in DC, top Pentagon officials ordered

helicopters to provide quote persistent presence to disperse crowds. The helicopters flew so low to the ground that the sheer

downward pressure from their rotor blades ripped the signs off of buildings and of course it sent protesters running.

This was something out of science fiction, a full on military intelligence operation on US land.

In later reporting, military and government officials insisted that none of the aircraft deployed on protesters were equipped with facial recognition capabilities.

In most cases, the aircraft were so high up that facial recognition would be moot. You can't make out a face from a blip from 19,000 feet.

But even if some planes flew close enough to capture individual faces, it be problematic.

According to the New York Times, at least 270 hours of protest footage was captured by the aircraft and uploaded to Big Pipe, a DHS network

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