Steve Graham, author of Cities Under Siege, writes for Open Democracy on the disturbing militarisation of UK policing. Merseyside police have become the first force to use unmanned drones  for normal civilian policing:

The Merseyside deployment is merely one of the first, tentative step within a much wider push by arms contractors and security and technology corporations. Supported by Governments, these are working extremely hard to ensure that the deployment of aerial drones for policing purposes quickly saturates UK airspace and becomes completely normal and taken for granted. We thus face a pivotal moment in the evolution of civilian surveillance by electronic means, both in the UK and other western democracies. This moment raises four particular concerns.

Visit Open Democracy to read the article in full.

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