If or when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez gets his 
grant to put a spy plane in the sky — a wide area surveillance program that will capture video indiscriminately over 32 square miles at a time — he may find a few no-fly zones over some of the 37 municipalities within the county boundaries.
“He’s going to have to do it in unincorporated Dade because he has no jurisdiction here,” said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado. The county department has an interlocal agreement with Miami Police that allows them certain cooperation and limited authority within 500 feet of the city limits.
“But investigations have to be done by Miami Police,” Regalado said.
The mayor’s intent to spy on the entire county population indiscriminately was first disclosed by Miami New
Times and details were later explained in a Miami Herald story. The Iraq war technology was first used in Baltimore after the police shooting and it became controversial because it was implemented in secret — kind of like Gimenez did here, again going ahead with the application for a $1.2 million federal grant for a pilot program before asking the commission for approval. Of course the police director is saying that they had to apply before the deadline, but it could have been brought up in the last meeting. They did it on purpose because it’s easier to say “oops” than to ask for persmission.
This isn’t even a crime fighting tool. This is $1.2 million for an investigative tool to use after a crime has been committed. The cameras mounted on a small plane that orbits a designated area records 32 square miles at a time and the footage is reviewed later to see if the police can track the perpetrators back to where they came from after a murder or bank robbery. It’s invasive and violates people’s right to expected privacy, because in the process of video taping the bank robbery or the purse snatching, the wide survillance eye also captures your backyard barbecue. You can’t make out the faces, but 
you can count how many people were there, maybe who was dancing with who? And if the same public records rules apply, does that mean that wives can now ask for video tapes to see if their husbands were cheating or parents can ask to see where their kids go when they skip school? Who gets to decide?
And how do we know it won’t be used for code enforcement? To catch someone with an illegal gazebo and fine them for it? (Count on Commissioner Rebeca Sosa to ask.)
Ladra hopes that the commission balks but they’ve been rubber stamping everything of the mayor’s lately, even after they question it and hem and haw and say they shouldn’t, they approve whatever he brings them. Maybe the municipal mayors will come and speak out.
“I am a big believer in the right to privacy,” said Miami Lakes Mayor Manny Cid. His town was one of the first to adopt their own policy — even before the state legislature — that does not allow police to use drones without a warrant. He was a councilman when he voted in favor of the policy.
“That said, look at how much the private sector has invaded our privacy,” Cid told Ladra, addi
ng that the GPS in our phones tracked our every move. “Google and Facebook have more information on our residents than we do.”
Cid said he wants to look at what Gimenez is proposing and give him a chance to explain. “But our mission is to make sure we are a private community, that people know that they can go into their backyard and it is their domain,” he said. “Our number one objective is obviously public safety, but we need to prote our residents’s privacy as well.”
South Miami Mayor Phillip Stoddard said he can only see using the wide area surveillance for a live chase. “If they can put a plane up when they are looking for a fugitive, then maybe. But without probable cause? I cannot imagine my residents tolerating that,” Stoddard told Ladra.
Ditto for Homestead: “I’m certainly not going to be in favor of having silent drones flying over Homestead spying on people,” Mayor Jeff Porter said. 
“You can’t cast that large a net. Don’t spy on all of us.”
The plane would likely fly in neighborhoods with high crime statistics. That means low-income inner city residents would be spied on more than affluent white folk. Miami Gardens will get it more than, say, Coral Gables. Now, sit back and watch as very little public outrage comes forth. Mayor Oliver Gilbert was out of the country and Ladra could not reach him to get his feelings on the spy in the sky.
Two other mayors who Ladra did connect with didn’t like the idea too much but didn’t want to get into a pissing match with the county mayor on Political Cortadito. Gimenez apparently reads it because el les hala las orejas when they talk to me.
Mayor Gimenez told the Miami Herald that we, the taxpaying property owners of Miami-Dade, can’t expect privacy even at our own homes. “You have no expectation of privacy when you walk outside. I have no expectation of privacy in my backyard,” said the mayor, who happens to live in Coral Gables where the plane will likely never fly.
So Ladra invites readers to prove him right: Go to the mayor’s house, 4061 S. LeJeune Road, and see if he’ll let you take pictures of the family in the backyard. Then post it with a new hashtag. Something like #privacyisfortheprivileged or maybe #yourbackyardismybackyard. Or even #Iamspyplane
Some mayors say ‘Ay!’ to county eye in the sky spy plane added by Ladra on
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