The NYPD Can Now Shoot GPS Trackers at Your Automobile
Yesterday, the New York Police Department debuted its newest set of high-tech policing equipment. We New York denizens will quickly come head to head with robot dogs, daleks, and one thing new: A pneumatic gun that may hearth a sticky GPS tracker at a transferring automobile.
In case you missed it:
The launcher is known as the Guardian-HX, made by an organization known as StarChase. It’s meant to create a substitute for the standard police pursuit, permitting cops to remotely monitor a fleeing automobile with out sending a squad of interceptors to tail it. However, within the palms of a division known for its surveillance abuses, the presence of any new monitoring tech is worrying.
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The Guardian-HX launcher is based on, of all things, an AR-15 rifle. The Guardian’s lower receiver — the part of the gun that holds the stock, pistol grip, trigger assembly, safety switch, and “magazine” — is interchangeable with any other AR-style rifle. (Amusingly, since the AR’s lower receiver is the part that contains its serial number, these may legally count as AR-15s.) Those accessories, too, are cross-compatible, save for two: The internal trigger assembly and magazine.
That’s because, in the Guardian, the trigger isn’t a trigger, and the magazine isn’t a magazine. The trigger itself is more of a button, an electronic system that activates the release of pressurized gas to propel the GPS projectile. The magazine is actually a battery.
All that tech makes for a single-shot launcher capable of firing one adhesive-tipped GPS tracker before needing its barrel reloaded. That projectile travels at a claimed 37 miles per hour, and has a straight-forward range of 35 feet — though the company claims that, with an arc, it could actually theoretically attain 60 toes.
As soon as the GPS tag is adhered to a automobile, it pings StarChase with its location each two to 5 seconds. StarChase calls the Guardian a “less-lethal” instrument — making one marvel what would be deadly to a motorized vehicle, because the Guardian isn’t designed for use on individuals.
According to the New York Times, the NYPD has invested $19,500 on the Guardian-HX enterprise. Jalopnik reached out to StarChase to ask precisely what the NYPD will get for that cash, and whether or not the corporate will cost the police division any extra charges past the preliminary value (for instance, to offer monitoring information), however StarChase didn’t reply by press time.
The NYPD has an extended historical past of abusing surveillance technology, and Mayor Eric Adams has now ensured the division has much more high-tech surveillance tools at its disposal. Absolutely, solely good issues will come from this.