Clearly the 'film only public spaces' argument is specious. It films everybody in their back yard, in their walled lot, in their private green space. It can't distinguish public from private from 10000 feet.
As I understand how its used, somebody robs a liquor store and drives away. Maybe 10 days later a detective gets a warrant for the footage from that day, finds the part where they drove away, then follows the footage backward to the part where they left their house. Then drives over and arrests them. Kind of like a time machine, or Minority Report in reverse.
Few private companies been at this for a bit selling to law enforcement. Persistent Surveillance Systems have a few good videos on their abilities though strangely enough aren't mentioned in this article. They've been secretly doing this in Baltimore before it became public, be interested whether they are still contracted.
Intelligence agencies have been doing it in-house for a long time, you can watch them daily on flight trackers.
Enemy of the State is in real time. I guess at the time nobody could assume we would be able to record widely enough and store the video for long enough to retrospectively pursue people.
As I understand how its used, somebody robs a liquor store and drives away. Maybe 10 days later a detective gets a warrant for the footage from that day, finds the part where they drove away, then follows the footage backward to the part where they left their house. Then drives over and arrests them. Kind of like a time machine, or Minority Report in reverse.