It's a Goodyear to fight Crime

Venezuela announced its plan to patrol the city of Caracas with the aid of three remote controlled blimps that would peer down into the latin underworld. Critics lambast the plan as an invasion of privacy and a poor use of public money.

The use of the eye in the sky blimps would probably be fine under the Fourth Amendment and Kyllo standards here in the U.S. In fact, I'm a fan of cameras in PUBLIC areas with high crime/traffic problems. What I don't understand is why the Venezuelan government has chosen to invest in blimps as a crime-fighting tool.

Judging by how easy it was to shoot down a helicopter in Grand Theft Auto, my guess is that shooting down the blimp would be pretty easy. Furthermore, the blimps offer none of the transportation/physical presence that police departments get from helicopters. Finally, in my limited experience with blimps (I saw one once), it seems like they would be pretty easy to spot, evade or outrun in a car, so it kind of defeats the purpose. If Caracas had taken my advice, they would have just saved their money and invested in a Venezuelan Chuck Norris.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070419/ts_nm/venezuela_zeppelin_dc_1