By the time you are reading this, a private, Christian company whose business model relies on flying drones over your house, may already be watching you.
Despite community backlash, today marks the formal launch of SMS Novel’s surveillance drones in the city of St. Louis.
SMS Novel, a drone surveillance company that markets itself on X (formerly known as Twitter) as specializing in interactive Christian films, announced it would launch its drones in St. Louis on February 5.
The company says it’s launching a surveillance model in 25 cities in 10 countries— including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans and New York City — that gives subscribers access to live drone feeds over their communities.
“The goal of drone-stream TV is to showcase each city's beauty, while also being a means of communal security. Viewers can tune in daily to watch live-streams of various parts of the city,” the company previously wrote on X.
The company’s website says subscribers will be able to access footage from the drones in St. Louis from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. EST each day. The streaming service also allows viewers to request that the drones fly to specific locations.
SMS Novel has come under fire from the city’s elected officials and community members, especially residents of Gravois Park where the company initially planned to launch its drones, supposedly as a way to fight crime.
Residents say the surveillance is invasive and a breach of privacy.
"A private entity charging citizens to utilize/watch vigilante drone footage is ridiculous, and does nothing to deter crime, and only sacrifices citizen’s liberty at the hand of ill-fated security measures," Alderman Shane Cohn, whose Ward 3 contains a portion of Gravois Park, told the RFT in December.
Despite the company’s announcement that Drone Stream TV would launch on February 5, SMS Novel’s founder Jomo Johnson previously claimed to a Gravois Park neighborhood group that the drones have already been watching St. Louis for months, the Riverfront Times previously reported.
In January, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported that the city's Board of Public Service sent SMS Novel a cease and desist letter saying the company required a permit to fly above the city.
Johnson responded with a threat to sue.
A day after RFT published a story on Johnson’s spat with the city, SMS novel canceled its plans to test its drone program in Gravois Park. However it promised to launch in a different neighborhood at a different time and would not specify where or when.
It is still unclear where exactly the drones will launch today.
What even is ‘SMS Novel’
Jomo Johnson describes himself on social media as rapper Meek Mill’s favorite pastor.
That’s in reference to a 2012 radio debate between Johnson and the rapper, in which Johnson called for a boycott of Mill’s song “Amen.”
The account that purports to belong to Johnson on X has precisely one follower. In addition to being the founder of SMS Novel, he describes himself as being an author and recording artist who is “Insaitably [sic] lusting for the 2nd coming of Christ.”
SMS Novel was founded in 2018 as a production company for books, films and interactive Christian movies.
One of SMS Novel’s latest creations is a “God is Real” interactive film.
The company also produces AI content including a Drake AI-narrated audiobook in which an AI generated version of the rapper narrates “his own horrific tales as a rapper battling his own conscious [sic] in the new horror novel series, Scary Hours 3.”
Johnson’s idea for anti-crime surveillance drones comes from his own traumatic experiences as a child, according to SMS Novel.
“My personal journey has been shaped by a tragic event from my childhood, a moment that forever altered the trajectory of my life,” Johnson wrote on SMS Novel’s “about” section.
“Witnessing the profound consequences of my father's choices, when he tragically shot my mother, instilled within me a deep sense of awareness regarding the power of choice and the need for enhanced protection.”
SMS Novel did not respond to questions from RFT today about the new St. Louis launch.
What is the community saying?
Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier, who represents Ward 7, which includes part of Gravois Park, has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the drone surveillance.
On January 12 she introduced Board Bill 199 that would regulate the commercial use of drones. This bill now sits with the Public Safety Committee.
“St. Louisans don’t want his surveillance drones in the sky. Period.. ,” Sonnier said in an X post Feb. 2. “We are eager for the Public Safety Committee to hear and pass BB 199 2 create sensible regulations of commercial drone activities for our city.”
Residents of Gravois Park have condemned what they refer to as “unaccountable for-profit surveillance drones” in their neighborhood.
Community members hosted listening sessions, created a drone sightings report form and circulated a petition calling for a stop to the surveillance.
The petition, addressed to Mayor Tishaura Jones, Aldermanic President Megan Green, Alderwoman Sonnier and Alderman Cohn, states:
“We oppose this unaccountable, ineffective, and unnecessary drone surveillance pilot program, and we urge you to use all tools at your disposal to prevent its implementation and instead strengthen privacy protections and oversight measures for private and public surveillance systems, alike.”
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