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Drones Becoming Pervasive INSIDE America
AP noted last year:
Unmanned aircraft have proved their usefulness and reliability in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the pressure’s on to allow them in the skies over the United States.
The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry out civilian and law-enforcement functions but has been hesitant to act.
The Washington Post reported in January:
The operation outside Austin presaged what could prove to be one of the most far-reaching and potentially controversial uses of drones: as a new and relatively cheap surveillance tool in domestic law enforcement.
For now, the use of drones for high-risk operations is exceedingly rare. The Federal Aviation Administration - which controls the national airspace - requires the few police departments with drones to seek emergency authorization if they want to deploy one in an actual operation. Because of concerns about safety, it only occasionally grants permission.
But by 2013, the FAA expects to have formulated new rules that would allow police across the country to routinely fly lightweight, unarmed drones up to 400 feet above the ground - high enough for them to be largely invisible eyes in the sky.
Such technology could allow police to record the activities of the public below with high-resolution, infrared and thermal-imaging cameras.
One manufacturer already advertises one of its small systems as ideal for "urban monitoring." The military, often a first user of technologies that migrate to civilian life, is about to deploy a system in Afghanistan that will be able to scan an area the size of a small town. And the most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence to seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity.
But when drones come to perch in numbers over American communities, they will drive fresh debates about the boundaries of privacy. The sheer power of some of the cameras that can be mounted on them is likely to bring fresh search-and-seizure cases before the courts, and concern about the technology's potential misuse could unsettle the public.
"Drones raise the prospect of much more pervasive surveillance," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "We are not against them, absolutely. They can be a valuable tool in certain kinds of operations. But what we don't want to see is their pervasive use to watch over the American people."
***
In a 1986 Supreme Court case, justices were asked whether a police department violated constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure after it flew a small plane above the back yard of a man suspected of growing marijuana. The court ruled that "the Fourth Amendment simply does not require the police traveling in the public airways at this altitude to obtain a warrant in order to observe what is visible to the naked eye."
In a 2001 case, however, also involving a search for marijuana, the court was more skeptical of police tactics. It ruled that an Oregon police department conducted an illegal search when it used a thermal imaging device to detect heat coming from the home of an man suspected of growing marijuana indoors. [Don't worry, though. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the police can bust down a door and enter your property without a warrant if they smell marijuana or hear sounds that are suggestive of destruction of evidence. The case revolved around the warrantless search of an apartment in Kentucky, Lexington. Bye-bye 4th Amendment.]
***
When KPRC-TV in Houston, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., discovered a secret drone air show for dozens of officers at a remote location 70 miles from Houston, police officials were forced to call a hasty news conference to explain their interest in the technology.
A senior officer in Houston then mentioned to reporters that drones might ultimately be used for recording traffic violations.
Wired reported in February:
Campers may soon be able to regularly see something bigger and badder when climbing the High Peaks: Reaper drones flown by the New York Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing based in Syracuse, New York.
And drones aren’t just buzzing over the Adirondacks. The proposal to begin training missions there is part of a bigger push to build a drone infrastructure for flying missions throughout the United States. So new drone bases are being built. The FAA is setting aside airspace for drone flights.
***
The latest example is the amendment proposed by Senators Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) to the “FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Act” (S.223) that would increase the number of “National Airspace System” test sites from four to ten. At least one of these sites would have to include a “significant portion” of public land.
The Adirondacks, in Schumer’s home state, clearly fit this bill. And not surprisingly, there is also a proposal to use the Juniper Military Area, located in Wyden’s home state of Oregon, as another drone test area.
But Schumer and Wyden are, if anything, playing catch-up in a race that has already seen the establishment of unmanned aerial vehicle test and training sites at Grand Forks Air Force Base in Grand Forks, North Dakota; the National Air Intelligence Center in Springfield, Ohio; Langley AFB in Hampton, Virginia; Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, South Dakota; Mountain Home AFB in Mountain Home, Idaho; and Whiteman AFB in Knob Noster, Missouri. Thanks to President Teddy Roosevelt and the establishment of the National Parks system, we can probably expect that the other 42 states not already mentioned will be competing to serve up some of their public land as drone proving grounds.
In addition to test and training sites, Federal education and stimulus money is being used to create nonmilitary drone education programs. The Department of Aviation at the University of North Dakota, located in Grand Forks and the operator of the test and training site at Grand Forks AFB, now offers the first Bachelors of Science program in Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations. The Aviation Maintenance Technology program at Northland Community and Technical College, located in Thief River Falls, Minnesota just 40 miles east of Grand Forks, will soon offer courses in the repair of UAVs.
***
Although it is hard to predict where the drone infrastructure will grow, if other defense contracting projects are a reliable guide, the drone-ification of America will probably continue until there is a drone aerodrome in every state ...
Indeed, the CBC notes that drones will start flying coast to coast:
As I pointed out earlier today, the U.S. is allowing military operations within the United States.
Remember also that Obama has authorized "targeted assassinations" against U.S. citizens.
And when John Yoo was asked last year whether drones could kill people within the United States, he replied yes - if we were in a time of war:
Of course, since the U.S. has declared a perpetual war (and see this), drones will always be in fashion.
And remember that Department of Defense training manuals consider protest to be "low-level terrorism". And see this, this and this. And an FBI memo also labels peace protesters as "terrorists".
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No.
Regulating aviation is a federal function.
Eventually these clowns will figure out that as they imprison more and more people, tax revenues will keep going down. As it is, the US has more people in prison - by far - than any other country on the planet. According to the NY Times, "The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738...
And this is purported to be the land of the free? What a joke. I figure everyone, *everyone* is guilty of breaking some law or another - and with all the gd laws in this country, it's almost impossible not to be breaking at least one a day. As has been thoroughly documented on zh, there is a two-tiered system of justice in the US. The super wealthy are above the law and free to do whatever they want with impunity, and everyone else has the jackboot on their neck, if not literally, then definitely figuratively. I think we have been propagandized so much that most people are unable to comprehend that the Gestapo was amateurish compared to the surveillance that is commonplace in the US today.
And for Godess' sake, why is John Yoo still walking free. This man is evil personified.
They hate us for our freedom *snigger*
Spot on GG - drones for drones....
Incredible... simply incredible.
I can almost hear the conversation going up the chain of command:
Prvt to Sgt: Sgt, I can't provide for my wife and kids with what I'm paid
Sgt to Maj: Sir, the troops are deserting, they can't provide for their families with their pay, the money is worthless. They selling their equipment, anything that isn't nailed down. Parts and entire systems have been stolen from the depot.
Maj to Gen: There are reports of domestic gangs buying SAMS and TOWS from officers. This seems to bear up on inventory reports of missing items. We haven't been able to trace the missing weapons but believe they're in several major urban areas.
Gen to *Gen Sir! The men have high morale and are eager to carry on with the mission. We need more drones sir, more secret police and more informers. And we need more proaganda agents to convince the population that the money is valuable and...
Dept. of Homeland Security
"We'll safe the shit out of you."
Fuck the FBI and Fuck the Department of Defence...!!!
Who pays the fuckers....
Stop the cheques,you fucking dummies.
http://www.rense.com/general94/betray.htm
in a drug raid that found nothing, swat team fires 71 shots in 7 seconds, kills father, police admit 2 tour iraq vet never fired his weapon after his wife woke him up in panic.
nice huh? survive fallujah, die in tuscon.
Yeah, like China would let an insolvent debtor-in-possession buy this kind of stuff. The beast is being starved before our eyes. Not that Uncle Scam will go down without a fight, but fiscally speaking, what are its options ultimately? Only two: shrink or sink.
Is there any fucking thing that John Yoo sees as outuside the boundaruies of ethical government behavior? How, exactly, does this fascist fuck come to have any say in anything?
John Yoo is a traitor. In the Soviet Union guys like him were called apparatchiks. It wasn't a compliment.
john fucking yoo needs double ought buck shot in his anus, his mom too.
Well said MikeNYC. John Yoo doesn't get to determine that wrong is now right. It doesn't matter what he thinks about anything. He doesn't matter.
At some point when enough people wake up, individual states will have to secede from the Fed govt, enact their own laws and get back to running a transparent, fair and honest democratic govt.
yeah good luck with that...I know my state is just as bad as the federal governement...Police checkpoints taxes up the wazoo local and state laws and restrictions of your freedom.....need I say more?
same old same old...
Even informed and astute ZeroHedgers fall victim to "mainstream" American propaganda, namely the notion that America has always been "free." For the first 2/3rds of the 20th century, SEGREGATION ruled entire chunks of America, a quasi-state TERROR SYSTEM that suppressed poor whites (see Ludlow Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain, and other ruthless suppression of union wage battles) almost as much as Blacks were subject to QUASI STATE TERRORISM of lynch-mobs, "midnight visits by sheriff's deputies," and official state laws segregation.
With the Neo-Cons having broken through the WASP "glass ceiling" in of the first half of 20th century, and now RUNNING (ruining) things in America, it is THEY who are now running the new "QUASI STATE TERRORISM" system, which started with the "War on Drugs" (an APARTHEID SYSTEM, where Wall Street & Enron execs can consume cocaine by the kilo, while "street kids" go to prison for possessing a cigarette's worth of marijuana) and has now morphed into the new Neo-Con INQUISTION "gwot"
(complete with rich (exclusive) ghettos, poor ghettos, state run prison gulags, and, coming as soon as Geithner, Blankfein, Dimon, Bernanke, obama & co. complete their wrecking of the economy (started under Rubin, Summers, Snow, Paulson, et al) concentration camps...)
I agree, meanwhile.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13419947
The stench is finally reaching the ivory tower! how appalled they are ! Appalled I tell you!
Go long in Stingers.....Bitchez
Won't work, those drones do not put out enough of heat signature. They put out about as much as a motorcycle.
"But when drones come to perch in numbers over American communities, they will drive fresh debates about the boundaries of privacy. "
Bull Shit.
The pussified American citizens will bend down and take one for the gipper, just like they've down ever since 9/11.
I'm going long on concrete, especially concrete bunkers. Advise planting large tracts of bamboo to provide ground cover, evergreen in most of the U.S. year round.
The entire nation is more insane than during the cold war. What breaks next?
Financial system is a fraud, 44 million people on food stamps cause they can't even earn enough money to feed themselves, billions in foreign aid, trillions in banker aid and bridges are falling down as the country deteriorates into a sea to shining sea economic ghetto.
Land of the free, home of the brave... not so much anymore.
Land of the Fleeced, home of the sheeple.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/canadian_drug_dealers_exploit.html
Good or bad somebody has to address this.
What a person puts into their own body is nobodys damn business.
There .. I "addressed" it.
Now go mind your own business.
http://www.kzoogospel.org/
Yea we do around here. Hang in there sparky...
Jesus Christ, when is the next rocket ride off this crazy fucking rock?
Thanks GW
Let's see ... a raft of laws implemented over the last decade moving us ever closer to a totalitarian police state. The implemention of a modern day S.S. that seems to think groping babies is in order. Increasing concentration of wealth by skewing banking policy,laws,tax policy, regulation and judicial decisions such that the U.S. has become a fascist nation. Internal spying as the central government sees threats to its hegemony everywhere.
What the hell has the U.S. become and what are the elements driving this?
Is it the dying throes of the military-industial complex, an attempt at a 'new-world-order? I can't say, however I can't see us fighting this monster toe to toe.
To my way of thinking the best offense is to starve the beast.
TSA gets approximately 56 billion a year, intelligence agencies 100 billion,military .. 1 trillion? That's the the tip of the iceberg. Crash it, don't support the system and seek to deny it substance. The U.S. Federal government has become a threat to the entire world (and yes, that even includes those who find themselves under its jurisdiction).
We would've been better off if the south had won the war between the states.
I dunno. I used to think we could starve the beast.
But what does a $2 trillion debt ceiling say about that? We can starve our entire tax contribution, and they'll just keep spending. All they wanna do is dance.
All this surveillance works two ways. If you are unguilty, and there is surveillance, this won't take long. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe Andy Grove is right: only the paranoid survive. I'm aware of the increasing militancy of the police forces. But I figure if they get too rowdy, I'll just join up, thus destroying their reputation as fine Gold-fearing souls.
This really is the big question. What happens when the no one wants dollars any more? Does the war machine grind to a halt? Now that there will be no carbon tax paid directly to the IMF, where does the NWO get the money to run a huge world wide police state, when the American military is broke? And, it looks like there is no nation willing (or able) to step in and provide the funds to do it. When England pretty much collapsed from it's military load, the US pulled the freight, who will do it next? China? I don't think so. Maybe their own version of world domination, but they will not help out the Anglos. A big war between China and the Anglos? maybe.
So let me get this right...
We are flat ass broke...states, cities, and our fed gov't....
Yet somehow, they will find the billions of dollars that will be needed to buy these fucking things from Lockheed, Raytheon, or whichever over-priced military toy maker has the contract for these things.
I am HONESTLY more alarmed by the over-militarization of our local police forces than I am of any terrorist boogeyman that was created by some psy-ops wing at Langley.
All of this shit has been spawned out of the "War on Drugs" (which opened the door for this type of shit) and now the endless "war on terror"...which ripped the door off the hinges and made sure we would never be able to shut them out again. I can only hope that our government gets so goddamn broke that they cannot fund the police or military at all....(yeah right....they would let 90% of the people in this country starve to death before they shut down the police / military...hahaha who am I kidding)
Oh well...we are fucked. hahaha
Yes, I have noticed the same, the younger cops acting more like Gestapo or SS officers than public servants.
Supreme Court just decided cops don't need a search warrant from a judge to break into your home.
Start practicing the zieg heil Americans, you are not free and your liberties are dying on the vine faster than grapes in a drought.
Desperate acts on the part of a kleptocracy that knows the jig is up. As I've said before, this will all come to failure and in the end they will lead us into the last great war for humanity. Because if they are going to sink, they sure intend on taking the rest of us with them. My only question is do we get to make guillotines and put their heads on pikes when we are finally able to get our hands on them.
I'd rather feed them through a woodchipper feet first
"God dammit!...folks, there's NOTHING to see here...move along now!"
hardly surprising to see Joe "I can haz two passports!" Lieberman spouting nonsense about amrka's "northern border" allowing more trrrrrrists in than the "southern" one. . .
oh, and Ron Wyden - if you want drones, you'll have to give up the daily chemical spraying cloud cover - pick one dude, can't have both.
thanks GW, great post(s) today.
I think this image is fitting:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SSUbVSG_KVY/TTrooceE_tI/AAAAAAAAAlc/L4Tfh7SPBl...
(via Gonzalo Lira's "The Trooper" illustrated by Dees)
PULL!!
“Society dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control.” Zbignew Brzezinski
America is gone... The Senate is Gone... You are Slaves... Next observation?
Or,
May 15, 2011 report in the local Michigan paper.
Cessna airplane touched down about midnight, dropped a load of drugs and was ... Rusenstrom said he met the drug plane at least 10 times at other tiny .... When the insatiable need for illegal drugs is elminated then ...
Do we shoot down rogue Drug planes with them or use the intel with Canada to arrest them. The one that was caught conveyed 60 pounds of cocaine and $500,000 on the plane back to canada. The runners who got caught had 175 pounds of weed and 400,000 pills.
When it all goes to $hit, they won't be able to control anything. 120K brave service members can't seem to beat 20,000 part time goat herding jihadis over in Afghanistan. The TSA has a miss rate of 70% at the airport. These are the folks the elites are going to rely on? The problem is that despite the show of force they put on at places like the G-20 and New Orleans after Katrina, no one has tried to pull internal security on an area the size of the lower 48 against a heavily armed population. Best of luck with that one.
They don't have to. It's called perception of threat. If you are being told they are watching you, that little speck of fear in your subconscious is pretty powerful.
Perpetual war bitchezzzzzzz.
I am thinking this is going to create a new kind of porn. Thermal imaging of simulateous sex going on.
Also, alot less pot being grown with heat lamps (not to stop the flow of pot, but because the lamps obscure the porn)
Heh, that nutty Glen Beck was making a big deal out of incandesent light bulbs today. I would think they also affect the precision of thermal imagery.
Rule 34?
Well, all technology is military technology. The same peeps that gave you predator drones gave you internet porno. Fair trade-off, wouldn't you say?
And DVRs, and cable/sattelite TV in general, And TVs themselves, and cell phones. And roads. (both modern interstates and ancient roman types) and boats that bring food from around the world.
But internet porno is still better than all of those :-)
http://cleavage.tumblr.com/
On a serious note, some on Zero Hedge may find this to be a good read. You can't win the info-war!
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/Articles/97summer/peters.htm
That Ralph Peters guy sure does love Amerika!
Ah, I'm still awake. You can't trust anything you read on the internet these days :-)
Good point re: Ralph Peters. I posted that article – which I think is essential reading if we are to take anyone seriously here – as it kinda proves the futility of sites like Zero Hedge.
(Don't get me wrong – this site kicks ass. Zero Hedge is beyond great.)
But think about it – look at what we went through with the whole birth certificate / Osama-death thing. I don't know exactly what reality was there; I just know what we were told is a buncha bullshit. If we know what we take in each day is bullshit, with Tyler and friends trying to give us the truth, what are we going to do about it? Make witty comments on this website? Build our own bunkers?
Just askin'. And I wish everyone here well.
Junk me and you junk reality. May God have mercy on your soul.
I'm leaving now but I will be back as Zero Hedge is one of the best - and most real - sites on the web. There are so many great people here, but there are a few clowns who can't deal with reality, either. Goodnight.