Is anyone worried yet?
Drone mania is coming to America. Law enforcement agencies, companies and universities all want licenses to fly drones. Most of them are getting them. That does not even take into consideration the drones the Federal Government is flying in the United States.
There is a logical development to this story. If you are not worried yet, perhaps you should be.
What is it?
Overseas, the United States flies two types of drones, unarmed and armed.
Is the next logical development for American drones in American airspace to be armed drones?
From CBS News:
With the use of domestic drones increasing, concern has not just come up over privacy issues, but also over the potential use of lethal force by the unmanned aircraft.
Drones have been used overseas to target and kill high-level terror leaders and are also being used along the U.S.-Mexico border in the battle against illegal immigration. But now, these drones are starting to be used domestically at an increasing rate.
The Federal Aviation Administration has allowed several police departments to use drones across the U.S. They are controlled from a remote location and use infrared sensors and high-resolution cameras.
Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas told The Daily that his department is considering using rubber bullets and tear gas on its drone.
“Those are things that law enforcement utilizes day in and day out and in certain situations it might be advantageous to have this type of system on the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle),” McDaniel told The Daily.
Is anyone else just a little concerned about this?
There are a lot of privacy issues with reconnaissance drones just floating around but when we start talking about arming them, even with “non-lethal” weapons, we are taking this to a whole new level.
Here is a question someone should be asking. Why does any law enforcement agency need an armed drone? What is next? Do we start giving the police departments surplus A-10 attack aircraft so if someone barricades themselves in a house, the police can just drop a 500 pound bomb on the house and not have to worry about going in?
There is the other issue of drones being hacked. Many believe the Sentinel drone that was forced down in Iran was in fact hacked. Does anyone doubt that there are hackers out there with that kind of sophistication?
But the question remains, why does ANY law enforcement agency need any type of armed drone, even if the weapons are so-called non-lethal.
That is a question our leaders in Washington need to be asking.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Debrajoe Smith-Beatty on -
Thanks
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Permalink Reply by Pat Chadwell on
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Media Blackout As Obama Appoints First Ever Assassination Czar
Corporate news blackout as Obama designates John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated.
John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as the continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter.
Most recently he publicly spoke about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just.
According to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids and Obama has delegated him the sole authority to designate people for assassination under the United States top-secret assassination program.
Yes, if it such a secret program then why is the associated press running a story on it? Because it is only a “top-secret” matter of National Insecurity when the public and organizations such as the ACLU request more details on it than the propagandized reports the public is fed through the corporate media.
read more:
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/05/23/media-blackout-obama-ap...
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Permalink Reply by Keith Richards on
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The AP ran a story on this two days ago. If you google "John Brennan," it's the first article that pops up. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5huSujyYciSHoc0wqb...
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Permalink Reply by James William Olmes Rogers on
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There are no leaders in Washington, so, WHO do we ask???
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Angle on
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I think that is where the 2nd Amendment was meant to come in.
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Permalink Reply by John Gearhart on -
Low & slow - right! From what I've read most drones are flown above the 1500' of elevation, not much chance to "kill" it with small arms at that range.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Angle on
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I was not talking about shooting them down.
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Permalink Reply by John Gearhart on
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My bad --- you referenced the 2nd and I assumed that was the idea.
I think that to actively jam might be a course of action, need frequencies & channels. Like the William G has stated, they are stealthy on many fronts. From emitted noise to color & size, to altitude.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas on
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Line-of-sight jamming of the control channel(s) with spurious RF noise should be fairly easy to do. The equipment needed to do so is readily available and not terribly expensive. The drone would then become an unguided missile--A "chaos machine" that would commit suicide.....somewhere?
If it is not in your line-of-sight? Well, then it is not spying on you.
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Permalink Reply by Juls on -
Interesting Thomas. Would this technology work at targets flying at the suggested elevation?
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Permalink Reply by william greene on
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but first you have to spot it.
that would take some doing, i'd suppose. they are stealthy on lotsa fronts.
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Permalink Reply by Micheal McClean on
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If your not doing anything wrong you should not be bothered. my 2c
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