FBI admits to flying drones over US without warrants

[ Russia Today - http://rt.com/usa/fbi-drones-over-usa-653/ ]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it has used drones for domestic surveillance purposes in the United States at least ten times without obtaining warrants. In three additional cases, drones were authorized but “not actually used.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday published a letter from FBI Assistant Director Stephen D. Kelly, who admitted that the agency used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) domestically, without gathering any warrants.
“The FBI uses UAVs in very limited circumstances to conduct surveillance when there is a specific, operational need,” the letter reads. “Since late 2006, the FBI has conducted surveillance using UAVs in eight criminal cases and two national security cases.”
-[Full Article] 

Colorado Town Debates Bounty On Drones

[ Popular Science - http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-07/colorado-town-debates-bounty-drones ]

If the bill passes, it's open season on government drones. 

 

In the small Colorado town of Deer Trail, residents may soon be allowed to shoot down flying robots. The town board is considering an ordinance that would not only permit people with hunting licenses to fire bullets at drones, but would also pay them $100 for each mechanical hide with federal markings.-[Full Article]

Home Politics Media Culture Sports About Us Facebook Twitter Tumblr RSS Domestic drones and face-recognition technology are 'scary' and inevitable, Bloomberg says

Capital New York

"It's scary, but what's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today during his weekly appearance on the John Gambling radio show, when Gambling asked him his thoughts on the use of domestic drones by the NYPD or any other entity. "I mean intellectually I'd have trouble making a distinction. And you know, you're gonna have face-recognition software. People are working on that. ... You can't keep the tides from coming in. We're gonna have more visibility and less privacy. I don't see how you stop that."-[Full Article]

Eric Holder Admits Killing Americans With Drones on U.S. Soil is Unconstitutional

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMk0AgncXUI

Published on Mar 6, 2013

3/6/13 - Eric Holder informed Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in writing that the White House would be within its legal authority to execute an American citizen via drone on U.S. soil if that person was determined to pose a threat to national security. On Wednesday, testifying before a Senate panel, Holder was prodded repeatedly about this assertion by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Holder eventually admitted that it would not be constitutional to execute an American citizen without due process. RELATED: Obama Administration: Yes, The President Can Drone Strike Americans On U.S. Soil... "In your legal judgment, does the Constitution allow a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil to be killed by a drone?" Cruz asked Holder pointedly. "For sitting in a café and having a cup of coffee?" Holder replied. Cruz clarified that his hypothetical individual subject to a drone strike did not pose an "eminent and immediate threat of death and bodily harm," but that person is suspected to be a terrorist. "I would not think that that would be an appropriate use of any kind of lethal force," Holder replied. "With all respect, Gen. Holder, my question wasn't about appropriateness or prosecutorial discretion. It was a simple legal question," Cruz clarified. "This is a hypothetical, but I would not think, that in that situation, the use of a drone or lethal force would not be appropriate," Holder replied. "I have to tell you I find it remarkable that in that hypothetical, which is deliberately very simple, you are not able to give a simple, one-word answer: no," Cruz added. He said he think that his scenario would constitute a "deprivation of life without due process." Holder agreed and added that lethal force in Cruz's case "would not be appropriate." "You keep saying appropriate -- my question isn't about propriety," Cruz goaded. "My question is about whether something is constitutional or not." When Cruz was about to abandon his line of questioning after a number of equivocations from Holder, the attorney general clarified that he was saying "no" such actions would not be constitutional.

DHS Inks $443 Million Deal to Buy More Drones

The New American

The Department of Homeland Security is positioning itself to assume immense domestic law-enforcement and surveillance powers. From patrolling the traffic on the Internet to consolidating local police power, DHS is accumulating all the unconstitutional authority necessary for a proper Stasi-like secret police force.
A recent story published by California Watch reported that DHS inked a new $443 million deal with über-defense contractor General Atomics to purchase 14 additional Predator drones. If (when) the new craft are delivered to DHS, there would be 24 drones in the agency’s fleet.
 
As we have chronicled, Predator is the preferred model of unmanned aerial vehicle of the U.S. military for prosecuting its death-by-drone program in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere overseas. What doesn’t receive nearly as much press is the domestic deployment of these remote control armed spy planes.-[Full Article]

Armed Drones to Patrol Highways by 2025

High-tech machines would disable suspect’s car via remote electromagnetic pulse

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
November 23, 2012


Autonomous vehicles and flying drones that would disable a suspect’s car remotely with an electromagnetic pulse are set to patrol highways by 2025 according to a number of concept vehciles designed by major manufacturers such as Honda, BMW and General Motors.

The 2012 LA Design Challenge asked companies to come up with a concept for “Highway Patrol Vehicle 2025,” with the winner set to be announced next week.

Most of the entrants for the competition have responded with designs that overwhelmingly suggest “patrol cars and motorcycles would be replaced by computerized drones,” within the next 10-15 years, reports the New York Times.

Honda’s entry, the Honda CHP Drone Squad, includes both a four wheeled drone vehicle and a two-wheeled motorcycle-style drone, both of which would hunt down suspects without the need to be manned.

General Motors’ concept, named the Vault Squad, includes three futuristic vehicles designed to “observe, pursue or engage.” The NY Times noted that the term “engage” was “left menacingly undefined.”
BMW’s DesignworksUSA studio came up the E-Patrol (Human-Drone Pursuit Vehicle), which would allow the operator to deploy an airborne armed surveillance drone which would have the capability to disable a suspect’s vehicle using an electromagnetic pulse.

“The main structure can deploy three drones. The top drone sits above the main structure and is a flying drone, while the other two are one wheel vehicles attached to the rear,” according to BMW. “In the case of a pursuit during heavy traffic areas, the patrol officer sitting in the two passenger main structure can deploy either the flying drone or one of the single wheel drones to chase the suspect and report back data to the main structure. When all drones are deployed, the main structure can continue to function. All drones have added protection benefits in that they can send an impulse to another vehicle and disable it.”

One of the concept drawings for the BMW design shows a license plate scanner within the vehicle which automatically brings up a photograph of every driver on the road, whether they are a suspect or not.
“By coincidence or destiny, designers at several companies came up with concepts for robotic, autonomously driven vehicles on ground, water and air. These future police cruisers — usually presented as story boards rather than actual vehicles — recall today’s Predator and Global Hawk drones, stars of the anti-insurgency efforts. They may give new meaning to those signs that read “Speed limit enforced by aircraft,” writes the Times’ Phil Patton.

As we have previously highlighted, the whole direction of drones and automated robot technology being developed by the likes of DARPA is all geared towards having machines take the role of police officers in pursuing and engaging “insurgents” on American soil.

Technology experts have warned that removing the human element from law enforcement could lead to people being summarily executed.

Although Boston Dynamics and DARPA claim the robots are ostensibly being designed to help conduct humanitarian and relief missions, Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, recently warned that the true purpose of the machines is less benign.
Speaking about the Cheetah, a robot currently being perfected by Boston Dynamics, Sharkey said the device represented, “an incredible technical achievement, but it’s unfortunate that it’s going to be used to kill people.”

“It’s going to be used for chasing people across the desert, I would imagine. I can’t think of many civilian applications – maybe for hunting, or farming, for rounding up sheep.” Sharkey added.
“But of course if it’s used for combat, it would be killing civilians as well as it’s not going to be able to discriminate between civilians and soldiers.”
You can see images of all the LA Design Challenge concepts at this link.

*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

DHS Inks $443 Million Deal to Buy More Drones

The New American

The Department of Homeland Security is positioning itself to assume immense domestic law-enforcement and surveillance powers. From patrolling the traffic on the Internet to consolidating local police power, DHS is accumulating all the unconstitutional authority necessary for a proper Stasi-like secret police force.

A recent story published by California Watch reported that DHS inked a new $443 million deal with über-defense contractor General Atomics to purchase 14 additional Predator drones. If (when) the new craft are delivered to DHS, there would be 24 drones in the agency’s fleet.

As we have chronicled, Predator is the preferred model of unmanned aerial vehicle of the U.S. military for prosecuting its death-by-drone program in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere overseas. What doesn’t receive nearly as much press is the domestic deployment of these remote control armed spy planes.
DHS is particularly fond of this brand of drone, having spent over $250 million since 2006 on building its Predator fleet. Reportedly, DHS is using the devices to patrol the porous border separating the United States from Mexico.-[Full Article]

Spying on Americans For Counterterrorism Will Be Conducted by New CIA Drones

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
October 30, 2012


David Petraeus, director of the CIA, is strongly “suggesting” that the White House approve an expansion of the CIA’s drone fleet to extend the agency’s ability to survey under a paramilitary force. Justification for this necessity is campaigns in Middle Eastern regions like Pakistan and Yemen. Petraeus cites the reemergence of al-Qaeda in North Africa.

This would add 10 more drones to the 35 already used in counterterrorism operations.
Ironically, the CIA denied knowledge of drone use in the US during a lawsuit prompted by the ACLU; as well as refused a Freedom of Information Act request claiming that they could not confirm US government drone use.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted that the use of drones in American skies were for assurance of public safety. In collaboration with corporations specializing in surveillance, DHS has made outward requests for drone manufacturers to have their products used for spying on Americans – and get paid for it.-[Full Article]

U.S. Air Force Training More Drone, Than Traditional, "Pilots"

The New American

The U.S. Air Force is training more drone “pilots” than those who will be at the controls of traditional aircraft, according to the Air Force chief of staff.

To date, there are reportedly around 1,300 people controlling the Air Force’s arsenal of Reaper, Predator, and Global Hawk drones, and the Pentagon plans to add about 2,500 pilots and support crew by 2014, according to an article in published August 3 by The Times (of London).

The UK paper reports that 350 new drone pilots were trained in 2011 “compared to 250 conventional fighter and bomber pilots.”

The trend away from traditional pilots to drone “pilots” is evidenced at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where 360 drone crews will graduate this year. A crew includes a pilot, a sensory operator, and a mission coordinator.-[Full Article]

U.S. Drone Manufacturers Contribute Millions to Congressional Campaigns

The New American

President Obama’s drone fever is contagious and is spreading worldwide, and the American industries that build the drones are slavering over the chance to supply the demand.

Christopher Ames, the director of international strategy development for Pentagon contractor General Atomics Aeronautical, was almost gleeful in his statement to Reuters regarding the opening of a potentially lucrative overseas market for his company’s remote control killing machines.

"There has been very considerable international interest," he told Reuters. "There have been countries that for a long time have been asking for Predator... (the export variant) opens up those markets to us."-[Full Article]

FAA Releases Thousands of Pages of Drone Records

image source

Jennifer Lynch
EFF

We just received new information today about drone flights in the United States, including extensive details about the specific drone models some entities are flying, where they fly, how frequently they fly, and how long they stay in the air.

The 125 drone certificates and accompanying documents the FAA released today total thousands of pages and were released in response to EFF’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which has already uncovered the list of all entities licensed to fly domestic drones.

The 18 entities represented in the files include police departments from Seattle, Washington to North Little Rock, Arkansas; about 10 public colleges and universities; a few federal agencies, including the USDA and the Department of Energy—Idaho National Lab; and other entities like the City of Herrington, Kansas and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. For every entity, the files include the actual Certificate of Authorization (COA) application information submitted to the FAA (for each entity, that file is called "COA.xls"), and many other supporting records. The files go back several years and include COAs for every year that the entity has had drones. For some entities this is as early as 2004.

Read more »

U.S. Military Perfecting ‘Thinking’ Killer Drone

American Free Press

July 04, 2012   AFP

 

By Ralph Forbes

Secret drone wars carried out by the militaries around the world have taken us to the brink of termination of all life on Earth. A recently released Department of Defense (DoD) document describing how seamlessly “capable of completely autonomous action, right down to targeting and combat” the MQ-1000 drone conducts an air-to-air engagement and “neutralizes the Tipchak” missile launched by a Russian mother ship—without any human intervention or control, demonstrates this.

The controlled media won’t tell you how close we came to blowing up the world, but you can read about it in “Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap, FY 2011-2036,” a 108-page peek at the neocon military-industrial- banker complex plans for our future.-[Full Article]

Congress rethinking their approval of expanding domestic drone usage?

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

It appears that some members of Congress are beginning to see the glaring error in their move to pass the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill which allowed for the massive expansion of the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), better known as drones, here in the United States by both the military and law enforcement.

It is not just the glaring privacy concerns (which will only continue to grow as cutting edge technology is deployed) posed by drones which seem to be troubling Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican.

Referring to the FAA reauthorization bill, Burgess stated that it included “this very simple language allowing for the expansion of unmanned aerial vehicles in the national airspace.”

In the Congressional record from June 27 posted by the Federation of American Scientists, Burgess introduced an amendment to the Transportation Appropriations bill which would prevent armed drones from being used in the United States.

Read more »

Drone strikes threaten 50 years of international law, says UN rapporteur

US policy of using drone strikes to carry out targeted killings 'may encourage other states to flout international law'

UK Guardian

The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a United Nations investigator has said.

Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, told a conference in Geneva that President Obama's attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, carried out by the CIA, would encourage other states to flout long-established human rights standards.

In his strongest critique so far of drone strikes, Heyns suggested some may even constitute "war crimes". His comments come amid rising international unease over the surge in killings by remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).-[Full Article]

Is that really just a fly? Swarms of cyborg insect drones are the future of military surveillance

UK Daily Mail

The kinds of drones making the headlines daily are the heavily armed CIA and U.S. Army vehicles which routinely strike targets in Pakistan - killing terrorists and innocents alike.

But the real high-tech story of surveillance drones is going on at a much smaller level, as tiny remote controlled vehicles based on insects are already likely being deployed.

Over recent years a range of miniature drones, or micro air vehicles (MAVs), based on the same physics used by flying insects, have been presented to the public.

The fear kicked off in 2007 when reports of bizarre flying objects hovering above anti-war protests sparked accusations that the U.S. government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies.

 Official denials and suggestions from entomologists that they were actually dragonflies failed to quell speculation, and Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force colonel and expert on unmanned aerial craft, told the Daily Telegraph at the time that 'America can be pretty sneaky.'

The following year, the US Air Force unveiled insect-sized spies 'as tiny as bumblebees' that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings to 'photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.'

Around the same time the Air Force also unveiled what it called 'lethal mini-drones' based on Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints for his Ornithopter flying machine, and claimed they would be ready for roll out by 2015.

That announcement was five years ago and, since the U.S. military is usually pretty cagey about its technological capabilities, it raises the question as to what it is keeping under wraps.-[Full Article]

Groups Concerned Over Arming Of Domestic Drones

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – 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.-[Full Article]

Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally

Russia Today

American police officers may soon be able to use unmanned aircraft not only for surveillance, but also for offensive action. The drones may be equipped to fire rubber rounds and tear gas.

“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),” Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas told The Daily news app as he outlined the possible development.

The US military and CIA have used drones armed with lethal weapons to target militants overseas for years. The prospect of having “lite” versions of those remotely controlled killer-machines circling over America gave some second thoughts to rights groups.-[Full Article]

US drones spy on Americans - ‘incidentally’

Russia Today

A leaked US Air Force document stipulates a drone that happens to capture surveillance images of Americans may store them for a period of 90 days. The paper appears to justify spying on citizens, as long as it is “incidental.”

­The document accepts that the Air Force may not record information non-consensually; however it does state “collected imagery may incidentally include US persons or private property without consent.”
The report, dated April 23 was discovered by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists and has been put online.

Data that is accidentally recorded may be stored for a period of 90 days by the Pentagon while it is analyzed to see if the subjects are legitimate targets for state surveillance. The Pentagon may also disseminate this data among other government organizations if it sees fit.- [Full Article]

Drones Set Sights on U.S. Skies

NY Times

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — Daniel Gárate’s career came crashing to earth a few weeks ago. That’s when the Los Angeles Police Department warned local real estate agents not to hire photographers like Mr. Gárate, who was helping sell luxury property by using a drone to shoot sumptuous aerial movies. Flying drones for commercial purposes, the police said, violated federal aviation rules...[Full Article]

Combat drones coming to US airspace

Privacy SOS

The FAA has approved up to 30,000 drones to fly over US airspace, a number the agency estimates will be operational within the next ten years. We've also heard this week that the military is fast developing drones that aren't even controlled by humans -- robot controlled robots. Privacy advocates and ordinary people alike are understandably worried by these developments.

But here's the news many of us have been waiting for, and dreading: the US military has announced that it is working with the FAA to gain approval for combat drones to fly above US airspace. That's right: the death-dealing birds famous for killing US citizen Anwar Awlaki without due process are coming home to roost...[Full Article]