All Drones Big and Small
No, that’s not Afghanistan … Look up…
Have you seen them? Those little
pilotless aircraft high in your sky, or sometimes not so high.
By de Andréa
February 8, 2013
This is confirmed through the
freedom of information act:
The drones are overhead. I have seen one
flying right over my house, I was tempted to shoot it down, but then I decided
to pick up a tree branch and point it at the thing and pretend to lock my
branch missile on it and fire. I will
likely receive a visit from the SS to confiscate all my assault branches. If I do you can bet your sweet bippy that you
will too. Someone please bring a
harmonica to the jail house so we can all sing.
“We Will Overcome”…
They carry cameras, lots of them.
They carry guns and missiles, and can surgically take you out while in
your living room or your car. The
Government has your GPS coordinates, if you remember back before the last
censes. That bee or that butterfly or
what looks like a RC model plane might also be a government drone taking
pictures through your bedroom window. Read 1984
Is Here.
No, that is not a mosquito above; it is a mini drone with sensors and cameras. And that spider on the wall…it might not be a
spider at all, it
might be a spyder like the one on the right
Records newly
released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation reveal the federal government
has approved dozens of licenses for unmanned aerial surveillance drones all
across the United States . If you didn’t believe it the last time I told
you, Spies,
Spies, Spies Everywhere Spies, then believe it now. They are all over the country. And they are watching YOU! It’s called fishing…Surveillance Fishing. They watch you and they watch you, the minute
you do something they believe is suspicious like bringing a load of trash to
the dump they will investigate, what are
you dumping and why???
“These records, have
been received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),” the
EFF reports, “come from state and local law enforcement
agencies, universities and – for the first time – three branches of the U.S.
military: the Air Force, Marine Corps and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency).”
Some of the records
show drones used for purposes as sensible as helping the U.S. Forest Service
fight forest fires. And yet other
purposes, such as performing aerial observation of houses when serving warrants
or covert surveillance of vegetable sales, or anything not defined however,
have prompted the EFF to question privacy issues.
“Perhaps the
scariest is the technology carried by a Reaper drone the Air Force is flying near Lincoln, Nev., and in
areas of California and Utah,” EFF reports.
“This drone uses ‘Gorgon Stare’ technology, which Wikipedia defines as
‘a spherical array of nine cameras attached to an aerial drone … capable of
capturing motion imagery of an entire city.’ …
This type of technology takes surveillance to a whole new level.”
The use of military
drones further raised flags in a
New York Times report earlier this year, when reporter Mark
Mazzetti joined a group of observers watching drone use at Holloman Air Force
Base in a remote area in New Mexico
and discovered the military was practicing for foreign missions by spying on
American vehicles. I wonder if they are
using the aliens from Roswell …
“A white S.U.V.
traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross hairs [of
the drone's view] and was tracked as it headed south along the desert road,”
Mazzetti wrote. “When the S.U.V. drove
out of the picture, the drone began following another car.
“‘Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?’ a
reporter asked,”
according to Mazzetti. “One Air Force
officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was
quickly hustled out of the room.”
The EFF clarified
that while the U.S. military
doesn’t need an FAA license to fly drones over its own military bases (these
are considered “restricted airspace”), it does need a license to fly in the
national airspace, which is almost everywhere else in the U.S.
“And, as we’ve
learned from these records,” EFF reports, “the Air Force and Marine Corps
regularly fly both large and small drones in the national airspace all around
the country,” License or no license.
For example, Montgomery County, Texas, sought
approval to use the thermal imaging abilities of a Shadow Hawk drone to support
SWAT and narcotics operations by providing “real time area surveillance of the
target during high risk operations.”
Yet some applicants
sought FAA approval for multiple drone uses, a potential problem EFF worries
could lead to “mission creep,” or unauthorized use.
“For example,
the University
of Colorado (which the FAA said has received over 200 drone
licenses) requested a license in 2008, not just to study meteorological
conditions but also to aid ‘in the study of ad hoc wireless networks with [the
drone] acting as communication relays,’” EFF reports. “And Otter Tail
County, Minnesota, wanted to use its drone, not only for
‘engineering and mapping’ but also ‘as requested for law enforcement needs such
as search and seizure and search and rescue.’”
The sheriff’s
department of Queen Anne County, Md., stepped up its drug battles by
partnering with the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and
Navy to apply for permission to use a WASP II drone for a variety of purposes.
“The WASP II will
be used for surveillance missions,” the FAA records state, “for example,
search[ing] farm fields for marijuana (the operator would be stationed on the
farm and would use the WASP to see the crop growth from the air), conducting
search and rescue in remote areas (QA’s County has a state park. Searching the river and coves can be
difficult because of the high grasses. An
aerial view would be of significant help), surveillance of people of interest
(watching open drug market transactions before initiating an arrest), providing
aerial observation of houses when serving warrants.”
EFF claims more
than half of the information it sought in its FOIA request a year and a half
ago has yet to be released, not only leaving the map above significantly
incomplete, but also raising questions about what is being withheld.
Even in the records
that have been provided, some of the information has been redacted, including
much of the Marine Corps’ records as well as those from some police
departments, specifically the Orange
County, Fla., sheriff’s department and Mesa County, Colo.,
sheriff.
“Before the public
can properly assess privacy issues raised by drone flights, it must have access
to the FAA’s records as a whole,” the EFF said.
THE BOTTOM LINE: It all sounds like technocops but the rule
of thumb is, if something can be misused and/or abused by government, it will
my friend…
Thanks for
listening de Andréa
Copyright © 2013
by Bottom Line Publishing - Permission to reprint in whole or in part is
gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
2 comments:
Nice
Oh well, not sure about the mosquito drones, but the fact is that there are plenty of micro, or as they call them, nano models, but they are free to be used by the civilians as well. You have many interesting features to choose from, like aerial filming, or FPV (first person view racing) and so on. If you are interested in this topic, I suggest you check out n article I found the other day, which talks about top small drones on the market, who knows, you might find your model there. Check out the article, here: http://mydronelab.com/buyers-guide/small-drones.html
Post a Comment