Congress OKs 30 000 flying drones spying on Americans across U.S. cities

Denis

Denis

Jedi Master
America- land of the free and home of the brave... Well, maybe in some alternate reality. I just found this article that says:

(NaturalNews) It's the most benign thing in the world. In fact, it's a concept whose time has come and it will only help protect us and keep us safe. Naturally, there's nothing to worry about because there won't be any abuse of the technology. After all, spy drones are already being used around the U.S.; what's the problem with adding tens of thousands more?

In case you didn't know it - and you probably didn't - Congress, with little fanfare, passed an FAA reauthorization bill last week President Obama is expected to sign into law that will make it much easier for the government to put scores of unmanned spy drones into American skies.

Not only that the legislation authorizes the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015. If the law takes full effect, it is believed as many as 30,000 drones could be hovering over the U.S. by 2020.

The drones, which are widely used in Afghanistan to spot and target suspected insurgents and Taliban operatives in that country as well as neighboring Pakistan, have been used by American government agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, for a few years, in an observation/surveillance capacity. DoH has also used drones in disaster relief operations, and advocates say they can be successfully employed to fight fires and locate missing hikers.

Say Good-bye to Privacy

Privacy advocates, however, are sounding the alarm good and loud.

"There are serious policy questions on the horizon about privacy and surveillance, by both government agencies and commercial entities," Steven Aftergood, head of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, told the Washington Times.

Jennifer Lynch, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group, added that her organization is particularly "concerned about the implications for surveillance by government agencies."

Her agency is suing the FAA to determine just how many certificates the agency has already issued to police, government agencies and a smattering of private research institutions to allow them to fly drones in U.S. airspace. The agency says it handed out 313 certificates in 2011; by year's end, 295 were still active "but the FAA refuses to disclose which agencies have the certificates and what their purposes are," said the Times.

"We need a list so we can ask [each agency], 'What are your policies on drone use? How do you protect privacy? How do you ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment?'" Lynch said.

"Currently, the only barrier to the routine use of drones for persistent surveillance are the procedural requirements imposed by the FAA for the issuance of certificates," Amie Stepanovich, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the paper.

Surveillance Society

The use of drones to keep an eye on American citizens is just the next step in what has become the move towards a so-called "surveillance society" that is growing rampant in the U.S.

Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, says while the widening use of video cameras in American society may have helped nab some criminals, they often provide a false sense of security.

"It's the illusion of security ... public authorities like to give the impression they are doing something about crime and terrorism," he told Wired.com.

Furthermore, are we comfortable with being constantly under surveillance?

"Do we want a society where an innocent individual can't walk down the street without being considered a potential criminal?" asks the ACLU, on its Web site.

Sources for this article include:

www.washingtontimes.com

http://www.eff.org

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/01/us-surveillance/

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034919_spy_drones_America_surveillance.html#ixzz1m0fBQEMj
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Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/034919_spy_drones_America_surveillance.html
 
The title of the article is intentionally misleading. Congress did not authorize 30,000 spy drones. The article itself doesn't even claim that it did.

I am aware of the issue from other sources, and I see reason for concern, but there are a lot of other issues to consider as well and this one doesn't rise to the top for me, and I do not find such exaggeration helpful. The use of the misleading title, however, is interesting in light of what we have been reading about anchoring.

(Edit: added WikiPedia link)
 
Megan said:
The title of the article is intentionally misleading. Congress did not authorize 30,000 spy drones. The article itself doesn't even claim that it did.

I am aware of the issue from other sources, and I see reason for concern, but there are a lot of other issues to consider as well and this one doesn't rise to the top for me, and I do not find such exaggeration helpful. The use of the misleading title, however, is interesting in light of what we have been reading about anchoring.

(Edit: added WikiPedia link)
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Hello Megan.

Isn't it mentioned here:

In case you didn't know it - and you probably didn't - Congress, with little fanfare, passed an FAA reauthorization bill last week President Obama is expected to sign into law that will make it much easier for the government to put scores of unmanned spy drones into American skies.
Click to expand...

Also, there is an almost identical title of the article on The Washington Times web site: Drones over U.S. get OK by Congress . There it reads:

The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.
Click to expand...

Am I missing something here?
 
Denis said:
Am I missing something here?
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I would say so. Authorizing autonomous drones to fly in the public airspace is not the same thing as authorizing 30,000 drones to spy on Americans. Can you see that?

Then there is the statement

...Congress, with little fanfare, passed an FAA reauthorization bill last week President Obama is expected to sign into law that will make it much easier for the government to put scores of unmanned spy drones into American skies.
Click to expand...

Ok, now we have dropped from 30,000 to scores? How many is that -- 20, 40, maybe even 60? How many UNauthorized drones are flying now? What difference does the law make, really, when you consider the corrupt powers that rule the earth? What are the legal implications of collecting surveillance using drones? What is the incremental loss of privacy that will result from the increased use of surveillance drones? You won't find out from reading this.

This article seeks not so much to inform as it does to influence your unconscious thought processes. In so doing it may actually make it harder for you to think about illegal surveillance, and about all the ways you are already being spied upon. It does raise a valid concern, but it also injects ideas that I suspect are intended to distort the reader's thinking.

What came to mind for me, when I first heard about this, was that more autonomous drones in public airspace would seem to imply a possible increase in drone crashes, and the resulting property damage and injury. I guess that remains to be seen.
 
I see your point Megan.

It IS somewhat misleading title, I figured it was put like that in order to catch the reader's attention. Regarding this article's influence on my unconscious thought processes- well, that may be the case as well. And regarding all the ways I am already being spied upon, I am aware that I already live in George Orwell's 1984 Big Brother culture- this is the current zeitgeist and IMHO it won't change anytime soon. :(

I think that the PTB fear us (the ordinary people)- if that's not the case why would they go to so much length in perfecting their control system? The ones who feel the overwhelming need to control others are doing it from the deepest sense of insecurity. I pity them, for they will never know love and there is no greater misery than that...
 
I think you're right, Denis. Stuff like this is just making things some us know overt. Kind of like the veil on reality is coming down.
 
Time to drag my pellet gun out and go plinking :evil:. I have actually seen a drone flying up near lake Ontario, right across the parkway that runs up near the lake.
 
I found this report informative:

_http://www.npr.org/2012/03/12/148293470/drones-over-america-what-can-they-see
(Click the "transcript" link for the written transcript.)

One sample...

DAVIES: I remember reading the figure 30,000 drones in the air. Is that possible, over the United States?

VILLASENOR: Sure, it's possible, it's possible. Again, part of the answer to that depends on what we really mean by drones. Will we have 30,000 Predator-style, large drones doing surveillance? I doubt that very much. But if you include these smaller backpack-sized or trunk-sized surveillance drones, that in fact could happen.

DAVIES: What about the danger of mid-air collisions? I mean, you know, the FAA has to careful monitor where jets are flying to maintain safe airspace. If we add a lot of drones, how much of a challenge is that?

VILLASENOR: I think it's a challenge, you know, especially when you just think about the large numbers. If we do have, you know, thousands and thousands of these things, you know, the concern is that, you know, there's always somebody who doesn't - who kind of breaks the rules, either by accident or on purpose. So I think just the sheer numbers of it does raise a concern.

DAVIES: And what about the danger of crashes? I mean, I can imagine getting a little nervous if I looked up and saw two or three drones over the freeway.

VILLASENOR: It's actually already happened. In - I think it was the late 2010, there was a drone operated by the Mexican national police force that actually crashed into an El Paso, Texas, backyard. So we've already had an instance of - and this was a small drone. This was - it didn't hurt anybody. It didn't do, as far as I'm aware, any property damage. And so, if you have thousands of drones flying, then yes, they will crash. And let's hope that when they do, they don't do any damage to - don't hurt anybody and don't do any damage.

But again, the law of large numbers sort of suggests that sooner or later, there will be some crashes of more significance, and that is also a concern.
Click to expand...
 
But again, the law of large numbers sort of suggests that sooner or later, there will be some crashes of more significance, and that is also a concern.
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Is there scrap value here? $$$

Time to drag my pellet gun out and go plinking :evil:. [...]
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Out here in cornville, if it came at tree level, I will take it down. But that's just me...

Can anyone NOT SEE this happening?
 
Al Today said:
Time to drag my pellet gun out and go plinking :evil:. [...]
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Out here in cornville, if it came at tree level, I will take it down. But that's just me...

Can anyone NOT SEE this happening?
Click to expand...

spying just for sake of it is useless. they can add what ever they want to that drone later. Guns, tasers, payloads, what ever they want. they don't need humans. Like Machine take over of human spies and their fun games. :evil:
 
Megan said:
By the way, this report actually does address some of the questions I suggested here.
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As technology advances, mechanical failures becomes less to be seen. As these machines are tested and improved over "foreign" airspace... Becoming less likely to be observed here in usa.
 
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