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| -Lurid Crime Tales- | |
| Predator UAVs Now Being Used To Track And Arrest Americans In The US | |
| 2011-12-11 | |
| As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare. But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said. "We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them." The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
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| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #13 Probably ChiComs who did so for them, if that's indeed what happened. No way Chinese would reveal such an ability---giving them a huge strategic advantage in any future conflict---for so little gain. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-12-11 15:41 |
| #12 Probably ChiComs who did so for them, if that's indeed what happened. |
| Posted by: lotp 2011-12-11 13:38 |
| #11 The Iranians claimed to have jammed the most adcanced US UAV causing it to crash. Therefore tbe entire US UAV fleet has just been rendered useless. |
| Posted by: Chith Hatfield5316 2011-12-11 13:28 |
| #10 Eh? There's no Moon-Glamperist element in this. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-12-11 12:54 |
| #9 Harrison Bergeron calll your office, oh you to JS/07/M/378. For those of you who not recognise the latter individual, check you Wystan Hugh Auden. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2011-12-11 10:11 |
| #8 Oh gods, the new "Black Helicopter" for the 21st century has been found. Moose, I agree with you. Problem is that war has been fought and lost. The Libertarian types that want to fight that war again are like the "un-reconstructed Southners" I run into now and then. And about as relevant and pleasant. Ultimately, unless people want to do something like run for congress or other offices them selves, they need to just stuff it. Yes, I am bitter, why do you ask? Time to go long on tinfoil! |
| Posted by: nguard 2011-12-11 09:44 |
| #7 What you fail to understand that this is part of the increased surveillance of American citizens at all times. YOu are naive if you believe the government will abide by the rules. |
| Posted by: Ulolumble Sproing3349 2011-12-11 09:05 |
| #6 Taken by itself, as just a single technological innovation, the argument is correct. But in context, it becomes insidious. To start with, since (alcohol) Prohibition, there has been an almost uninterrupted progressive increase in police power and authority, and a concomitant loss in civil rights. Often this was done first surreptitiously, then accepted as common practice. But always gradually. After 9-11, however, without a real domestic threat of any moment, there was a huge loss of civil rights, unabashedly stripped away in the name of fighting terrorism, but almost never used for that purpose. Instead we have had a ridiculously authoritarian increase in police power used exclusively against Americans, for mundane reasons. And this rise in authoritarianism has already effectively ended the 4th Amendment, now just a shadow of itself, and referenced nostalgically, but with no real power. But, as the argument goes, these police powers and authoritarianism are *needed* to combat the "ordinary threats", that existed long before such powers were "needed". But why the passion, such as the recent action by the US senate, to give authority to the US military to detain US citizens on US soil? Why are senators Graham, McCain and Levin, especially, utterly passionate that the military *must* be able to detain Americans, without arrest, trial, indictment, etc? Are the FBI and the *hundred* other federal police agencies so impotent that the military must be used? If so, then why do we even have a hundred federal police agencies? This is no longer a paranoid fantasy of what the government *might* do. It is the reality. Does America really need Soviet-style authoritarianism to stay safe in our own beds, from each other? Are we seen as that much of an enemy to our government, or what our government wants to be, that we must be carefully controlled? Getting back to the use of Border Patrol Predators being used by local police, for local police enforcement. The Military, the BP, the FBI, and the DEA are federal authorities. Should they provide active assets to local police departments? Passive assets, like a fingerprint database are one thing, but active assets? Why do we even need local police, then? Shall we move to a national system of Polizei, as in Germany? In most countries, this is done by dictators, to use one ethnic or regional group to police another, so they will not be sympathetic to the locals, and will abuse them without hesitation. It could, after all, perform the dual purpose of being a "cost cutting measure", while at the same time "protecting us from terrorism". "It's for the children", you know. And the federal government wouldn't have to fret so much that local police would not obey their orders. Is life in a goldfish bowl that attractive? Or maybe it is time to sweep away most of the police state, restore our civil liberties, fire hundreds of thousands of federal employees, and get back to enjoying all that "freedom" and "liberty" we used to have. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-12-11 08:27 |
| #5 A lot less cars would be stolen.... ..,but would create some shovel ready jobs to repair the roads afterward. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-12-11 07:58 |
| #4 Starting over GUAM in the PM??? [ALFRED HITCHCOCK = "GOOD EVENING ..." here]. Don't Americans = Amerikans look at the skies anymore, or has the IPAD + TEXTING conquered all??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-12-11 06:26 |
| #3 > Hellfire missiles are NOT law enforcement weapons. A lot less cars would be stolen.... Year 2020 news: "A police Apache helicopter stopped a car thief escaping today, here's footage from the gun camera"... |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-12-11 04:46 |
| #2 I will only object if they start sending armed Predators after people in the country. Hellfire missiles are NOT law enforcement weapons. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2011-12-11 04:01 |
| #1 I agree, 'Moose. The UAV in this role is just replacing a (more expensive) helicopter, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2011-12-11 00:09 |