Predator Drone Helps Nab Cattle Rustlers 214
riverat1 writes "KTLA reports police in North Dakota arrested three men accused of cattle rustling with the help of a Predator B drone from nearby Grand Forks AFB. The sheriff of Nelson Country was chased off by three armed men when he went to serve a warrant, so he came back the next morning with reinforcements, including the drone, which, while circling 2 miles overhead, was able to determine the whereabouts of the men on their 3,000 acre spread and the fact that they were unarmed. A SWAT team quickly moved in and apprehended the men. Local police say they have used the Predator drones for at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and DEA have used the drones for domestic investigations as well."
Half-Life 2 (Score:5, Funny)
We Now Live the Future We Warned Ourselves About (Score:5, Interesting)
Some bizarre version of Phil Dick, Orwell, Terry Gilliam and Mat Groening.
If William Gibson had imagined anything like "The Kardashians" in Count Zero? It would have seemed over-the-top.
Now, we have the dystopian technologies, without the advances in immersive entertainment that these were supposed to come with.
Predator drones and Jersey Shore. The Jeffersonian experiment is really over.
Re:We Now Live the Future We Warned Ourselves Abou (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We Now Live the Future We Warned Ourselves Abou (Score:4, Insightful)
I do feel that the whole "police UAVs = 1984" thing is slightly odd, given that all a UAV is in this role is a cheaper police helicopter. Unless your objection is specifically against all cameras between altitudes of 1.6m and 100km, I don't see much difference between the platform being manned or unmanned.
It's the same thing as a GPS tracker on a car vs a full surveillance team. In both cases the problem is that the new tech is much cheaper. Because it is cheaper it will be used much more frequently and by many more agencies. My local police department can't afford their own helicopter, but 10 years from now I wouldn't be surprised if they have a drone.
It boils down to the previous expense made it much less common, and traceable. You probably couldn't use a police helicopter to follow some guy who made your shitlist 24/7, but drones will soon make that sort of thing inevitable. At least when this stuff was less common abuses were also less common; when it was more expensive, accountability was also higher.
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The problem is that it is military personnel and equipment that are helping local law enforcement. If law enforcement wants to get their own drones, that's a different matter. But the military has absolutely no place getting involved in civilian law enforcement affairs, even to offer "innocent" help.
If there was ever something that could be called a genuine slippery slope, this is it.
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The problem is that it is military personnel and equipment that are helping local law enforcement. If law enforcement wants to get their own drones, that's a different matter. But the military has absolutely no place getting involved in civilian law enforcement affairs, even to offer "innocent" help.
If there was ever something that could be called a genuine slippery slope, this is it.
[Added later:] I read a bit further and saw that other
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If William Gibson had imagined anything like "The Kardashians" in Count Zero? It would have seemed over-the-top.
Try this [wikipedia.org] instead.
Re:We Now Live the Future We Warned Ourselves Abou (Score:4, Insightful)
"The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior."
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556 [amazon.com]
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"The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior." http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556 [amazon.com]
No kidding. Consider patent law:
35 U.S.C. 271 Infringement of patent.
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States, or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
I hope you all have Proof of Authorization to Use documents for your cell phones, mp3 players, computers, etc.
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"The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior." http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556 [amazon.com]
Yeah. Whoda thunk cattle rustling was against the law?
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What would they have done if they were armed? Call in an air strike?
Re:We Now Live the Future We Warned Ourselves Abou (Score:5, Insightful)
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i don't wonder why the US is in debt, and now i don't care. (apparently i have a lot of company - albeit not for the same reasons)
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So sounds like a tazer-happy "occifer" barged on their land first.
Re:We Now Live the Future We Warned Ourselves Abou (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the government was never meant to have near omnipotent power over its citizens, which is where we are headed.
Originally, citizens were allowed guns to protect them from the military (and conceivably the police).
But now technology and tactics have advanced to where you cannot protect yourself from the government at all.
Sure crime, murder, and disorder are bad. But I don't want to live in a country where absolutely none of those exist because the government has absolute control of everything. The government does not even have to abuse this power (simply for that amount of power to exist is an abuse of power) for it to be a dystopia.
It helps to keep the government honest and just to know that really to control the country you need at least 50% of the citizens behind you. But with all the weapons, tech, and know how we have today the government could enforce anything on the people with only a comparative handful of people working with them.
Disappointed (Score:5, Funny)
three men accused of cattle rustling with the help of a Predator B drone
You know, the story would have been a lot cooler this way.
Re:Disappointed (Score:4, Funny)
three men accused of cattle rustling with the help of a Predator B drone
You know, the story would have been a lot cooler this way.
I see a potential excuse for the US DoD on that captured drone in Iran...
"Yes, we were pursuing some cattle rustlers."
Need Jon Lovitz to make it credible.
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If Iran can override the signal and take control so can you!
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If remote access was possible all of the drones would be grounded immediately
I don't think the drones would work if remote access wasn't possible. ;)
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There is actually a moral to this story.
If you're doing anything illegal, make sure you have anti-aircraft capabilities.
And if you're going out to the out house, make sure you carry your guns with you.
Not military (Score:5, Informative)
Before anyone goes all ape-s$%t about this being an intrusion of the military into civilian affairs, the drones in question are owned and operated by Customs and Border Patrol, a division of the Department of Homeland Security. They are housed at an Air Force base, but not used nor owned by the USAF.
CBP had been using drones for a couple of years to patrol the borders and this is an extension of that mission. Works better than a helo, especially for very large areas.
Re:Not military (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is supposed to make us feel better? CBP and Homeland Security are some of the worst domestic rights offenders out there.
Re:Not military (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not military (Score:5, Insightful)
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Posse comitatus act of 1878 prohibits the use of Army (and by extention Air Force) assets for use in civil law enforcement, except under authority of the Constitution or Act of Congress. The protections of the Posse Comitatus have been extended to the Marine Corps and Navy by Executive Order, but do not apply to National Guard troops in Title 32 status (not federalized) or Coast Guard generally. It also has specific exemptions carved out for drug enforcement and troops used pursuant to the insurrection act
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Maybe this will help [wikipedia.org]. Specifically, see the section on exclusions and limitations [wikipedia.org] for further clarification.
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Police don't have tanks, Javelins, Hellfire Missiles, Apache helicopters, F-22s...
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Yes, it is supposed to make you feel better. The US military is forbidden from acting on US soil, and had it been owned by them, this would have been clearly illegal and a violation of US law.
So instead we've militarized our police forces.
I don't see how that's supposed to be better.
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I agree. This is all fine and dandy and yeah we helped catch the bad guys, but now if I say wanted to bang my wife oustand in the back-yard of my own home, I have to worry about some predator drone, and a creeper viewing the tape. This just leads to yet another slippery slope to decreasing freedom and abuse of our lovely government.
No, you have to worry about your next door neighbor's kid with the quadcopter and GoPro camera.
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And promptly turned the technology against the American public with tears of joy in their beady little eyes.
Re:Not military (Score:5, Insightful)
Relax guys, this isn't the military piloting this drone, it's the DHS!
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Lots of military gear makes its way to civilian police, that is pretty normal.
The time to freak out is when they get armed.
Re:Not military (Score:5, Insightful)
That you consider the situation "Pretty normal"?
The frog is already half-boiled.
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True, but irrelevant for the illustrative purpose in this discussion. :-)
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Re:Not military (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is that ICE isn't responsible for cattle rustling and using them in this fashion that far from the border represents significant mission creep. If they found them while doing routine surveillance of the borer or near the border that would be one thing, but Grand Forks is quite far from the border with Canada and this isn't really something which the ICE has any right to intervene on.
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And if local LEO asked ICE "Hey while you got that thing up there protecting us from illegal aliens from Canada would you mind checking out these rustlers since you have nothing better to do?"
Re:Not military (Score:5, Informative)
I wish I had mod points at the moment...
ICE has had a HUGE expansion of mission parameters in the last year. What makes this such a problem is that ICE is one of the few government enforcement agencies that has a large legal leeway that usually does not require warrants. This makes sense when they are patrolling the border as things happen really quickly and they have to react accordingly. But, as of earlier this year, their mandate has been vastly expanded to include things such as domain seizures and domestic law enforcement actions. Earlier this year, ICE's range was expanded to 200! miles inside the border and the media was silent. This covers a large portion of the country where a government law enforcement agency can act without a court order and detain you without cause. Now, the US Senate has passed a bill that will let them ship your ass strait to GITMO and leave you there to rot. It hasn't passed the house yet and Obama has issued a veto 'threat' but, don't hold your breath. In California, we had a recent series of of federal raids against medical marijuana growers and sellers that were legal by state standards (they went after the most clearly legal and above board operations first). The federal agency? Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in northern California, against organizations and people that were local and had nothing to do with cross-border drug smuggling verified by law enforcement agencies. They're being used as a back door way of avoiding law enforcement annoyances such as laws, due process, courts and citizen oversight. At this rate, by the time most people realize what is happening, we will be living in a fascist military state where big brother is watching. I guess Hunter Thompson was right :(
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In California, we had a recent series of of federal raids against medical marijuana growers and sellers that were legal by state standards (they went after the most clearly legal and above board operations first).
President Obama, while he was campaigning, promised [huffingtonpost.com] that this wouldn't happen. I didn't vote for him, but did hold out hope that he would be better on civil rights than our last president. It's a shame that they're about the same.
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Lots of military gear makes its way to civilian police, that is pretty normal.
The time to freak out is when they get armed.
The DHS has been doing this for years - huge budget and give-aways which have left some local LEO's bewildered, such as the Armored ATV some Kentucky sheriffs department recieved. I mean, what are you going to do with with that thing, go Rambo on some moonshiners?
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Goes above DHS, it's our congress critters at work.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/dhs-unwanted-drones/ [wired.com]
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Possibly. Moonshiners can get awful ornery when you fuck with their stills. Southerners may be ignorant, redneck savages, but they can also be quite dangerous in their home environment [cnn.com].
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Frankly,
not happy either way, but WAAAY better IMO to make it manned. It does not scale well that way so the temptation to use aerial surveillance for every little thing
goes away.
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I know I know.. and as somebody else pointed out, it's essentially an unmanned police helicopter.
But.. if you told me fifteen years ago that SWAT teams were being deployed based on information garnered via a
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I agree completely, however in certain circumstances such as border monitoring, the predator drones are a much better option. Cruising at about 25000 feet, they can see an enormous amount of ground. When you add the infrared and thermal imaging capabilities they normally carry, it gives you the ability to spot an object the size of a coyote in the dark and relay that information and location to officers on the ground.
In this case, on a 3,000 acre ranch, the use of a helicopter would have been cost-prohibiti
Worries from 1999 (Score:2)
Mine from 1999: http://kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/fears.htm [kurtz-fernhout.com]
"The race is on to make the human world a better (and more resilient) place before one of these overwhelms us:
Autonomous military robots out of control
Nanotechnology virus / gray slime
Ethnically targeted virus
Sterility virus
Computer virus
Asteroid impact
deeply into cure-worse-than-disease territory (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take some cattle rustlers over militarized police chasing cattle rustlers any day, thanks. Much like the cure/disease metaphor, not every policing measure targeting every crime improves society, even if successful...
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I'll take some cattle rustlers over militarized police chasing cattle rustlers any day, thanks. Much like the cure/disease metaphor, not every policing measure targeting every crime improves society, even if successful...
Not the rancher, I take it. Funny thing, people are all over the Big Gummint and it's intrusion into their live and property, until that same Big Gummint catches the vermin who have been helping themselves to cattle. Now if that same drone finds the farmer's weed crop in the back forty, they'll be on again about Evil Big Gummint.
I certainly can see a lot of good use for these things - Search and Rescue, scouting forest fires, avalanche control (have one that drops small explosives to trigger intended aval
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Heck, even if I was the rancher, I'd rather lobby for taxpayer reimbursement through some sort of "cattle-rustlin' loss fund" or something, rather than going all-out with militarized law enforcement. By the standards of ag. subsidies, it'd be pretty small, too. Plus, that way it wouldn't run the risk that they'd also find my weed patch, as you say.
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even if I was the rancher, I'd rather lobby for taxpayer reimbursement through some sort of "cattle-rustlin' loss fund" or something
So how exactly does this replace your stolen cattle?
You can't just go out and buy more.
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Heck, even if I was the rancher, I'd rather lobby for taxpayer reimbursement through some sort of "cattle-rustlin' loss fund" or something, rather than going all-out with militarized law enforcement.
It wouldn't work for the same reason that nobody reimburses people for normal theft. Someone would drain the fund with fraudulent reports of crime.
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Who said anything about militarized police? No really. The Predators used in border patrol are not armed. Maybe if the tea party has their way they will be.
It wasn't so long ago that cattle rustling was a capital offense. Many a hanging in the old west was the punishment for this (with or without the support of the law!). Heck it might still be on the books in Texas.
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Policing cattle rustling has been important throughout US history.
Just because it doesn't make the news and "sophisticated urbanites" don't care about it doesn't mean that it's not still a major crime problem in ranching areas.
Beef = MONEY.
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Did I miss the part where the cattle rustlers are using UAVs in their activities?
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the criminal element do NOT have access to a hellfire equipped, air force controlled $30 million predator attack drone.
Neither do the police/DHS, idiot, they used unarmed drones.
the fact that they are trying to track down cattle rustlers(!) without even basic firearms
Wrong again, idiot. The day before, a sheriff had been marched off the property at gunpoint. When other police arrived the suspects were spotted by a drone (on it's way back from another mission) and they were carrying rifles and concealing themselves behind barricades, i.e. preparing for either a siege or an ambush on the police. Because the police wanted to avoid a gunfight and bloodshed, they withdrew. The drone was used again the following morni
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"The drone was used again the following morning to avoid confrontation and ensure that no-one was harmed"
If a thirty million dollar drone is shot down, how many people are harmed by the loss of basic services (roads, education, health care, pollution controls) for money needed to replace the drone?
The big problem with the drones as they are used in general is that they are ironic:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Military robots like drones are ironic beca
Is this really a new thing? (Score:3)
I mean ... that could just as easily be a police helicopter up there as a drone.
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I mean ... that could just as easily be a police helicopter up there as a drone.
OMG! The government is saving the taxpayers money by using a drone instead of a helicopter!
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OMG! The government is saving the taxpayers money by using a drone instead of a helicopter!
Funny, but the reduction in cost won't be used to save taxpayer money, it'll be used to fly more flights for the same budget.
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Only if you believe that the sheriff's department has a helicopter and would have used it. It's just as likely that, because aerial surveillance is cheaper with drones than helicopters, they'll use it much more often.
Helicopters are indeed massively expensive. I think the Austin Police Department budgets about $1300/hr to use their helicopters. They could do it much more cheaply with a single engine GA-style plane, though they'd give up the ability to hover.
It's not so clear that a Predator is cheaper to fly than a typical police helicopter, however. But smaller drones could be a lot cheaper.
I certainly do believe that unmanned drones will be the future of surveillance, largely due to cost, but for now ... that futur
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Drones make it possible to have an eye looking down at you for your entire life.
Not yet -- after all, drones generally still require a human pilot. (Yes, I know, some run via autopilot. But most of the serious ones do not.)
If you're important enough, they could have an eye looking down at you for your entire life now -- but it would be very expensive. But if we can remove that human pilot, and remove the need for humans to interpret what the cameras see, and especially if we could make the drone the size of a R/C model rather than the GA-plane sized Predator, then the cost could com
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"... if we could make the drone the size of a R/C model .. But we're not there yet."
http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=10585 [envirosagainstwar.org]
"Bringing 'Mini-Drones' and 'Green Design' to the Business of War"
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You're right, I didn't make myself very clear. Of course R/C plane sized drones exist, and there's also toys (but stepping stones to more serious, tiny devices) like the link you provided. But their capabilities are currently severely limited compared to the larger craft.
If you're looking to replace a current police helicopter with all the gear it carries and all the stuff it can do, you can't do it with a 0.60 ci engine sized R/C plane. Not today. You can do some of it, but not all of it. There's a re
Give that drone a medal! (Score:2)
Story really from Los Angeles Times (Score:4, Informative)
It's poorly identified at the story link. The original can be found at latimes.com [latimes.com].
These aren't... (Score:2)
Rustlers were from extremist group. (Score:2)
The six adult Brossarts allegedly belonged to the Sovereign Citizen Movement, an antigovernment group that the FBI considers extremist and violent. The family had repeated run-ins with local police, including the arrest of two family members earlier that day arising from their clash with a deputy over the cattle.
So it's a good chance they were violent nutters, which makes the use of drones a lot more reasonable in my book.
Still, you have to worry about the cost (~$3200 per hour) of using predators for civilian use.
I Love the Smell of Astroturf in the Morning! (Score:3)
Re:I Love the Smell of Astroturf in the Morning! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, the tent is full of fucking camels already.
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Same thing I was thinking...
Killing a fly with a shotgun? (Score:2)
Seriously. Firstly they use a drone, then the drone establishes that the men are unarmed, and then they send in SWAT? WTF? 2 or 3 cops with pepper-spray would have done the job, or were the SWAT team bored?
Re:Killing a fly with a shotgun? (Score:5, Insightful)
Economics (Score:2)
Cost [wikipedia.org] of a predator drone: $30M
Cost [ask.com] of a cow: $2K
So, as soon as they use a predator to round up 15,000 cows stolen, they'll break even....
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Sparking a constitutional debate about the Posse Comitatus act: priceless
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The original LA Times article says the drone belongs to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. No military involved.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211,0,72624,full.story [latimes.com]
Economics or Irony? (Score:2)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?"
Also, eating factory farmed meat in general is killing us and destroying our environment:
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html [ravediet.com]
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm [westernwatersheds.org]
http://www. [drfuhrman.com]
Photo of the drone chasing down suspects... (Score:2)
Drone in action! [llnwd.net]
FAA and UAS's (UAV is a military term) (Score:4, Informative)
The FAA is still trying to figure out how to integrate UAS's. (They are not called UAV's in the FAA NAS system).
Many legal issues remain:
- Enforcing see and avoid rules required in VFR flight
- Defining standards for communication with aircraft
- Who do you enforce rules with a violation when there is an accident if there is no pilot
- How to handle technical issues such as loss of control / software failure, physical issues such as loss of a trim type control, flap system, etc.
- Weather issues such as high winds, icing
As a pilot and somebody active in aviation software, I'm interested to see where things go here. The reason the military has been able to fly UAV's is because they don't have any rules. Do whatever you want. But in the civil area, we have rules because we choose to protect ourselves from our government and others.
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In some universe where the military had no rule, that would be a reasonable statement. But here in the real world, they do have rules - a whole raftload of them.
FAA rules? (Score:2)
Does anyone here know what FAA rules apply to drones? I know people flying RC aircraft have to pay attention to sectionals. How about police helicoptors?
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That makes more sense, but it's still inexcusable mission creep. The FBI and local law enforcement, not ICE are the parties that are supposed to be monitoring and dealing with that. The ICE was not given those drones to spy on American citizens even if those citizens refuse to acknowledge a nationality.
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this story says otherwise:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/12/sovereign-citizens-members-arrested-with-help-of-predator-drone/ [rawstory.com]
they weren't cattle rustlers, but members of "Sovereign Citizens" movement.
And who are they, pray tell, some people with a "from each herd according to availability, to each larder according to capacity" point of view?
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The fact that they are members of the "Sovereign Citizens" movement does not preclude t
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SWAT teams are often called in when a suspect has threatened violence, and especially when violence is threatened against (presumably) armed law enforcement personnel, as it indicates even less fear about using it. Just because the suspects did not appear armed from the air does not necessarily mean that they couldn't have retrieved weapons rapidly from a vehicle or structure, or that they were not carrying concealed weapons.
Re:SWAT? (Score:4, Insightful)
The other reason is that there are a lot more SWAT teams than they used to be, so the threshold for calling them out is a lot lower. Gotta justify that taxpayer money spent on fancy equipment somehow...
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Part of the reason that they're more common is that some of the criminal element that honed its own methods in much more brutal streets has been moving out into those areas.
A friend used to be married to a member of the Madill, OK, police department. For some years, he handled about what you'd expect a police department for a town of 4000 to handle: traffic stops, domestic violence, bar fights, the rare burglary or car theft (people still keep their keys in the car out there), and once in a great while a m
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Just because they're not in a big city doesn't mean that they don't have problems better handled by SWAT than by general officers.
I'm not arguing the specific case you gave here. But in general, I think the creation of SWAT teams should be a last resort. Let them exist at the state level, to be called in by local police forces.
When there are more SWAT teams they will get more use. And every time a SWAT team is used it's an opportunity for something to go wrong. See for example this map of botched SWAT raids, including numerous examples of SWAT killing innocent bystanders.
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/ [cato.org]
You have to admit, that while
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The other reason is that there are a lot more SWAT teams than they used to be, so the threshold for calling them out is a lot lower. Gotta justify that taxpayer money spent on fancy equipment somehow...
When you're a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. SWAT teams and now drones are sitting idle, all brought in under the guise of terrorism. If they aren't used, the budget will be cut and they'll soon be gone. Better put them to use, somehow.
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Maybe from:
the drone (...) was able to determine the whereabouts of the men (...) and the fact that they were unarmed.
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Is there such thing as an unarmed, remote controlled guided mis^H^H^Haircraft?
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