Spy drones the size of golf balls to be used to spy on Americans.
The Obama administration has been widely criticized for its increased reliance on drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but according to published reports, a plan is now in the works to harness tiny drones to spy on U.S. citizens.
A 30-page memorandum issued by President Barack Obama’s Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley on April 23 has stated that the drones, some as small as golf balls, may be used domestically to ‘collect information about U.S. persons.’
The photos that the drones will take may be retained, used or even distributed to other branches of the government so long as the ‘recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function’ in asking for them.
It remains up to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to do just that. In January, the agency plans to propose a new set of rules for using small drones domestically.
The FAA has issued 266 active testing permits for civilian-drone applications, but has yet to allow drones to enter U.S. airspace on a wide scale out of concern they do not have an adequate technology to prevent mid-air collisions.
Concerns for privacy, which have been raised by Napolitano and other critics, remain prominent in the debate over the domestic use of small drones.
The aerospace industry, however, insists that these concerns can be addressed.
Police departments in Texas, Florida and Minnesota have already expressed interest in the technology's potential to detect fugitives on rooftops or to track them at night by using the robotic aircraft's heat-seeking cameras.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156720/Eye-sky-U-S-government-use-drones-size-GOLF-BALLS-spy-citizens.html
Napalitano: Big Brother’s all-seeing eye.
For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel, where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if - had they existed at the time - King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as someone who is urging the use of violence against the government.
Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. Folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.
Don’t believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the “recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function” in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel inside the United States and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them “to collect information about U.S. persons.”
It gets worse. If the military personnel see something of interest from a drone, they may apply to a military judge or “military commander” for permission to conduct a physical search of the private property that intrigues them. Any “incidentally acquired information” can be retained or turned over to local law enforcement. What’s next? Prosecutions before military tribunals in the United States?
The quoted phrases above are extracted from a now-public 30-page memorandum issued by President Obama’s secretary of the Air Force on April 23. The purpose of the memorandum is stated as “balancing … obtaining intelligence information … and protecting individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” Note the primacy of intelligence-gathering over protection of freedom, and note the peculiar use of the word “balancing.”
When liberty and safety clash, do we really expect the government to balance those values? Of course not. The government cannot be trusted to restrain itself in the face of individual choices to pursue happiness. That’s why we have a Constitution and a life-tenured judiciary: to protect the minority from the liberty-stealing impulses of the majority. And that’s why the Air Force memo has its priorities reversed - intelligence-gathering first, protecting freedom second - and the mechanism of reconciling the two - balancing them - constitutionally incorrect.
Everyone who works for the government swears to uphold the Constitution. It was written to define and restrain the government. According to the Declaration of Independence, the government’s powers come from the consent of the governed. The government in America was not created by a powerful king reluctantly granting liberty to his subjects. It was created by free people willingly granting limited power to their government - and retaining that which they did not delegate.
Hence my outrage at the coming use of drones - some as small as golf balls - to watch us, listen to us and record us. Did you consent to the government having that power? Did you consent to the American military spying on Americans in America? I don’t know a single person who has, but I know only a few who are complaining.
If we remain silent when our popularly elected government violates the laws it has sworn to uphold and steals the freedoms we elected it to protect, we will have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother is everywhere. Somehow, I doubt my father’s generation fought the Nazis in World War II only to permit a totalitarian government to flourish here.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/7/big-brothers-all-seeing-eye/
Senate: Drones need to operate “freely and routinely” In U.S.
The integration of drones or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS) needs to be expedited, the Senate Armed Services Committee said in its report on the FY2013 defense authorization bill last week.
“While progress has been made in the last 5 years, the pace of development must be accelerated; greater cross-agency collaboration and resource sharing will contribute to that objective,” the Committee said.
A provision of the bill would encourage greater collaboration on drone integration among the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and NASA.
“Large number of UASs now deployed overseas may be returned to the United States as the conflict in Afghanistan and operations elsewhere wind down in coming years, and new UASs are under development.”
“Without the ability to operate freely and routinely in the NAS, UAS development and training– and ultimately operational capabilities– will be severely impacted,” the Committee report said.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday approved an amendment to the 2013 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill that would prohibit DHS from acquiring or flying drones that have weapons onboard.
“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the purchase, operation, or maintenance of armed unmanned aerial vehicles,” says the provision sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ).
This prohibition, which is limited to DHS, is likely to be of no practical significance. “Has there ever been any plan to buy armed drones by Homeland Security?” asked Rep. Norm Dicks on the House floor yesterday. “No,” replied Rep. Robert Aderholt.
Also yesterday, Rep. Scott Austin (R-GA) introduced a bill (HR 5925) “to protect individual privacy against unwarranted governmental intrusion through the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles commonly called drones.”
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/06/freely_and_routinely.html