Drones in the skies here in the US - that blinking star in the nighttime sky might be a Drone someday soon.....

http://www.infowars.com/virginia-washington-move-closer-to-drone-bans/

Virginia, Washington Move Closer To Drone Bans

Government agencies, law enforcement officials angry at backlash

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Feb 22, 2013

The states of Virginia and Washington moved significantly closer to banning spy drones yesterday, making legislative progress that has angered government agencies and law enforcement.

The Washington Times reports that the Virginia General Assembly approved a moratorium on drone aircraft in the state, sending the legislation to Gov. Bob McDonnell’s desk.

The Senate passed their version of the bill, which advocates a blanket ban on the use of drones except where missing person searches are concerned, for the next two years. Members voted by a 40-0 vote after accepting an amendment from the House, which passed their bill, HB2012, Wednesday.

“We are pleased that it’s on the way to the governor with strong bipartisan support,” bill sponsor Delegate Benjamin L. Cline, Augusta Republican, told reporters in Charlottesville, Va. “We hope that the governor will also share our support for a breathing period to get some rules in place.”

Although the bill does not go quite as far as Delegate Todd Gilbert’s legislative push last year for a permanent strict ban on surveillance by drones, it is a step in the right direction as far as privacy advocates are concerned.

Gov. McDonnell is expected to approve the moratorium, despite comments he made last year when hedescribed warrantless drones as “great”, citing “battlefield successes”.

“If you’re keeping police officers safe, making it more productive and saving money… it’s absolutely the right thing to do.” McDonnell said on the deployment of drones in the state.

The approval of the moratorium on drones comes in the wake of the passage of legislation by city officials in Charlottesville, Va to keep drones out of their airspace altogether, making it the first US city to enact such a ban. Whether city officials will be able to extend their ban to federal drone aircraft or not remains to be seen.

In a similar move in Washington State yesterday, legislation to limit drone use was approved 9-1 by a House Committee, and will move forward to the Rules Committee before potentially heading to the floor of the House.

“I’m pleased the Committee moved H.B. 1771 with a ‘Do Pass’ recommendation. We’ve been working on the issue for several months and we have a lot of work left to do, but we passed the first hurdle today. It’s a great day for freedom and liberty in Washington State,” said Rep. David Taylor (R), the primary sponsor of the bill.

Much like the Virginia push, the Washington legislation allows for drones to be used for surveillance, by government agencies and law enforcement, only if a warrant is issued, or in search and rescue situations.

“This bill quite simply provides protection to the citizens of Washington state from warrantless surveillance. That’s our intent here. To start a conversation and say if these things are going to be used, you will protect the Constitutional rights of the citizens,” said Rep.Taylor.

“The entire drone issue is not going to be solved with just this one bill, but this will get the law enforcement side under control because there are no clear guidelines out there right now for the use of these drones and we could put the state on the hook with liability if these drones are used in an improper manner,” said Rep. Matt Shea (R), another sponsor.

“Drones are the equivalent of King George the III’s General Warrants. We must get their use by public agencies and law enforcement under control now to protect the people of Washington from warrantless searches and seizure. Just imagine what state environmental agencies could do with drones …. Tyranny,” said another sponsor, Rep. Jason Overstreet (R).

Many testified in support of the drone ban, including a former FBI official, as well as regular citizens.Officials from government agencies and drone manufacturers expressed anger, and argued that the ban would cost jobs, hinder safety efforts, and lead to over-regulation of law enforcement searches.

The Washington state push comes in the wake of a scrapping of plans by Seattle city officials to roll out drones. Mayor Mike McGinn ordered the city police department to abandon extensive plans it had to roll out drones it has already acquired through federal grant money.

Several other states and cities are considering legislation to prohibit the use of drones in domestic skies. Oregon became the latest state to do so recently with the introduction of a bill setting out licensing requirements for drone use in the state. The bill would fine those who use unlicensed drones to conduct surveillance. New limitations are also being proposed for federal evidence collected by drone use in a state court.

Meanwhile, in related news, Rolling Stone notes that the drone industry is set to launch an all out PR offensive to convince Americans that the unmanned vehicles are more than just tools for spying and assassinations.

and....




http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-19/just-say-no-seattle-residents-kill-city%E2%80%99s-drone-program

( Some positive news to report on the Drone front.... )

Just Say NO: Seattle Residents Kill the City’s Drone Program

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/19/2013 20:01 -0500

• Florida
 
• Oklahoma

Via Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The anti-surveillance state movement is gaining traction and following Charlottesville, Virginia becoming the first city to pass anti-drone legislation, the engaged citizenry of Seattle have now succeeded in killing their city’s own drone program earlier this month.  On the state level, while legislation has been introduced in several places, it appears Florida is closest to enacting domestic surveillance drone regulations into law.  The title of the bill is the “Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act.”  From Forbes:

After a Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee hearing in Seattle (held the night of Feb 7), where residents raised concern over the Seattle Police Departments attempt to use surveillance drones, the program was successfully killed.

In a written response, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn wrote: “Today I spoke with Seattle Police Chief John Diaz and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program so that SPD can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department’s priority. The vehicles will be returned to the vendor.”

On the legislative side of things, multiple states are already moving to enact laws to strongly regulate the use of surveillance drones.  According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Maine has a bill introduced to regulate drones, as do Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. In Virginia a hearing has already been held on a bill, while Montana has three bills, and hearings have already been held there as well.

Of all states, however, Florida is the closest to enacting domestic surveillance drone regulations into law.

The Florida bill was introduced by state Senator Joe Negron—a very powerful Republican who chairs the budget committee. The actual title of the bill is the “Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act,” and according to the ACLU it has strong bipartisan support, along with support from public defenders, the Florida Sheriff’s Association, and Florida Police Chiefs.

While these guys will try to get away with anything they think they can, this demonstrates that when the citizenry is involved and active we can control our own destiny.  Great job Seattle!

Full article here.

and......


http://www.infowars.com/u-s-air-force-developing-terrifying-swarms-of-tiny-unmanned-drones-that-can-hover-crawl-and-even-kill-targets/

U.S. Air Force developing terrifying swarms of tiny unmanned drones

That can hover, crawl and even kill targets

MICHAEL ZENNIE
UK Daily Mail
Feb 20, 2013

The U.S. Air Force is developing tiny unmanned drones that will fly in swarms, hover like bees, crawl like spiders and even sneak up on unsuspecting targets and execute them with lethal precision.

The Air Vehicles Directorate, a research arm of the Air Force, has released a computer-animated video outlining the the future capabilities of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The project promises to revolutionize war by down-sizing the combatants.

‘MAVs will become a vital element in the ever-changing war-fighting environment and will help ensure success on the battlefield of the future,’ the narrator intones.

‘Unobtrusive, pervasive, lethal – Micro Air Vehicles, enhancing the capabilities of the future war fighter.’

Full article here

http://www.infowars.com/obama-moves-to-authorize-domestic-drone-strikes/

Obama Moves To Authorize Domestic Drone Strikes

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Feb 20, 2013

The Department of Homeland Security recently advanced a plan to deploy “public safety” drones in the skies over America, an action Congress authorized last year and called for the deployment of 30,000 drone surveillance vehicles by 2020.

While DHS head Janet Napolitano says the primary mission for domestic drones is for situational awareness in “large public safety [matters] or disasters”, President Obama may have a different idea for how best to implement this next generation of frightening surveillance technology.

Well known for his obsession with remote drone attacks, reportedly going so far as to personally sit in on unmanned aerial vehicle missions, the President was recently asked about concerns from American citizens about the possibility of extra-judicial military drone strikes within the borders of the United States.

Obama has not only failed to deny that he has such plans, but makes it clear that his administration is working closely with Congress to develop a legal framework that will allow the Chief Executive and his subordinates the leeway to initiate strikes right here at home.

First of all… there’s never been a drone used on an American citizen, on American soil.

We respect and have a whole bunch of safeguards in terms of how we conduct counter-terrorism operations outside of the United States. The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside of the United States.

…

I am the head of the Executive branch and what we’ve done so far is to try to work with Congress on oversight issues.

Part of what I’m going to have to work with Congress on is to make sure that whatever it is we’re providing Congress, that we have mechanisms to also make sure that the public understands what’s going on, what the constraints are, what the legal parameters are.

That’s something that I take very seriously.

I am not somebody who believes that the President has the authority to do whatever he wants or whatever she wants, whenever they want,  just under the guise of  counter-terrorism.

There have to be checks and balances on it.

One can only conclude that military and law enforcement drone strikes will soon be business as usual, and likely the preferred method for dealing with, as the Patriot Act outlines, those who “intimidate or coerce the civilian population” or attempt to “influence government policy” – pretty much anyone who disagrees with what the government is doing.

As Chris Carrington rightly points out about pre-emptive government prosecution, under the National Defense Authorization Act “individuals who have committed no crime can be arrested and incarcerated at the will of the government without proven cause.” Will this new legal framework now expand on Patriot Act and NDAA to allow for a militarized government response to potential threats?

For those who would call for such extreme action as firing a military grade remote Hellfire missile at a domestic target, as the media recently suggested we should do during the hunt for Chris Dorner, consider that Global Research recently reported thatover 40% of drone casualties are innocents – often children.

But such collateral damage would never happen in America, right? The NYPD, for example, would neverrandomly open fire in the middle of a busy street and shoot civilians. Likewise, the LAPD would never overreact and send a barrage of bullets at two innocent newspaper carriers who happen to be in a vehicle matching the description of what a suspect may be driving.

With drones, such incidents would be reduced or all but eliminated right? This legal framework being developed by President Obama’s administration with the help of Congress would ensure that no innocents will be killed, right? Law enforcement and military would never target criminals or terrorists if it would endanger innocent Americans who might be in their direct vicinity, right?

And never would they be used to target American citizens unless actionable intelligence of an impending threat was real and confirmed by, as President Obama notes, a “whole bunch of safeguards.”

To paraphrase President Obama, Diane Feinstein and the many Congressional representatives who support a safer America, it’s time we start disarming those who have access to these weapons of mass destruction. These military style assault weapons have no use in hunting or sporting, and have no business being on the streets of America.

and......

Why Drones Should Make You Afraid. Very Afraid.

John Horgan
Scientific American
February 18, 2013

Are drones far down on your list of anxieties? Do lethal flying robots seem like something Pakistanis, Afghans and other inhabitants of faraway lands need to fear but not Americans? Let me give you a few reasons why Americans should be worried. Most of this material–plus much more–can be found in “The Drones Come Home,” my article for the March issue of National Geographic Magazine.

*The Obama administration has pledged to relax Federal Aviation Administration restrictions by 2015 to make it easier for the 18,000 U.S. law-enforcement agencies to deploy drones for surveillance and other uses. According to a report in today’s New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security has also offered grants to help police departments purchase drones, which are “becoming a darling of law-enforcement authorities across the country.”

*The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding research on “micro-drones” that resemble moths, hummingbirds and other small flying creatures and hence can “hide in plain sight,” as one Air Force researcher told me. The Air Force is now testing micro-drones at facilities such as the “micro-aviary” at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

Read full article

DHS Advances Plan For “Public Safety” Drones

More incarnations of spy technology to undergo testing

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 18, 2013

The Department of Homeland Security is advancing its plan to use surveillance drones for “public safety” applications, announcing last week that it had received a deluge of “excellent” responses from potential vendors and was set to carry out more tests of the technology.

New testing of spy drones for “public safety” applications has been rubber stamped by the DHS. Image: YouTube

As we first reported in July last year, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told a House Committee on Homeland Security that the federal agency was “looking at drones that could be utilized to give us situational awareness in a large public safety [matter] or disaster,” despite the fact that the agency had previously indicated it was reticent to use spy drones to keep tabs on the public.

This was followed by a “market research” announcement in September that confirmed the DHS was exploring a “Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety” (RAPS) project, and was asking small unmanned aerial systems (SUAS) vendors to take part.

In an update posted on the FedBizOpps website last week (PDF), the federal agency announced that, “Vendor response to our Request for Information (RFI), Number: DHS 13-01, on small unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS) was excellent and included the submission of over 70 white papers.”

The announcement added that a small number of the submissions would now be participating in the “first phase of assessments” for the technology in 2013 and 2014. The DHS refuses to specify which proposals were accepted and for what reasons.

Initial testing of robotic spy drones for “public safety” applications was conducted by the DHS’ Science and Technology directorate at Fort Sill, Oklahoma last year.

As Wired Magazine reported, the DHS is pursuing lightweight spy drones that can fly for two hours at a time, but it is also interested in military-style drones fitted with cameras that can spy on up to four square miles at a time.

As we reported last week, the ARGUS-IS surveillance camera system, developed by BAE Systems in conjunction with DARPA, has the capability to track every moving object across an area of 15 square miles, or a medium-sized city – and could be fitted to unmanned drones that can stay airborne for years at a time.

The DHS is already using another type of airborne drone surveillance, also utilized to track insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, for the purposes of “emergency and non-emergency incidents” within the United States.

Experts predict that there will be 30,000 surveillance drones in American skies by 2020 following a bill passed last year by Congress that permits the use of unmanned aerial spy vehicles on domestic soil.

Last week, a Federal Aviation Administration official told a conference in Northern Virginia that unmanned surveillance drones deployed in US airspace would not be armed with missiles.

Drones are taking to the skies in the U.S.

Brian Bennett and Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times
February 17, 2013

While a national debate has erupted over the Obama administration’s lethal drone strikes overseas, federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in U.S. airspace, spurring growing concern about violations of privacy.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known. Some 327 permits are still listed as active.

Operators include police, universities, state transportation departments and at least seven federal agencies. The remotely controlled aircraft vary widely, from devices as small as model airplanes to large unarmed Predators.

The FAA, which has a September 2015 deadline fromCongress to open the nation’s airspace to drone traffic, has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later. The FAA this week solicited proposals to create six sites across the country to test drones, a crucial step before widespread government and commercial use is approved.