Slashdot Mirror
Police Launch Drones Over LA
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that law enforcement officials have launched a new form of drone aircraft to patrol the skies above Los Angeles. From the article: 'Police say the drone, called the SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions. "This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone," said Commander Sid Heal, head of the Technology Exploration Project of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "The ideal outcome for us is when this technology becomes instrumental in saving lives."'"
Just like HL2 ... gimme a gravity gun and I'll get rid of the lil' suckers
But let's hope these are the ones without hellfire missiles attached to them ;)
http://psychicfreaks.com/This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone
Or it could be used to follow White Broncos
Well, naturally it'll be a great outcome when it's used to save lives. What kind of outcome will it be when it's used to keep tabs on citizens' movements?
But police say that such privacy concerns are unwarranted because surveillance is already ubiquitous. "You shouldn't be worried about being spied on by your government," said Heal. "These days you can't go anywhere without a camera watching you whether you're in a grocery store or walking down the street."
You're already screwed, but you don't have anything to worry about unless you have something to hide. You don't have something to hide do you citizen?
Dropping the paranoia. I've been into a surveilance center in a major city and, as you would expect, half the time the people working there are too busy checking out the hot women walking about to notice any crimes...
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
Here is a link to the SkySeer product on the manufacturer's web page that includes a photo of the device (looks like a model airplane): http://www.octatron.com/Products/SKS.html
"The ideal outcome for us is when this technology becomes instrumental in saving lives."
But we'll settle for tracking your every move.
"bringing technology most commonly associated with combat zones to urban policing." now some might argue that LA is not that far away from being a combat zone.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.
Cause if they are, I seriously doubt they will be used to patrol upscale neighborhoods. In which case, the drones will be used to monitor the, um, drones.
Once they fly over a backyard with some woman topless sunbathing out by the pool they'll forget all about saving lives.
LA's a big city. There are some good things about this.
* It frees up man power
* It saves money on paying pilots and buying more aircraft
* They can cover more are quickly plus relay constant feed back and be remotely controlled to travel certain ares faster.
There are some bad things.
* It could, theoretically, be a privacy issue as they take pictures of people's yards (I'm sure pictures will be wide lens)
* Let's say they can hover and ease drop on a building
* I'm sure taxes will come into play (howerver this may be on neutral ground if it really beneifts the residents).
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
"... but will in fact be used to further re-enforce the creeping feeling that LA, and indeed America at large, is turning onto a police state where the citizens are under constant surveillance."
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
At least someone is asking the right questions.
I don't have a problem with private businesses using cameras to monitor their property as long as the cameras are not government sanctioned stations to monitor the public. I would hope that tapes from those business cameras would at least take a subpoena to be viewed. Where I do have a problem is when an officer seems to justify unwarranted surveillance devoid of probable cause using unmanned drones patrolling my backyard. What happened to my Constitutional rights regarding search and seizure?
And do you know how they sell this to the public?
It's for the children stupid!!! How long until this is used to collect even more information on the citizen of our US? Land of the free and home of the brave indeed...
So much for the "greatest country in the world". Welcome to the united states of Orwellia.
LinuxP2P.com - The GNU/Linux File-Sharing Portal
"This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone" COULD BE used. Obviously it WON'T be limited to those situations. How will it help find missing children? Since they are missing, you don't know where to look, and you cannot possibly look everywhere in Los Angeles. If they are kidnapped, then how will the drone find them in a car or a house? Searching for lost hikers is a legitimate use, but how often will it be used for that? I don't see an epidemic of lost hikers justifying purchasing this equipment. As for use in a fire zone, why would the POLICE purchase a drone for that? Wouldn't the FIRE DEPARTMENT need it? These are NOT the reasons for using these drones. These drones will be used to monitor the streets of Los Angeles to gather track citizens and citizen activities at the expense of intruding on people's privacy (not legally defined privacy, but real-life privacy). These will be deployed during lawful public protests, for example, under the excuse of public safety. Since the Department of Homeland Security already has jurisdiction over pretty much everything, they can use it to build profiles of people at a lawful protest, adding to the data the DHS collects against citizens, allowing it to add people to no-fly and other blacklists. This is really just domestic spying, not to save the children, hikers or survey a fire. ("Mr. Fire, can we ask you a few questions?").
Hopefully, the Compton School Police won't be handling the drones.
Well, get yourself a GPS Jammer.
You can bweak the Man's widdow pwane!!!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Per AOPA, LA Sheriff's department agrees the tiny RC-sized planes are subject to existing FAA rules, including uncontrolled airspace, which would make it pretty hard to actually fly in LA. It makes a nice story for some ambitious tech captain but I doubt there will be any impact on crime or privacy (modulo slippery-slope). See the AOPA site: http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2006/060609 uav.html>
they tried it in bulgaria hehehe
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oe1phdRUhDE
"The ideal outcome for us is when this technology becomes instrumental in saving lives."
Ideally that is. At least until it crashes and kills someone.
BBC has pictures http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5051142.stm
what are the price on these little babies? will they have to teach the police to handle them or will they need to bring in a dedicated tech to watch them? it seems like a lot of money to spend n somthing that has a high chance of failing simply from outside enviromental hazards.
Free up the helicopters for much more important tasks.
Can these things see-and-avoid other air traffic, or does this come with a permanent TFR?
Xeni Jardin (of BoingBoing and NPR fame) reported on this a few months ago. The pictures of the plane are good, but the control equipment is even more so.
T1000?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Now we need the Death Star, a glass supermall, and Lucius Warbaby.
Would be interesting if this was integrated into Google Earth or Maps or something like that.
Because the only one who can save us from the drones is Max, the bitchin' X5-452
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
These drones will be used to monitor the streets of Los Angeles to gather track citizens and citizen activities at the expense of intruding on people's privacy (not legally defined privacy, but real-life privacy).
Exactly right, this is what the movie Blue Thunder was all about. Except instead of stealth helicopters we're now seeing unmanned drones deployed over population centers. How long until these drones become more "useful" by being armed with crowd-control features such as gas or even lethal force?
...there's many more hot women walking around than there are crimes.
The "H" in the popular profanity "Jesus H. Christ" does not stand for "Harold." It stands for "Horatio." For pointing this out, I am an ass, but you are the idiot.
"I have a bad feeling about this..."
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
For those of you who play G.R.A.W. (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter), you know how to take care of that pesky drone problem...just grab your assault rifle, set it on full-auto, and blast away until the drone is a million tiny pieces...then wait two minutes for the next one to appear behind the blue spawn (I'm assuming that's the team the cops would be).
Hopefully nobody will take this too literally and start base-raping the boys in blue, though. Or better yet, grab your ZEUS anti-tank missile, and take that thing out the overkill way. Mmm!
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Kiss your remaining freedoms goodbye.
Meh.
It's not like it's a big secret. It costs too much to operate choppers 24/7 for the surveillance desired. Drones are cheaper, they only cost once (plus nominal costs for fuel) and you can lay off those expensive pilots.
Now, drones are by definition dumb and sooner or later one will crash. That is not necessarily "protecting" the public, will probably hurt more people than it saves, but as long as you can argue that's the idea behind it, it will fly. Hell, the "war on terror" was supposed to protect US people, and more people died during that war than in terrorist acts before 9/11. But hey, it was the idea behind it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
when they fire plasma beams at small children.
:)
cause ya know those small children are the problem.
it's funny laugh
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
A lot of people used to whine about the traffic cameras at intersections. They would say: "Oh, it's not FAIR that these cameras can catch me breaking the law! If there aren't any cops around, I should be able to ge away with it!" But that's a terrible argument. All that has happened is that the technology has improved to allow us to better enforce laws already on the books. Just because you used to be able to get away with it, doesn't mean it wasn't breaking the law. Just because you "lucked out" and there weren't cops around, doesn't mean it wasn't wrong.
To me, having "bots" scanning public streets for criminal activities is exactly the same. Don't whine, like one commenter did, about "What if I'm doing something illegal in my back yard!!!" Just because you used to not get caught, doesn't mean it wasn't illegal! If they use it for law enforcement, it would just be using technology to better enforce laws that are already on the books. <sarcasm>How dare they!</sarcasm>
The government wishes to control the nation's citizens. Police wish to make their own lives easier. A majority percentage of citizens wish to avoid responsibility for their own lives.
What is the inevitable end result?
Somebody such as, say, Dick Cheney, wants to quell outside interference. He considers the people of the United States of America to be outside interferences. They could potentially prevent him from doing the things he wishes to do.
His underlings, including the law enforcement agencies, wish to make their own jobs simpler. One way to do that is removing pesky and frustrating rules and restrictions.
Most Americans have no wish to work any harder than government employees, such as police officers. Taking responsibility for their own lives is seen as work, often hard work, and should be avoided wherever possible.
So obese, reality TV-loving citizens, who seldom venture beyond the supermarket, don't care if police officers start unlawfully interfering with innocent civilians. Afterall, if they really were innocent, why would the police be interested in them? Anybody venturing outside their homes when they should be watching Reality TV shows is obviously up to no good, and the police are therefore doing what it takes to ensure the safety and security of all good law-abiding obese Reality TV viewers everywhere. Commendable. If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
A police officer should not be prevented from searching through the personal belongings of somebody they don't like the look of. How else can they do their job with a minimum of paperwork? It stands to reason that citizens demand protection, or they wouldn't pay taxes which fund the law enforcement agencies. Placing rules and regulations and restrictions on the activites of law enforcement personnel makes no sense at all. How else can they protect law-abiding citizens who have nothing to fear if they're doing nothing wrong?
Government functionaries such as Dick Cheney know what's best. Expecting them to toe some arbitrary and obstructionary line is pointless and nonsensical. If he didn't have our best interest at heart, he wouldn't be in the job in the first place. Preventing him from doing what's right and best is like driving around with your emergency brake on all the time. And only he really knows what is right and best, so we should just stay the heck out of his way and let him get on with it. And if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
Unmanned surveillance drones circling above mean that we can all sleep much better at night. They will never be used for anything other than aiding our elected and duly-appointed officials in apprehending people who aren't at home with the curtains pulled, watching Reality TV. If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
Stupid, law-breaking liberals.
I, for one, welcome our new LAPD overlords.
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
Didnt we see these in T3?
This link
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
A drone has already crashed in the southwestern desert, on patrol for DHS, I suppose. Operations of these unmanned drones have been suspended until safety issues are resolved. See http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2006/060329 uav.html and http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2006/060426 uav.html.
Not quite:
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2006/060609 uav.html
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) was reportedly evaluating a 4-pound UAV for surveillance use over the sprawling L.A. Basin, which also happens to be some of the busiest airspace in the world. Members were rightly concerned about the risk of a midair collision with the small, radio-controlled aircraft.
AOPA staff promptly raised the issue with the FAA. Not only did that action make sure that a mini-UAV wouldn't be sharing L.A.'s airspace with GA pilots, it will also lead to a better policy controlling UAVs nationwide.
The FAA made it clear to the LASD that as a public operator, it would need a certificate of authorization (COA) and an experimental airworthiness certificate before it could fly a UAV, regardless of size, in the National Airspace System. (National airspace includes Class G, uncontrolled airspace.) Those are the same rules that apply to the larger UAVs being flown by the military and Department of Homeland Security.
Public and commercial operators aren't flying UAVs for "recreational purposes," so they are not permitted to fly remotely piloted aircraft under the provisions of the FAA's radio-controller modeler's advisory circular.
According to AOPA's FAA sources, the LASD reassured the agency that it will fully comply with all FAA regulations.
How long before they attach guns to those things, d'ya think?
Pigs In Space!
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Just figure out what to bag them with. From the looks of them, I'd think a remote-controlled bb machine gun enplacement in palms would work well - just as long as you don't run out of bb ammo and propellant.
I wouldn't want to reprovision a successsful emplacement. There might be costs to pay for for the new skeets you kill.
But the question is.. where is Jessica Alba in this whole thing? :)
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
My son flys light aircraft in the LA area. He has commented Helicopters are often
difficult to see, especially when the hover stationary at the end of runways. There
have been several crashes with loss of life in LA due to light planes hitting helos.
Perhaps since UAVs fly lower than helos, they will reduce crash danger to my son.
I'm curious if UAVs are exempt from all FAA regulations or do they require any
notification tonearby towers when they are launched?
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
The LA Sheriffs Department polices the areas of LA county that are not incorporated cities or they police cities that are then contract out to the Sheriff department. Unlike the Los Angeles Police Department witch has a full helicopter force the tax base is mostly made up of the poorer parts of the county with the exception of West Hollywood.
The Sheriffs Department have a reputation of being the "rent a cop" of southern california, they aggressively peruse contracts with any agency that will sign over there policing for revenue in exchange for their protection. A famous example is when a local city disbanded the city police force and leased over to the LASD. The crime rate for murder shot up 200% in the first year. It has since fell. The sheriffs also police the LA public transpiration system.
My first instinct is they are looking to not have to pay for a full helicopter force, and will cut any corner to keep budgets in line.
We don't need no stinking jammers. The ghetto bird has met it's match. Blam! down it goes.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
These things are the forerunners of the HK drones. Just wait till Skynet becomes operational.
/rant on
/end of rant
However, in LA and other major cities the police don't actually enforce the law or patrol hot-spots effectively. In SF I saw far more 'active' police in the middle-class neighborhood I used to live in which had low crime rates (they even had time to spotlight me going in to my house with a donut and coffee in my hands one morning, cause I look like a hippie i suppose). Meanwhile the poor areas are uncovered. Now I live in a poor section and theres actually a police station right in the middle of it--however they're rarely on the beat, instead they drive away from the problem areas. So a bit different than a combat zone. It'll be interesting if this sky drone leads to police actually doing their job equitably, but I doubt it. It'll probably end up surveying cold-spots instead.
Not that I'm bitter but I _am_ recovering from a concussion I received wed. while walking past a bus stop and getting cold-cocked in the back of the head. A block from the police station. Thank you san francisco, clearly your police need some new tech, priorities, or perhaps better training.
"The SkySeer will cost between 25,000 and 30,000 dollars."6 8&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=nested&cid=150234 02 :P
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1816
To the people who doubted me, I win.
Someone save me from this sanity.
By and large, the most frequent response when I get this is "Oh, no, thats not going to happen. The government is doing this for a good reason, and I trust them."
So I've given up on trying to convince any but my closest friends. I just don't care anymore. If they want to be this flippant about the fourth ammendment, I'll let them be. To either wake up one day to realize they lost all their rights (and its too late for them to do anything about it), or to stay asleep....either would be a horrible punishment. They deserve it; they've chosen it.
I'm not that worried about it. We are smart enough to be on the inside of it all. We're smart enough to be the ones at the top monitoring all the OTHER stupid citizens. When enough smart ones rise up who care enough to do something about it, I'll either welcome them in or join them to set it the way it should be. Its win/win either way.
SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions.
Wow, the situation in LA is a lot worse then I thought since apparently they are worried about helicopters being shot out of the sky.. I wonder when it was the Crypts picked up a surface to air missile?
I for one am very glad they have decided to police us more. I'm a perfect citizen and i have nothing to hide. Please install a police man inside the house of every American that way we can end domestic violence and crime all together.
We could stop crime if we all would just surrender to the government. They will take care of all!
To the government, everyone IS a suspect.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
After reading over a lot of the slashdot replies to this article; it's interesting to note that the majority of them are posts by people with privacy concerns. I mean, a tool is just that; an instrument that serves a purpose. As has already been said before many times; Theres nothin fundamentally wrong with this technology, but instead how it's used will be the deciding factor. While I don't give much thought to the average joe's insights or opinions, I try to pay attention to underlying themes, ideas and threads of thought that run thru society as a whole. And, right now theres a storm brewing here in the USA. Im not saying most (or even the majority), but a substancial part of the populace does have a very uneasy feeling about our government and their motives. I'm trying to be an optimist, but despite that; I see such technology being abused to serve the interests of those in power without some type of VERY good oversight... Let's hope other people see this also, and do something about it before technology gets too advanced and we have no choice but to play along... Just my $.02
I have a UAV with a camera and a GPS. It cost me just over $1000. These are $30,000!!! What a rip-off! Mine has more range and can carry more weight too! A 4 pound electric model airplane for the price of a nice car?!?!?!?!?
The ONLY reason to use this is because they're nearly invisible. With an electric motor you cant hear it, and it looks like a bird when you look up at it. Helicopters are much better for search and rescue because the humans inside can look all over, not just through the narrow view of a camera lens. They can also fly much faster, stay in the air longer, and shine a bright beam of light down to assist officers on the ground. In search and rescue operations they can actually be seen and heard, giving stranded hikers the chance to actually signal them. (people hike in LA?)
The people who said "if you're not breaking the law you have nothing to hide" all need to send me (and thus the entire internet) pictures of themselves naked. Since they're not breaking the law and have nothing to hide, I have the right to see you completely naked right? I mean, its not like I'll put you in jail or anything, what do you have to worry about? As long as you're not breaking the law I have the right to know everything about you. Only criminals should be concerned with people seeing them naked right?
Oh and you can give me your social security number, copies of the keys to your house, and all your bank account information. I mean, you're not a criminal, what do you have to hide?
Did he say "saving lives"...
or "slaving lives"?
Sheriff Baca spends money on drones and a huge fleet of helicopters, and yet can't find the money to keep violent criminals in jail:
http://californiaccw.org/posts/list/149.page
and then when someone challenges him in the election, he gets pay-back:
http://californiaccw.org/posts/list/283.page
and now we're going to have drones flying around the city looking for... who knows?
You can't stop crime with ordinary surveillance cameras, you can just move it somewhere else. (Oh but won't somebody think of the children?)
The main problem with surveillance cameras is they are so easily abused. That seems less likely with this $30,000 dollar drone--they aren't going to waste it looking at a sunbather's tits when they can use it to spy on drug dealers and whatnot.
This thing seems like a good idea overall--it replaces a helicopter in some law-enforcement roles, but it can get to places a helicopter can't get to and it doesn't risk a human pilot in dangerous urban flying, and its cheaper than a helicopter+pilot anyways. All-around good deal.
So how long until the telescreens are installed?
matches the drones in Blade Runner.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
... or so long the saying (and I paraphase): "If the LAPD has to chase you down, they're bring an ass kicking with them." - Chris Rock
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Wrong again. It stands for "Haploid."
It's a frigging model airplane! It is a neat concept from the standpoint of something that can be deployed easily when needs dictate. It has to be thrown into the air! It runs on a battery... these things aren't staying in the air for hours at a time.
While I worry about the next generation, and getting proper procedures into place now given limited ability, SkyNet it aint!
Skyseer? What kind of queer name is that? They should've just gone with the obvious choice, "Skynet".
Arnold's already in place. The future of LA is coming.
eTrade SUCKS
I can't wait for the time when one of them malfunctions and crashes into a group of school children. I mean it is LA - it WILL happen.
... "When 'pigs' fly"
that's not a troll. don't mod something troll just because you disagree with it.
"This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone"
We're watching you, but won't someone please think of the children?
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
OBSERVATION: Sensors indicate that activity in Zone LA2128 is similar to those found in Training Exercise Modern_Urban2c_Night7m.
COMMAND: Initiate Stage 1 Observation Platform. Combine Stealth and Passive Protocol, relay realtime to OPSAT
(Meanwhile, 10 minutes later...)
Stanley sets the emergency brake at the residence of the host for his Thursday night Bridgeclub. The house echoes with laughter and merriment as he pops the trunk to retrieve his contribution to the monthly potluck. The aroma of freshly baked Parmesan Crabcakes with Lemon Zest fills the air and Stanley smiles. He carries the steaming platter gently and heads towards the house.
(Approximately 3000 feet above Stanley's head...)
RECON UPDATE: HEATSOURCE LOCATED. TRACKING MOVEMENT.
COMMAND: ORBIT +24H. INITIATE LIVELINK WITH INS_DATA, CUSTOMS_DATA, HOMELAND_DATA. ARCHIVE.
I forsee news helicopters destroying these lil things :)
Pretty impressive hardware if you ask me!
http://www.robert-daly.com/october/Media/t3.jpg
Did anyone even RTFA? The drone reached an altitude of 300ft and promptly took a nose dive into a thankfully vacant lot. Now suppose i'm a lost hiker or other nefarious sort on the lamb. Near silent and undetectable how pretty will that be when this android flap box jams me right in the face after losing comms. Give me a loud noisy helicopter any day at least i'll hear my doom approaching.
The Constabulary air ship or anti-gravity craft cruised at minimum speed, the low hum of the engines brining confort and feer to the subjects of the Shire of Los Anglies.
Travel notes 2006, a visit to Her Magisty Queen Elizabeth England's Eastern Pacific Colonies.
from one l.a. local to another. :)
.-.
If they are using drones, one has to wonder when the smart bombs are going to start dropping.
Is that a SCSI connector or are you just glad to see me?
"This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone," said Commander Sid Heal, head of the Technology Exploration Project of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Or to make flights 100 feet over highways with a laser gun and a telescopic camera. Screw red light cameras - just send an automated plane out over an area with artificially low speed limits and watch the fines come in as the automatically generated and mailed tickets go out by the thousands.
The problem with a lot of traffic law enforcement is that it doesn't have anything to do with enforcing saftey, but with generating revenue for the city/county. Red light cameras usually aren't placed at the intersections with the highest rate of accidents, but rather at ones with high amounts of traffic and low yellow light times.
Not to mention searching private property, since SCOTUS rubber stamped warrantless air searches in 1989. The Bush Administration (deservedly) gets a lot of flack for erroding privacy rights, but the Supreme Court has been eroding the 4th and 5th amendents long before Bush held any office.
...a cross between Blue Thunder (the movie, where Roy Scheider and Daniel Stern use their police chopper to peep on a nude female practicing yoga) and The Simpsons: Hit And Run (all those flying robotic wasp cameras spying on Springfield).
...Sir."
...pizziola concern?"
Homer: "Mr. Burns, I know you're guilty. Je'accuse!!
Burns: "Fine, I admit it: I had Amelia Earhardt's plane shot down. That hussy was getting too big for her jumpers."
Homer: "No! You've been spying on Springfield with your black vans and surveillance cameras."
Burns: "Black vans? Hmph, aren't they involved in some
Homer: "WHA--?! They were only pizza vans?? Oh, I'm a class five idiot!"
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
I think you meant 'faze'. Either that, or you have one hell of a taser.
I found this picture of the prototype: http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:7SY6ib0nUY04 BM:battleteam.net/tech/fis/docs/images/halflife2_s canner2.png
... Does the NSA have a live feed into the drone's microphone?
Dustin - A different story...
Surely the contractor was incompetent enough to use standard frequencies and plain-text protocols easily reverse engineered by the Slashdot crew.
We should start a contest to see how many of these things one person can collect by hijacking the command/control signals.
One of these things will turn up [lost|missing|stolen] one day. The next day, the concept discussed in Snow Crash will start to become a reality.
Please, please, please LAPD launch a few more planes, the contention for really-real LA porn is just too much for all the planes you lost already
Lets see, a link with pictures. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5051142.stm
Oh look, it is basically a kite with a solid body to house the engine and camera. About the size and weight of a big bird. So it will pose the exact same danger of damage that a big bird does. Wich is actually pretty big but hey, as long as you stay up there you should be save. You mention yourselve the answer, this UAV will not fly at the same altitude civilian aircraft are supposed to fly at.
As to ultra lights. Well the biggest danger is again the pilots themselves. Most of them simply aren't very good pilots in the same way most car drivers aren't very good drivers.
If you can't spot a chopper at the end of a runway hovering or not you shouldn't be flying an aircraft. No don't bring speed up. The only reason to care about something at the end of the runway is if you are taking off wich means you start standing still. If you then while waiting for takeoff can't see if the sky is clear ahead of you how the fuck did you pass the eye exam?
Frankly your son has no business being anywhere near these UAV's.
There have been numerous accidents in holland too with ultra lights, each and everyone of them down to pilot error. Flying into a chopper doesn't sound like pilot error, it sounds like pilot stupidity.
Are civilian helicopters painted in better camouflage or somehow have a smaller outline then military ones? Cause when I spend a lot of time around them in the military the last thing you could say about a chopper was that they were hard to notice. They are about the size, if not the length of a semi. How can you miss that?
It sounds a bit like those people who get hit by a tram claiming they never saw it coming. It is yellow, it weight 50 tons and makes a sound like a herd of cats being chainsawed. How can you miss it?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone,"
Does anyone believe that bullshit? Oh, right - LA - some people there will believe anything... it's their job.
--
make install -not war
Police helicopter need a pilote, need fuel, is expensive. Drone can be autopiloted, can save everything on band (no need of personal), and only need a fuel station somewhere available. Naturally we are not yeet that far (I do not think drone can be automatised that far yet, but I bet it could be done).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Ok, they're not little black helicopters and they aren't automated drones. The summary drew this picture in my mind of the camera drones from Half Life 2.
These are short range (Product page, no price listed. Interesting technical specs though.
Not a good solution for autonomous spying. It might be good for search and rescue jobs.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
Throw-to-Launch Spy Planes
Sorry, a less than symbol was read as an open tag.
Ok, they're not little black helicopters and they aren't automated drones. The summary drew this picture in my mind of the camera drones from Half Life 2.
These are short range (less than 2 mi. range), GPS navigated reconnaissance toy planes. With a 6 ft. wingspan, they should be fairly easy to spot. They can't even fly in the air for an hour without a battery change. The range can be extended with 802.11b access points (only 128-bit WEP is supported). So you should be able to fire up Kismet / Netstumbler and do a little spying of your own if they are in your area. It will be interesting to see if anyone reverse engineers the command & control if these are adopted by police departments in other urban areas.
Product page, no price listed. Interesting technical specs though.
Not a good solution for autonomous spying. It might be good for search and rescue jobs.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
that can drop a glove onto private property?
These robotic soldier unmanned drones and rockets are the ultimate in killing machines. You can be sure they are just beta testing them now, to be turned right around on an unsuspecting and stupid as hell American public. The same way surveliance camera's were sold to the public and are now ubiquitos and ominpresent no matter where you go.
. stm
And on the same page of that article, are these links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5051142.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4721091
Try and do some sousveliance ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance ) and you'll quickly find out how lopsided they are against you doing the same to them. Try flying your own drones over their prisons, military bases, courthouses, police cruiser lots and see how they respond.
The law is a lie. The government are adept and skillful liars, and have no interest whatsoever in protecting you. Its a sham. They are out to make a buck and protect their own interests. Anytime the government says anything at all, you should AUTOMATICALLY assume its a LIE, until proven otherwise, and not the other way around. You have no idea how corrupt and power hungry these people are. None, until you see it face to face yourself by touring the explosive American prison system and police state apparatus.
Forget all that malarkie about democracy you heard in history class. It has no bearing on the real world anymore. Tell me, how often have you gotten to vote on any issue at all? What, every four years, and then the choice has been reduced to the smallest possible of options (this or that candiadate, neighther of whom are you or represent your interests) and still be called a choice? Its a farce. So is it still a democracy when they expand that to voting every 10 years, or how about once every 50 years, to pick between this president or that president? You're still voting, is it still a democracy? Or a sham? Its a sham right now. Once ever four years, for a representative democracy (where someone else supposedly represents your views), not a true democracy, what a bait and switch scam. As soon as the polls close those politians go right back off to their special interest groups.
The only person who is going to protect you is you.
Good luck seeing thru the smog
Table-ized A.I.
New capabilities create new vulnerabilities all the time, I don't see anyone talking about what new vulnerabilities these drones open up and how they are going about protecting against them.
The first thing I think of when I hear about remotely controlled vehicles is, "how easily can the control part of 'remote control' be disrupted?" If the idea is that they can use these things against criminals - what is to stop a criminal from buying a pre-made unit from some grey-market in the far-east, or modifying an "almost there" off the shelf transmitter that is capable of disrupting the two way communication required to operate these drones?
Depending on the specifics, one might even be able to impersonate the unit and send your own video feed to the ground-station. At the very least, I would expect that one could simply dump enough noise into the relevant frequencies to severe the link between ground-station and drone - after all the drone is tiny, it can't have too many watts of transmitting power. A smart criminal could use multiple transmitters, and reflections off of buildings and such, making it that much harder for anyone to get a triangulation on the source of the noise too.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
First link was meant to be:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4422539.stm
The first original link was to the original article, which just showed a toy radio controlled plane (aw how cute) with sheriff badges on it. Useless for nothing. The real deal, is at the link above, which is a link off of that same page labed as: "Allies plough billions into drones". Far more sinister and real. Billions. Billions. Why spend billions? I'll tell you why.
These are the ulitmate in killing machines, because those driving them are in no way in harms way, those driving them can be supervised from over their shoulder like in a telemarketing calling center, and it becomes just a laptop war agame to them... and these things can kill will impunity at great distances. If the machine crashes or is destroyed, it can and will simply be replaced with one from a factory that is churning them out under government military contracts at alarming rates.
It does not question orders, it does not fear, it comes after you and it comes after you to kill you. It does one thing and one thing only, spy and destroy. More than likely, they will travel in packs, so shooting one down, you will only be swarmed by others in the local area. Guns can be mounted on them. Cameras surely. Or more than likely, an explosive charge, so like with their other assasination attempts with these things, all they have to do is fly it near you and detonate it. Hostile element purged.
They can be mass produced. They will be mass produced. And once thhey are automated to patrol and refuel on their own autonomously, they will be mass produced. What are you going to do that is looking at you? Shoot one down? That is destruction of state property, just like breaking the glass in the back of a police cruiser to get out because they are infringing upon your freedom. They will then run a slander game on you, and criminalize you, if you are caught, and lock you away in their police state prisons which extend like warehouses for miles and miles. I've seen them from the inside... its like a warehouse of people that never ends... and ocean... like looking at the clones being trained in Star Wars Episode 2. You wouldn't believe it until you saw it with your own eyes. The words "my god" come to mind from my memory.
The lines have been drawn in the sand. Either you fight back, or you die under their foot. Whats it going to be?
Do it now, because ten years from now, it will be way too late.
Or you can keep doing what you are doing now, playing on your computer and bickering like squaking hens about this or that, with no real clue as to the war going down on the street today against the pigs.
footnote:
Do you know the word "patrolling" and patrol came from "patty rollers", which were bands of white enforcers who patrolled the roads in the deep south for any slave off his plantation without a permit (read, ID card signed by his master). If any were caught without such a writ, they would be lynched and hanged or worse. This practice was picked up by the modern police force, which now assignes "routes" to cops to patrol continously and project power on a fine grain level, so that there will always be a pig within 5 minutes of any situation. This is called their "beat".
Pilot: "My job just got outsourced to a @#%&! toy plane."
Table-ized A.I.
OK, I'll bite. We got pilotless aircraft flying low and slow over neighborhoods in Los Angeles, spying on people, and the authorities say that it's for "finding missing children and lost hikers? C'mon on. The police in LA would only spend all this money on one thing:
"Nigger Control!"
To put it bluntly, in their words [in hushed whispers], not mine.
Do they really have such a big problem that they need all this Kafkaesque technology? Or are they really just a bunch of paranoid psychopathic cowboys with too much money to spend on death machines?
All this weird 'us vs. them' paranoia that infects the wealthy people of Los Angeles (more than anywhere else on Earth) is getting to be rather embarrassing. Do they really believe that their maids are gardeners are going to rise up and slaughter them in the middle of the night?
Get a grip, people, and come back down to the real world.
I'm beginning to think that the entire L.A. techno-fascist police state mentality is directly related to the local Hollywood fantasy mentality. Only it is the inverted nightmare that grows out of too much fantasy, too much money, and too many drugs.
Is there any other place where people live like this? God, let's hope that it doesn't spread.
For anyone who thinks the government has their best interest at heart, and still believes all that smokescreen pablum you were fed in history class... meet your real government
Do a google search for "Siler mp3"
Here's a link below, but do a search for it, lest you flood this one:
http://wms.scripps.com/knoxville/siler/siler.mp3
If, and I say if, ever, you ever get on a jury, no matter what, I don't care how guilty the other person appears to be or how good they are at painting the other person to be a criminal, you need to stand up and say not guilty.
Why? Because whatever sentence they give that person is going to be obscene, 5 times what any sane person would give them. Why, because they make $35,000 every year off of everyone they sentence away. So why give someone 5 years and make $200,000 off of them, when you can give them 20 and make $700,000. Let me tell you, 20 years is a death sentence for anybody. You would rather die then spend 5 years in prison, let alone 20. You have no idea what kind of hell on earth they have created. A sensory deprivation hell thunderdome with a constant noise of chattering idiots that would drive any man insane after 2 years...
When I won my appeal (because the police lied and the judge was clearly biased in the trial), and had to post bond again, you know what they said? Never any evidence on me, I had told them over and over again I was innocent, not gotten one single demerit in prison, showed up ever single day for their slave job for me... isolated myself as far as I could from everyone in the prison and kept to myself and not bothered a soul... you know what they said? They said "your honor, we'd like to ask you double his bond, since he's been to prison and is now more of a flight risk?" WHOA! Wait a minute, I had bond before, and I showed up ever single time for every court date, even when I didn't have to, and cooperated with the police fully... like any citizen would...
Hell yes now I would be 100 times more likely to flea. Why. Because I had seen their hell, I now knew who they were, and I had been tortured. Here they were, as far as I was concerned, admitting point blank the system was not about "corrections", but was about punitive torture and profiteering.
They eventually dropped the case on me. Yey for me, right? $60,000 poorer, 720 days of my life gone to some prison hell hole, and a burning desire for justice that grates on me constantly. Like Aeon said in Aeon Flux... "I once had a life... now all I have is a mission".
Sounds to me like it's a few years since you checked.
I'm going to start moving all my drugs in a jeep.
paintball
You've got it backwards. First of all, any eye-in-the-sky the police (or for that matter, the military) would use would not be able to discern what nationality the walker is since it would be seeing him from above, from a considerable height and probably in infrared as well. Maybe if the drone passed the word to a passing police cruiser the guy might have a problem. Secondly, the police probably would wait until they had a few days of observation completed so they would know that the guy walks that way every weeknight. In fact after the first night they'd probably use the drone to backtrack him to his job and they would know that he only uses the railyard as a shortcut from work to home. Furthermore, the drone, viewing his actions from above, would certainly be able to show that he wasn't doing anything suspicious, like trying to gain entrance to a railcar or something. Finally, if his boss does find out and penalizes him in some way, then it's the boss who has broken the law (and should be made to pay for it)! Corporate shenannigans and unfairnesses like this abound in our open society. This is one of the prices we pay for our freedom. This would be no different from any other case of false slander or guilt-by-association. The only difference is that it would be initiated by new technology. All in all, those who don't break the law shouldn't have to worry about it. (And if things get so bad that they do, well, time for another revolution.)
Ah, our government is so wonderful, caring about finding poor missing children! Those same police will later show up on some mothers doorstop with a court order by the state to take her kids away, or imprison some father for kidnapping for taking his own kid away from a drug addicted junkie wife of his.
a bies&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rl s=org.mozilla:en-US:official
Yey for the police! And catching all those bady child molesters out there and such... what good guys. Or are they?
FACT: The US government didn't give a rats ass for children when they droped two nuclear bombs on the two civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor when they dropped all that napalm all over Vietnam, or when they fired all that nuclear waste all over Iraq with their miracle tank busting rounds. Hello, something has to click in anybody's brain that says... shooting nuclear waste around is a very *bad* idea...
I hear this all the time on slashdot, that child molesters are universal abhorred. Mostly child molesting charges today are the new witchhunt. Charge someone with witchcraft, take them down. No proof required, ticket straight to jail! Why, it works, cause everybody "hates" them. We don't need any proof. You wouldn't be on trial if you weren't guilty. You're the bad guy, the government and our military and police are the good guys.
Whenever someone levels child molestation charges at anyone, you need to do a double take and look at the pot that is calling the kettle black...
Do you want to see what REAL Child Molestation looks like?
http://www.google.com/search?q=depleted+uranium+b
What makes you think they give a rats ass about finding missing children, beyond the positive newsy publicity it gets them to sugar coat their evilness with lies... its like a tyrant wanting to be photographed with a bouncing baby on his knee. In the next breath he is giving orders to his capos to have 20 political disenters being held and tortured in his prisons executed.
The governement has no interest in your children beyond this:
1. Taxing them as wage slave taxpayers. If you don't pay at the paycheck, you pay at the pump. 60% of gas prices are tax.
2. Turning them into soldiers
3. Criminalizing them and warehousing them in the prison industrial complex
4. Taking them away from you
5. Enslaving them for 12 years in public education, where they are taught a false education of historical lies and pumped with regional hometeam spirit which translates into blind patriotism.
FACT: The US has more children imprisoned than any other nation on earth (call them Youth Detention Centers, the razor wire cuts just the same). Those children are put and kept in prisons by police officers and prison guards. The same police officers with the pretty little radio controled plane. Two faced liars. That's what they are.
I frequently go hiking in Los Angeles. The current ratio of Park Rangers to hikers is apalling, and certainly needs to be dealt with.
On one of my hikes, my careless smoking habits started a forest fire. It would have been nice to have a robot camera flying around to put out the fire.
The only thing is, I've never lost a child so I think this technology sucks.
It would require some skill but it is possible. Will the police be liable if the crashing drone set a house on fire. Just wondering ...
Aircraft are regulated by the FAA.
This activity on Los Angeles' part got the attention of a certain pilot's association which apparently put lots of ice on the project.
So it doesn't appear to be flying anywhere above LA County anytime soon...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
You sir, are an optimist. That makes you dangerously close to being "part of the problem".
Think about it.
- Middle eastern types all wear turbans.
- Mexicans wear those silly sombreros.
- Gang members are shaved, and/or have a bandanna.
- And finally good, upstanding, white, patriotic citizens, have a wholesome choirboy combover
Anyone deviating from this is obviously trying to disrupt the system and is to be treated as a terrorist!From the article: > Police say the drone [...] will be able to accomplish tasks too > dangerous for officers [...] "This technology could be used to > find missing children, search for lost hikers, [...]" said > Commander Sid Heal Yeah, those lost hikers sure are dangerous. Probably ravenous, and likely to gnaw the officer's legs off. Right! So... what would they *really* like to use this technology for?
So how many people in LA own a gun and would find it amusing to shoot these clumsy things down?
Maybe your concern will be solved by the bored mob quite quickly..
I can't wait to see these babies in action on 24.
They even make torture look like it's acceptable, so i'm sure they will make some really good examples of this drones being lifesavers.
"Watchbird", anyone? How soon before these things get guns mounted on them?
SkySeer only one syllable away from SkyNet....
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
Removing the human element shouldn't cause the paranoia i'm seeing here.
.. and another ...
Because it just fucking additive thats why!
Another mechanized survellience system. And another
More cops. More laws. More restrictions. More machines to observe, control, oppress and exploit THE PEOPLE.
This isn't paranoia. This is the same kind of concern the passengers of the Titanic had after it hit the iceberg.
Just slightly off topic;
I'm over fifty and was talking to a friend who is a bit older. I made the comment that I'm getting sick of living in a state of perpetual war, which is what it has been for us. Whenever this country (America) hasn't been directly engaged with other countries or stirring up trouble abroad in preparation for the next war/police action/liberation/coup, there has always been some war fought here at home between out government and our people. It has become tiring to the point of dibilitating dispair. My friend wholeheartedly agreed.
And it is not getting better or even staying the same. It is getting worse. Americans worry and the world is nervous as Washington runs amok. That LA wants to fly RPV's over the city is nothing more than the latest machination via trickle down effects observable nationwide.
With the events of 911 Americans stood united, shoulder to shoulder every man, woman and child in the common cause to prevent further acts of terrorism upon our shores. Terrorist cannot function let alone prevail in such an environment. It was the best possible outcome at the worst possible moment but Washington turned away from their very own people thinking Washingtonian bureaucracy can do better. It can't and the people turned apothetic.
Perhaps 911 was the greatest day a Fascist could have ever hoped for.
From fear and loathing to anger and hate, the future grows increasingly dark.
This is not better. Not even close and paranoia is just a word used to describe disbelief at events unfolding right before your eyes.
From TFA:
Given the current state of technology, it sounds much more useful for specific, targeted surveillance than some sort of 24-hour-a-day let's-see-what-everybody-in-LA-is-doing kind of thing.
Personally, my own attitude towards technology in police work is that it's fine as long as the police are only using it to do something they would be allowed to do without it. There would be no problem with an individual cop standing on a public street corner and radioing back to HQ to describe what is going on, so I have no problem with putting up a video camera to do the same. But it would be unconstitutional for a cop to search my house without a warrant, and I would therefore have a problem with him using some sort of high-tech x-ray machine to peer through my walls without a warrant. But if a cop has a properly obtained warrant, I don't really care whether he searches the house via the latest technology or by hand.
In this case, it sounds as though the plan is to use the drone for targeted surveillance work from outdoor spaces, which the police are already allowed to do. If the police use it to improperly obtain evidence against a suspect (by, say, flying it inside a private space without a warrant), a halfway smart lawyer will challenge the evidence in court and it will likely be thrown out.
Given the genuinely disturbing rollback of civil liberties in the US over the past few years, I completely understand why people are paranoid about this kind of thing. These rollbacks have occurred because people have panicked about terrorism. Those of us who care about civil liberties have a responsibility not to panic in the other direction. We should focus our concerns on the many actual abuses going on, instead of getting into a tizzy about abuses that don't exist.
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!
Griffith Park
You know, of all the science fiction stories that I'd hope would come true, Dark Angel wasn't one of them. As I recall from that series, the aerial drones were being outfitted with guns to preform assassinations. The populas never suspected because they had grown used to seeing the drones flying about, doing surveillance. I've always wondered if that series was canceled because it hit too close to home. On the other hand, the second season sucked.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
"The ideal outcome for us is when this technology becomes instrumental in saving lives."
;-)
Just keep these damned things well below 500' AGL (above ground level) and away from all aircraft routes.
One hopes that in their zeal to exploit this new technology that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hasn't forgotten Newton's second law of motion (F = m * a) and has policies in place to prevent any nasty unintended side effects.
Even though the light weight (2.3 kilograms) semi-autonomous drone may be flying slow other aircraft in the area could be doing up to 250 kts. Impacts at those higher speeds could make a nasty mess of aircraft. Ingestion into aircraft jet engines http://www.fodnews.com/bird.wmv is also possible. One of these drones could really ruin ones day and have the potential to end up taking lives.
Of course, at below 500' AGL that slow moving buzzard is a pretty easy target for a well placed rock from a sling shot or an impact from a model rocket
we have written in our Constitutions "a private citizen can do anything that isn't forbidden by law, but the government can't do NOTHING that isn't authorized by law". Insane, isn't it?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
you have nothing to fear from your own government - you are being watched by your fellow citizens
Fantastic. So if have nothing to fear from your fellow citizens why exactly do we need those drones? Ah, for the foreign terrorists, of course.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
I wonder if all the Compton gangstas will launch their own drones, equipped with fat sound systems, to shoot down the police drones? That would be interesting to watch from the ground, and a lot healthier than gunfights on the streets.
Here in Maryland, the state police have a fleet of Dauphin helicopters with infrared cameras and 30 million candle-power spotlights. They can see an awful lot, day or night. In theory they can spy on anyone in any public place.
In Baltimore, the city routinely used video surveillance of public areas --particularly places known to be open air drug markets. The courts upheld the convictions of those caught on tape dealing in drugs.
My question to those who object to UAV surveillance: What do you think these things do that hasn't already been done? The courts have upheld the use of all these technologies. Does the placement on an unmanned aerial vehicle make any difference?
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I am afraid.
Not of the terrorists, and not of teh evil Bush!!!1!
I'm afraid of the people that think like this, and those that would mod such crap insightful.
So is there an open source drone platform being developed? I'm sure it would be good fun to watch the police.. Surely they cannot object. How about those secret retreats the rich and powerful go to?
"In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered."
George Orwell, 1984, Ch. 1
Anti-abortion activists and other right wing extremist groups have proven they are much more prone to "blow-up-my-own-country" type activities than any other group. See Eric Rudolph and Tim McVeigh.
Aren't you glad that they are finally thinking of the children.
SRR
Gotta keep those Left Coast perverts away from those box turtles. They might start marrying those box turtles.
Well now at least they won't be dependent on private citizens to film police beating people on the street. Cutting out the middleman, that's innovation! Cynics might suggest that a logical next step would be that they will arm these benign drones, but not me.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
Wouldn't it be much more pessimistic to assume that you pessimists are part of the problem?
I don't think you're living up to your ideals.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
So when do they arm it with Hellfire missles?
Perhaps they should just buy a few Predators and get on with it?
Initially it'll be used for basic public safety measures. But over time the cops will dream up new uses, like watching drug transactions, or people, etc.
Just take an old microwave oven, extract magnetron and waveguide, fashion a nice little parabola to focus the signal and take aim.
About 5 years ago I was pulled over on suspicion of speeding. However the sheriff had not tailed me sufficiently or radar gunned me so he had no proof. He instead called the California Highway Patrol to do a sobriety test on me. I blew a 0.0%. After they left the sheriff asked if he could search my car. I said "No", he then proceeded to search my car and of course found nothing. After he was done I asked if he was really allowed to search my car after I said "No" and he said the law only requires that they ask and it didn't actually matter what my response was. Times like that I wish I had a little video camera installed in my car. I've had 3-4 incidents of similar abuse by the law, of course, since I'm actually a law-abiding citizen and not the criminal they always think I am, I've never been busted for anything.
Put on your sunglasses people :-/
Sig sig go away come back another day
T.U.G.
So they are seeking to hire people rigorously trained to watch couples having sex?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
It figures.
By the time I'm old enough to pilot Blue Thunder, they've outsourced the job to f'ing drones.
This slashbot is lacking a humor circut and you call that "insightful"? How about -1, fucking obvious?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
...oh wait, nevermind.
Libertas in infinitum
Depending on the altitude these things go at, I wonder how many of them will be shot down by citizens? I am a concerned citizen of Skylar Durden's Ivy Nation against Ann Coulter's Adam's Apple.
And they could even be armed with Hellfire missiles to stop those runaway cars in wild police chases we see on TV all the time.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Just don't fly over Compton, else somebody's gonna bust a cap on the drone's ass!
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
If it looks like a bird, won't hawks and the like try to eat it? I'm not sure that making the UAV mimic birds is "benign" for the raptors.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Touche. :)
until a mole inside CTU, using a stolen security access card, takes control of these drones and turns them against us!
Here is a picture of one http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/05/12/ufo/
"in some countries, the Constitution says that each private citizen can do anything not explicitly forbidden by law; and that the government can only do what the law prescribes."
There is only one kind of government, and it's democracy. Evil empires and dictatorships (and even the Third Reich) are sustained by a majority of the people wanting to collaborate and spy on their neighbours and be silent about government's errors and terrors and that's it. See Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, URSS, etc, etc, etc (I should write present-day-USofA, but people would mod me flamebait... oops, I did it)
Yeah, but someone has to point -- and keep trained on -- the damn thing to YOU. That someone is a wrongdoer and should be but in jail -- much more than the sympathetic old lady that used to sell pot in college.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I for one welcome our new drone overlords!
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
I'd hate to be on the 747 that happens to run into one of these. It could ruin your whole day! I wonder what the FAA rules are for these things.
Ok, I have to chime in on this one. Aren't there enough bullets flying in the air? I mean, come on. Fly one of these things anywhere and it WILL get shot down (depending on the neighborhood of course). Hey, here's a better freak'n idea; use these drones to watch the stink'n southern boarder!
This is just a media hoax to hype the upcoming major motion picture "A Scanner Darkly".
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Heh.
And here I've been agonizing over the obvious riposte, "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist".
I had no good counter to that one, so I guess I should be glad you really are left-handed.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"Commander Sieg Heil, head of the Technology Exploration Project of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department"
Sounds like a great plot for a movie..or a game! lets call it "Half Life 2"! oh, wait...nevermind.
will be miniaturized robotic spiders for ground assistance in drone aerial operations, able to perfom warrant searchs in difficult locations. Maybe even identify suspects through retina scanning and race profiling.
What a great idea for a movie! we could call it "Minority Report"! oh, wait..nevermind.
Doh! Missed a perfect opportunity. Oh well.
On a brighter note, that post up there got me my first Flamebait in quite a while. 'Bout time, I was starting to worry...