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Weaponizable Police UAV Now Operational In Texas
crackspackle writes "The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in suburban Houston, Texas is preparing to launch operations with a newly received Shadowhawk MK-III unmanned aerial vehicle, paid for by grant money received by the Department of Homeland Security. The MK-III is a product marketed for both military and law enforcement applications. Michael Buscher, chief executive officer of manufacturer Vanguard Defense Industries, said this is the first local law enforcement agency to buy one of his units. 'The aircraft has the capability to have a number of different systems on board. Mostly, for law enforcement, we focus on what we call less lethal systems,' he said, including Tazers that can send a jolt to a criminal on the ground or a gun that fires bean bags known as a 'stun baton.' 'You have a stun baton where you can actually engage somebody at altitude with the aircraft. A stun baton would essentially disable a suspect,' he said. The MK-III also has more lethal options available, capable of carrying either a 40mm or 37mm grenade launcher or 12 gauge shotgun with laser designator."
This reminds me of robocop. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY. The smaller the minds the bigger the government.
You have a state that doesn't seem to mind executing people that might be innocent and where there's little concern for courts convicting innocent people in general.
Yeah, those are the people that I'd want to be operating armed drones over my house. Thankfully, I live way away from, Texas, but this ought to scare the crap out of anybody who lives there. Precisely what happens when this thing hits somebody that isn't the intended target? Or how about collateral damage? I don't think that police forces typically arm themselves with grenade launchers in the US>
The MK-III also has more lethal options available, capable of carrying either a 40mm or 37mm grenade launcher or 12 gauge shotgun with laser designator."
What the hell does law enforcement need a 37mm/40mm grenade launcher attached to a remote-controlled UAV for? Whatever, moving on.
Between the political disarray of congress, the chain of administrations that spend exorbitant amounts of money on things the people don't really need, the majority of police officers who are little more than petty thugs/tools, TSA groping children in airports and performing unwarranted, "random" searches on the street, media hype/sensationalism which constantly keeps the dumb majority of the public distracted, the incredibly skewed distribution of wealth, and an overall government with a cracked model of democracy that has it's hands in way too many cookie jars, I can't say I want to live in this country any longer. It's turning into a police state, and people should not have to fear the peace keepers, law makers, or individuals which hold powerful, public offices.
All in all, everything happening now is a perfect recipe for chaos, and I doubt anybody will realize it until it's too late.
P.S. I like the police. They keep the peace, and living in a large city, I am grateful for that. But the majority of police officers do not deserve the title - they are frequently loose cannons, act only on instinct or emotion, pick/choose what laws they enforce when they want to enforce them, and frequently ignore laws / people's rights just to further their own agenda, career, or case. I'm friends with a few cops (detectives, actually), and some of them are good guys who I can personally say have never violated anybody's rights, but, unfortunately, they are few and far between. I'd be fairly surprised if the "good cops" make up more than 20% of the force at any given precinct across the country.
P.S.S. "Chaos. Good news."
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Really is amazing to watch just how far and wide the military/state is invading citizens lives.
I know there is a happy medium between no security and full blown police state, but I'm sure we passed that line and we're accelerating towards the latter. I also know that _every_ great nation has fallen. Maybe they don't totally die, get conquered, etc, but they certainly become shadows of their former selves. Are we on the slide down now? Are we past our prime? Can we recover? I understand that anything is possible, but does it look likely or even plausible given our political climate in the US? What would it take to make things "right" again (yes, I know there are multiple views of what this means)?
Am I just rambling and making no sense after just waking up on a Saturday?
The story isn't the drone. The story should be that the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Conroe, TX just paid $300,000 for a R/C helicopter from a company that just happens to be in Conroe, TX, with a business website has only been in operating for a year.
Police giving $300,000 to new local company for a toy? Why do I feel like this was a scam, that someone in the police force just made $250,000+?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
"Weaponizable" just means that you can add a weapon, not that the vehicle has one. Police departments already have plenty of "weaponizable" things, you can add rocket launchers to patrol cars or give a nuclear bomb to a patrol officer. (Yes, that's right, a patrol officer can destroy an entire city! You heard it here first!)
FWIW, the police department has described uses that don't use weapons (various recon/patrol functions), while the CEO of the business pumped the weaponization capabilities. Could a future police department have a fleet of armed UAVs? Absolutely. But that hasn't happened yet.
This is not designed for regular policing, and would have little if any use in day to day operations. Helicopters are used for large sporting events to coordinate resources on the ground with the aerial view giving a big picture. But TFA does not even try to use this justification. The words used are 'hunting criminals', and ` SWAT team officers are facing an active shooter`
I've never been to the states so I do not know how frequent these events are, but imagine not frequent enough to justify this type of acquisition.
So where could a tool like this become useful?
The first major deployment of aircraft for population control was the Indian subcontinent. Around 1915-1922ish, aircraft were deployed and used to quell urban unrest. With relatively few servicemen able to command vast areas. The subcontinent included India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
More recently, the UAV has been used to spy-on and assassinate potential adversaries in the middle east, covering vast areas and again utilizing minimal personnel. Assassination seems to be preferred over capture and rendition as captives eventually talk.
Is the US expecting large-scale social unrest?
If the answer is yes, it seems the government have chosen their defense strategy. If not, well, once police forces acquire a tool they tend to use them, and don't like to give them back. Both scenarios are worrying.
As an outsider looking in, I see the US as going through a metamorphosis similar to that of Germany in the 1920s. The TSA could be compared to the early days of the Sturmabteilung (SA, or stormtroopers.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
I hope I am wrong.
The best thing to keep the crowd down is divide and conquer and of course good surveillance and a quick response force. But surveillance is of greatest importance. It is required for the divide and conquer strategy and it is important for the quick response force. So to achieve the required basics for a totalitarian system you need such stuff.
On the other hand. Democracy works best with out suppression and a homogeneous economic situation for the people, meaning the poor and the rich are not that far apart.
However, in modern western societies, we decided that it is not a problem that the poorer get poorer and that there are more poor people every day, so democracy is no longer working. In a democracy the rich could not get away with so much money. This has nothing to do with jealousy. I do not need my own yacht or villa. Actually I am quite comfortable. The problem is that there are so many people who are not "quite comfortable". They suffer. And they are angry. Right now they are not organized and they are not able to fight for themselves. As this might chance, the state (as in the control structure) has to ensure the safety of those who are "quite comfortable" or above.
In a state (as in the organization of the people for common interests) would obviously address the issue and get the money from the rich for all those necessities of life. Healthcare, pensions, streets, schools, universities, unemployment insurance/guaranteed minimal income, and safety (as in safety for all) etc. BTW a good guaranteed minimal reduces violence and increases safety.
I know you're joking, but as a Texan I must point out that we'd never bypass the justice system unless the video from the drone showed with a high degree of probability that the suspect appeared to be mentally retarded.
A weaponizable unmanned flying object is definitely a geek thing. To discuss such stuff is also a geek thing. And it has always been a geek thing to play with models of other people. Regardless the type of model, e.g., helicopter or business plan or world theory or the downfall of a society. And by the way slashdot is not only for News for Nerds, it is also for Stuff that Matter.
And no it is not a regular news site. It is a news aggregator and discussion forum.
"In my neighborhood"
So you're well off and Caucasian? Must be, cause trust me they enjoy fucking with the rest of us.....
but the cops don't hassle me or steal or rob in my neighborhood.
As someone who was recently beaten up by a cop in a relatively wealthy suburb and then falsely charged with enough stuff to put me in prison (the real America) for a couple of years if the jury believes his lies, it is hard for me to sympathize. American cops are evil thugs. Period. I have lived in a number of third world countries and none of them had cops like we have. In most third world countries 'corrupt' means asking for and accepting small bribes. In the US it means sadistically beating innocent people for the fun of it and then trying their best to put them in prison for getting beat up (cover charges). And there is no oversight. The police police themselves here.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Actually, not at all, there was a time in my life before I was a college graduate that I lived in a very poor part of town and drove a crappy older vehicle and I've never been pulled over so many times in such a short period of time for the most bullshit reasons. "Your tail light is dim", "Your taillight has a crack in it", etc (tail lights were fine...btw), they just wanted to pull me over because I was there. Oh, and btw, I'm Caucasian anonymous griefer, wanna try again?
Racism implies an erroneous stereotype; its no secret that law enforcement tend to single out the lower class and minorities, simply because the police themselves observe stereotypes of their own (i.e. if you don't have a lot of money, you're more likely to steal). A lot of police use these stereotypes as justification to bend the law, as long as they think they're sticking to the spirit of it.
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
A Vietnamese friend of mine was 24 years old, with a great job at a luxury brand car import company, and he drove a very sleek mercedes. After he sold it, he stuck with less visible cars because he couldn't drive anywhere without being pulled over at least once, in that mercedes :) (24 year old vietnamese guy, dressed in very current fashion, sunglasses, driving a new mercedes with tinted glass windows - even I thought he looked like a pimp or a drugsdealer and I'm not even a cop :))
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)