Slashdot Mirror
Domestic Surveillance Drones On the Rise
Toe, The writes "Predator drones have now racked up over 10,000 hours of airtime in the U.S., largely for immigration enforcement. Homeland Security reports that drone operations lead to the apprehension of 4,865 undocumented immigrants and 238 drug smugglers in the past six years. Compare that to 327,577 illegal migrants caught at the southwest border in fiscal 2011. The only limits on their surveillance are FAA regulations keeping them away from crowded urban areas, and this is for safety reasons, not privacy. While the drones cannot see through windows, they certainly see a lot of what goes on in the (former) privacy of peoples' yards. The article cites Michael Kostelnik from the Office of Air and Marine for the Border Protection service saying he's never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of domestic drones. 'Instead the question is: Why can't we have more of them in my district?'"
It actually makes a lot more sense to produce drugs locally, except we could also legalize it and completely eliminate the violent crime aspect.
I'm guessing I'm a few years older than you, because the thought that's been occurring to me lately is that our nation does pretty much every single thing that was used as an argument as to why the Soviet Union was evil:
- Political and economic based prison systems.
- Torture.
- Wars of aggression.
- Spying on our own people.
- Freedoms stripped away unless you were already in an established position of power.
- Propaganda media.
- Secrets, secrets, secrets.
- Censorship.
- Not taking care of the needs of the people while an elite class skims everything worth skimming.
- Diminishing rights over time.
The list goes and on....
Check your premises.
yeah -but they will have paid for themselves when they become armed and are used to put down pro-democracy, erm terrorist protests that rent-a-cops are too squeamish or outnumbered to do in order to save the corporate republic...with liberty and justice for some...corporations
-I'm just sayin'
Didn't ANYBODY but me notice this? That the drones are apparently hangared -- and more importantly flown from -- a naval base?
The military has absolutely no place being involved in any kind of domestic surveillance at all. This is by far the MOST worrisome aspect of the whole thing! Yet nobody else yet has even mentioned it.
Slashdot, what has happened to you?
Many of them did.
Many of them lost the majority of their income and power (at least until they could expand into drug distribution).
And a very few of them realized that they could still profit by playing inside the law and dropped their other criminal activities.
In any case it dramatically reduced their power and influence.