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64 Drone Bases Located On American Soil
MikeatWired writes "We like to think of the drone war as something far away, fought in the deserts of Yemen or the mountains of Afghanistan. But we now know it's closer than we thought, writes Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai at Danger Room. There are 64 drone bases on American soil. That includes 12 locations housing Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed. Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates for free access to information, released a map of military UAV activities in the United States on Tuesday. Assembled from military sources — especially this little-known June 2011 Air Force presentation (.pdf) — it is arguably the most comprehensive map so far of the spread of the Pentagon's unmanned fleet. What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear. Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots."
The Third Amendment prohibits quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime. WTF are you on about? This is military equipment being stored on military bases, and being used for training and readiness operations like every other piece of military hardware on every other military base spread all throughout the United States. There are *thousands* of bases in the US for all five branches of the military (if you count the Coast Guard and separate out the Marines) in the US. I've personally served on half a dozen of them. These bases have existed from the founding of the country. Where else are you going to quarter soldiers other than bases, since we've obviously (and correctly) prevented them from being quartered in private homes?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Make all the jokes you want, but a drone was confused as a UFO just yesterday in D.C. I expect the number of UFO "sightings" to skyrocket.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/18785637/beltway-ufo-said-to-be-military-drone-aircraft?clienttype=printable
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
1. Keep in mind that the UAV operators are lower ranking people, usually E-2 to E-5, that really just want to go home and drink or play WoW. We usually pick some random car, read the license plate, then test the auto-follow feature for a few minutes, then test it again. It is really anti-climactic. Training flights are the worst, 16 hours of nothing happening gets old really quick.
2. The information is basically stored until the drives are full. Nobody really pays attention to it until the maintainers (former me) come along and format the drive. Yes, I will admit that UAV's have caught the occasional nude sunbather in the backyard and such. Since I was in Georgia, it was not nearly as common as some other areas. So I cannot speak to the efficacy of peeping-tom drones in the San Diego area.
3. I'm sure the CIA, FBI, or local police could get the information, but first they would have to know the drone was even up there. Flight schedules for military aircraft are considered secret and are not published on a bulletin board or anything. UAV flight schedules are kept decently secure, because of their sensitive equipment. If they call the military asking if there were any drones in the air, they are really grasping at straws. Second, with a camera range of 30+ miles, there's a lot of area to cover. Third, during my 3 years at one of these "drone" bases, we never heard anything from any law enforcement or spy agency.
sudo make me a sandwich
Strictly speaking, the Continental Army was ordered to disband in 1783 by Congress and never was actually a US force under the Constitution.
That said, the example you are probably looking for is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_American_Regiment
The First American Regiment, later called the the 1st Infantry Regiment, now called the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), was founded in 1784 and obviously lasted through the Confederation and then the United States under the Constitution.
Still it must be pointed out that even though we always had at least some standing Federal force, it is historical that there was great distrust of standing armies at the time of the founding of the US, and that same distrust has had an effect on all sorts of decisions, from heavy use of the National Guard, to the fact that we refused to use naval ranks like Admiral or army ranks above Major General. (Even today, Major General is the highest permanent rank in the US Army, three and four star ranks are only granted while in positions requiring them. Unless you retire in such a position, you revert to your two star rank for retirement purposes.)
That said, the example you are probably looking for is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_American_Regiment
U.S. Congress 1784: "standing armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican government, dangerous to the liberties of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."
U.S. Congress 2012: authorizes indefinite military detention, authorizes war with Iran (a nation that poses no threat to the U.S. and hasn't attacked another in over 200 years), and legalizes domestic use of military propaganda.
How times change.