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More Drones Set To Use US Air Space

Posted by Unknown on from the pakistan-can't-have-all-the-fun dept.

Dupple writes with a quote from the BBC about more testing of Predator drones in U.S. air space: "Tests have been carried out to see whether military drones can mix safely in the air with passenger planes. The tests involved a Predator B drone fitted with radio location systems found on domestic aircraft that help them spot and avoid other planes. The tests will help to pave the way for greater use of drones in America's domestic airspace."

9 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Who do I have to salute? by paiute · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Say farewell forever to even the concept of posse comitatus, limited as it was. Now it is just a Latin phrase you never heard of.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:Who do I have to salute? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Say farewell forever to even the concept of posse comitatus, limited as it was. Now it is just a Latin phrase you never heard of.

      Oh, don't you worry your pretty little head about that. The military won't technically do any law enforcement(though it may prove necessary to engage in certain 'domestic Force Protection' activities in order to safeguard DoD assets and personel...), they'll just fire-sale off military hardware under the Law Enforcement Support Office(unless you trust DoD certs, you'll probably get an SSL warning here) program to various police SWAT teams who will then use it for them.

      See, absolutely nothing to worry about. Yes, the police may be logistically indistinguishable from your average upper-developing-world mechanized infantry; but the org chart says they aren't military, so it's all good.

    2. Re:Who do I have to salute? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not so fast!

      Until the "drug war", they didn't much carry automatic weapons, either, at least since the '20s. Now they do.

      The increasing militarization of local police forces is not something to be ignored.

  2. Re:hate my country by capnkr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your country is not the one putting this forth. The current set of "leaders" is. Vote them out next Tuesday.

    2008 called, they want their optimism back

    Then they too should vote for someone other than the person/group they voted into office back in '08. Because in the past 4 years, we've seen privacy and rights and wealth dwindle to a fraction of what they were prior...

    --
    "...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
  3. Pilots Soon To Go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Make no mistake. As soon as the body of safety data gets large enough we will see the elimination of pilots on commercial air craft. Once it is established that the bots drones are safer than human pilots another trade will vanish. Commercial trucking is on the edge of eliminating human drivers already. The safty record looks good and computized drivers do not break rules, speed, or go mental from the boredom.
                        The purpose of technology has always been to eliminate human labor. The catch is that we have no social structure at hand to take care of the many millions being displaced by job losses due to better technologies.

  4. What, no "skynet" tag? by oracleofbargth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I the only person who is surprised that this story hasn't been tagged with "skynet"?

  5. Re:Pew pew by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do people freak out if we send unmanned drones up to surveil things, but if you stick a guy in the plane suddenly it's OK?

    Most of the protection of your privacy is economic, rather than legal or technological. A guy in a plane or a helicopter is Not Cheap, per hour, which creates a sort of 'de facto probable cause' requirement, since the cops can only justify sending one up if they think that they'll find something worth finding.

    Drones are cheaper(still pretty expensive now, getting less so), which means that the economic disincentives to surveillance fall and people enjoy less actual protection from surveillance(since the strict legal protections are markedly lower than the historical economic ones).

  6. Re:hate my country by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're assuming, incorrectly, that the power of elected officials to avoid being treated like everyone else disappears once they leave office. For proof to the contrary, I give you war criminal Dick Cheney.

    Specifically, Cheney proudly said on national television that he ordered waterboarding of prisoners, which the US declared to be a crime against humanity in 1945.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  7. Re:Speaking of local enforcement drones.... by srbell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm also a pilot. Yes, sport and rec pilots may not have a lot of time (at least not those with new certificates) but they do have "skin" in it, unlike the drone pilots. A drone pilot probably isnt faced with injury or death if he crashes.