More Drones Set To Use US Air Space

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."

Comments

Who do I have to salute?

[paiute]

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.

Re:Who do I have to salute?

[Anonymous Coward]

The lawyers will make sure this has no more appearance of domestic military action than the AR-15 in the trunk of your local squad car.

The persistent surveillance concerns are as much a concern with camera towers and balloons as powered vehicles. Most people don't seem to mind the Wal-Mart Panopticon despite its much greater persistence than a lithium polymer powered flying machine.

Abuse potential:
-Weaponized drones getting hacked or abused by corrupt/human cops(jealous husband).
-Fishing expeditions under vague/broad mission profiles such as "missing child search" leading to search warrants.
-Low-cost enabling more aggressive swarm behavior ala Half-Life 2.
-encrypted/obscurificated video surveillance without a warrant(any application which requires covert video should be based on execution of a warrant). Transparency to consumer wireless video standards greatly reduces abuse potential in a similar way to police scanners.

Bottom line, the general public takes no issue with drones used for first responder & public safety applications. They take issue with surveillance, investigation, and man-hunts.

The first 2 are resolved by making drone video/picture evidence inadmissible in court. Man-hunts are greatly solved by technological limitations(ATM), and prohibiting the use of weapons.

Bottom line, so long as the Supreme Court's don't make any dumb decisions involving the fourth amendment, most fruit from the poison tree will be useless in court. This means we primarily need to resist attempts to make progress down the slippery slope of search without a warrant, and paramilitary police tactics.

Drones were predicted by Orson Wells because they are the inevitable march of technological progress. Drones offer the potential for less violent resolution to conflict which we should all hope would reduce the need for heavy handed tactics. Many cases of police brutality result from an officer's fear for their personal safety. The ability to determine the nature of a threat without infringing on civil liberties will prevent them from assuming the worst case scenerio and over-reacting because of what might-have been.

Re:Who do I have to salute?

[fustakrakich]

Posse comitatus does not prohibit the use of the military against civilians. It only states that congress must authorize it, meaning the local sheriff, mayor, or governor can't call in federal troops. Only congress and the president can do that. So it's still wide open.

Re:Who do I have to salute?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:Who do I have to salute?

[Jane Q. Public]

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.

This will be important...

[RobinH]

Eventually other countries will have drone capability, and will be flying them over US soil. It's important that we develop the technology to do it safely. ;)

Re:hate my country

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:hate my country

[capnkr]

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...

Domestic Drones w/ ADS-B transponders = trackable

[kbonin]

If domestic drones will be allowed in domestic civilian airspace as long as they carry active ADS-B transponders, then there are a number of receiver+software packages that would enable them to be tracked by anyone with some tech skills.

Google "ADS-B receiver", one example: http://www.scannermaster.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=28-661518

Pilots Soon To Go

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Drone Pro/Con

[Ukab the Great]

Pro: A drone could deliver you a pizza from your favorite joint across town during rush hour in five minutes.
Con: It could also deliver hellfire missiles if you don't tip the operator.

What, no "skynet" tag?

[oracleofbargth]

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

Re:Pew pew

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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).

Re:Domestic Drones w/ ADS-B transponders = trackab

[duinsel]

No need for skillz, there are websites [flightradar24.com] that track stuff for you. (At least their coverage for non-US flights is ADS-B based, real time, and collected from private contributing scanners AFAIK, US flights go through FAA)

Re:hate my country

[dkleinsc]

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.

Re:Speaking of local enforcement drones....

[srbell]

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.