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Secret Service Investigating Small Drone On White House Grounds
An anonymous reader sends word that the Secret Service is investigating a "device," described as a small drone, found on the grounds of the White House. "A small drone was found on the White House grounds overnight, two law enforcement sources told ABC News, but White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the situation 'does not pose any sort of ongoing threat.' The Secret Service is investigating the device, Earnest said. Police, fire and other emergency vehicles swarmed around the White House in the pre-dawn hours, with several clustered near the southeast entrance to the mansion. The White House was dark and the entire perimeter was on lockdown until around 5 a.m., when pass holders who work in the complex were allowed inside."
Given the quality of the drone toys you can buy in pretty much any electronics store these days, the only thing that surprises me is that this sort of thing has not happened much earlier. And I don't even mean actual attacks that cause harm: that no-one has flown a regular autonomous cam drone over the White House lawn yet during a press conference, with "Allahu akbar" written on it with a sharpie, in spidery teenage handwriting, is actually fairly surprising. And the message wouldn't even have to be Muslim: something like "Death to Goldman Sachs" would probably be more in the spirit of the Occupy crowd, who probably feel fairly betrayed by Obama. And who would be more likely to do something non-destructive (but noticeable) like this in the first place.
That's (among the) downsides of our obsession with risk-minimization, overwhelming force, and technological supremacy. Whether it's using $40k hellfires to destroy rust-eaten technicals in hellholistan or calling out the bomb squad every time somebody tosses a paper airplane over the white house fence, we really need to maintain that economic superiority if we want to survive the sheer attrition.
There is only question now. Which federal agency will respond first with: "We can't guarantee your safety without a budget increase of N billion USD."
They also found some very high tech surveillance drones made from some high tech composites made to look like common folded notebook paper. It seems that these high tech spy planes also use a printed circuitry that looks like words on the surface.
The secret service is still researching these severe breaches of security. While they let a crazy guy run across the lawn and enter the white house in broad day light.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
explosives?
chemicals my friend
wouldn't take much of the right kind. nice aerosolizer already provided by the craft
biologic if you're exotic
nuclear just plain stupider
but for maximum shits and giggles and no loss of life, i'd load a degaussing coil on a drone and fly it through a target office. do a little tap over all the workstations to get the hard drives
oh shit, am i on some list now?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Exactly my thought. Until they show it's a 'serious' drone, this is most likely some college prank or some idiot that thought it would be funny to see what happens. _Maybe_ it's someone trying to see if they can detect/find something like that, but most likely it's just someone who is going to find out it's very expensive to make the Secret Service run around early in the morning.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
A new executive Bureau of Drones, Quadcopters, and Very Large Kites will be created to require federal drone licenses for everything that flies. Because interstate commerce.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Between stories like this one, 'peeping Toms' and people flying them into aircraft flight paths you can bet that drones are rapidly moving to the top of the list of things for the governments to ban...
Or to put it another way, this is why we can't have nice things.
Perhaps a curious professional decided to sound out the White House defense perimeter, and ran afoul of the top secret drone death ray. If you're planning to fly a drone near or into a site as well guarded as the White House for some specific purpose, this is exactly what you'd do: try with an inexpensive and harmless drone first, masquerading as a hobbyist.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...