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North Dakota Legalizes "Less Than Lethal" Weapon-Equipped Police Drones

Posted by timothy on from the brought-to-you-from-nellis-air-force-base dept.

According to the Daily Beast, writes reader schwit1, North Dakota police will be free to fire 'less than lethal' weapons from the air thanks to the influence of a pro-police lobbyist. That means beanbags, tear-gas, and Tasers, at the very least, can be brought to bear by remote. It's worth noting that "non-lethal" isn't purely true, even if that's the intent behind such technologies. From the article, based partly on FOIA requests made by MuckRock into drone use by government agencies: The bill’s stated intent was to require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge in order to use a drone to search for criminal evidence. In fact, the original draft of Representative Rick Becker’s bill would have banned all weapons on police drones. Then Bruce Burkett of the North Dakota Peace Officer’s Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. “Less than lethal” weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones.

8 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Begun by DumbSwede · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Drone Wars Have

    --
    Letter To Iran
  2. And so it begins by captnjohnny1618 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't fathom how they think this makes sense, or that there won't be pushback. Welcome to the police state.

    Can I shoot at your "non-lethal" drone with my non-lethal weapons?

    1. Re:And so it begins by Dins · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't fathom how they think this makes sense, or that there won't be pushback.

      There should be pushback. But there won't be pushback.

    2. Re:And so it begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not hard to sneak this through in one of the lowest populated states with a part-time legislature that meets only every other year. By the time that any push-back occurs it will be middle of 2017 and other states will have by then adopted it also using ND as a viable precedent.
      The original (pre-oil-boom) residents of the state were quite libertarian in action as well as generally just live and let-live. The politicians recently have been using the huge influx of southern-state oil workers as excuses to quadruple the sizes of jails and police forces while harassing the local taxpayers.
      Meanwhile at the same time the oil-industry buys and pays for all the politicians and anything they need accomplished
        (nothing spilled here, nothing to see here, move along please -oh look over there at the bad meth lab and prostitutes [their employees] woe is us, we need more police+money)

    3. Re:And so it begins by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, seeing as shooting a police canine can result in a hefty felony, I'm guessing shooting their drone buddy will be about the same. They'll write the law to make it as if you were shooting at the operator him/herself.

  3. Dropping or firing an object from a plane... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    FAA says no... firing an object from the air intentionally is illegal... maybe tasers could be allowed since the wire stays attached to the drone, but even then I suspect it'd need to be able to retract them... but bean bags are out.

  4. Re:So... by flink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that these devices will further alienate the police from the communities that they are ostensibly supposed to be serving. It's already a problem that there are hardly any cops that walk a beat anymore. Instead they are in their patrol cars the whole time and only get out when something is going down. This means that cops are no longer interacting with members of a community. No one has any positive interactions with police as the only time they interact with an officer is when he is hassling or arresting someone.

    If police drones, especially armed ones, become commonplace, my fear is that it will only deepen the police/civilian divide. It will be only a matter of time before we hear about kids getting tasered for "walking while black".

  5. Re:Everyone has right to self defense by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, when founding fathers discussed reason for 2nd amendment personal defense was not the concern, but rather "Tyranny at home, enemies from abroad". The implicit right of The People to violent revolution against an evil government was the principal intent. Mark it down, a good American politician will agree with that, an evil police state thug will not. Guess what 98% of federal level politicians are?