BS: Drones Over America

Subject: RE: BS: Lawlessness in Government
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 02:16 PM

Read the article AND the accompanying comments, from today's news!

GfS

Subject: BS: Lawlessness in Government
From: Songwronger
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:53 PM

Excellent clip. About 7 minutes long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0aVD79mcwE

Should our leaders be allowed to ignore laws? To rule lawlessly?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 01:28 PM

Like everything songwronger posts, nonsense as well as being misplaced.

Read the EPA guidelines, "Human Subjects of Research (the "Common Rule")

http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/guidence/cr-require.htm
(or simply google above title)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Apr 14 - 12:18 AM

I wanted to post to the EPA thread. Why was it put here?

Subject: BS: EPA, NIH - WTF?
From: Songwronger
Date: 02 Apr 14 - 10:26 PM

EPA tested deadly pollutants on humans

The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting dangerous experiments on humans over the past few years in order to justify more onerous clean air regulations.

The agency conducted tests on people with health issues and the elderly, exposing them to high levels of potentially lethal pollutants, without disclosing the risks of cancer and death, according to a newly released government report.

These experiments exposed people, including those with asthma and heart problems, to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel fumes, reads a EPA inspector general report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The EPA also exposed people with health issues to levels of pollutants up to 50 times greater than the agency says is safe for humans.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/02/report-epa-tested-deadly-pollutants-on-humans-to-push-obama-admins-agenda/#!


US Licensing LIVE Rabies Based EBOLA Vaccine

Just in time for the most recent outbreak of Ebola in Africa...the National Institute for Health is licensing a Rabies based Ebola vaccine produced by Exxell Bio....

Basically, what they have done here is taken the Rabies virus and altered its exterior coating to contain Ebola proteins....

These efforts seem to tie in with recent government contracts to increase capacities at CDC Quarantine Stations located throughout the country....

http://aftertheshift.blogspot.com/2014/03/us-licensing-live-rabies-based-ebola.html

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 07:07 PM

DTM, The USAF bases in UK are busy (part of the NATO Alliance).

Some posts below the belt in mudcat could be on a DHS watch list.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 14 - 12:31 PM

For every drone that strikes an innocent civilian in the Mid-East there are many rebels to react and Al Quaeda recruits a new member. Once the drones become indiscriminate weaponry, targeting anyone within their range, guilty and innocent alike, the idea that drones will stop terrorism by becoming tools for terrorism is ludicrous.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 08:09 PM

There have been many UFO sightings over Bonnybridge, Scotland ... I'm at a loss to think what these 'drones' are hoping to find there.

Another section of the Antonine Wall, perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 08:04 PM

Any luck, Q, they'll get you due to "operator error".

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 07:37 PM

There have been many UFO sightings over Bonnybridge, Scotland (apparently). Whether they be from Washington, Moscow or Mars, I'm at a loss to think what these 'drones' are hoping to find there.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 07:08 PM

Again, I say-

Good hunting!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 05:27 PM

Or can you attempt to take preventive measures?

When they are five to ten thousand miles from American soil? And are "plotting" and haven't done anything substantive>

You can just "take 'em out"? I don't think so, Don.

Of course Al Qaida & others can also say - with some justification - that they are only "taking preventative action" against the U.S. "War on Islam" or the "War on X-what-have-you".

Blind and toothless comes to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 04:46 PM

Take the case of the Boston Marathon bombers.

If the authorities have advance knowledge of what these two (presumably only two) guys are up to and at the point where, say, they are carrying the explosive laden pressure cookers to the site—do you have to wait until they actually blow one or both of them up and kill a lot of people before taking whatever action is necessary to prevent them?

Or can you attempt to take preventive measures?

The ethics seem pretty clear to me.

If you can prevent someone from killing a lot of people and do not take action to stop them, you are as morally guilty of mass murder as they are.

If the government becomes aware of a mass murder plot and does not take measures to stop it, some people—often the very same people who protest government action—would blame the government for NOT stopping the plot in its tracks.

Let's get real, folks!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 03:55 PM

So, Q, if assassination is an acceptable option for the U.S., why is it unacceptable when employed by so-called "terrorists"?

And if people "who plot" are legitimate targets, its OK to abandon due process and the rule of law to assasinate them before they do anything?
Can we assasinate them because they are THINKING about planning to do something?

And again, please show me a declaration of war passed by Congress.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 03:46 PM

"Americans" overseas who plot strikes against Americans are legitimate targets, along with Al Queda and other terrorists.

Strikes against an American warship and base, plus the devastating destruction of life on 9/11, are reason enough for the U. S. to declare war on terrorists wherever they may be found.

Now that satellite technology has developed to the point that objects as small as bears may be identified and counted (satellite counts being used to determine polar bear populations and numbers), and drones are capable of delivering missiles based on these observations, the war, for it is that, can progress as terrorists are found and identified.

Good hunting!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Mar 14 - 02:51 PM

Because it merits repeating, I'm quoting something that I posted up-thread a ways.

". . . drones, per se, are not immoral. Several highly beneficial--and life saving--uses for them have been mentioned in this thread, including finding lost people in wilderness areas, quickly checking the extent of forest fires, and a whole raft of other such uses.

In my brief (one year) tenure as a morning and evening rush hour traffic reporter on the radio, having a number of camera-bearing drones in the air during those times would have given much more accurate data on congested areas that commuters should avoid, and reveal quicker, little utilized routes.

I had to try to divine what was happening by listening to several police radios simultaneously (like reading the entrails of birds), while a couple of other radio stations in town had observers up in the air, one in a small plane, another in a helicopter. But Seattle is a big city with several large thoroughfare approaches including two large bridges and several smaller ones. So even the airborne reporters could only get a limited view.

A fleet of, say, half a dozen camera-equipped drones would have been able to show an immediate overall picture.

The tool is not the problem. How it is USED, is another matter."

I might add here that the idea of trying to shoot down what you suspect might be a drone is foolish and irresponsible. You fire a bullet or a load of shot into the air and, gravity being what it is, it's going to come down somewhere.

I had a friend some years ago who was living in a mobile home (large, stationary "trailer"). Before the days of remotes, he got out of his easy chair to change channels and heard a loud "BANG!" over head, as if someone hand hit his roof with a hammer. Wondering what the hell that was, he returned to his chair to discover a big rip in the cushion—and a hole in his metal roof! He probed the cushion and found a .44 caliber bullet!

If he hadn't got up to change the channel, it would have nailed him!

It happened to have been the Fourth of July. Someone was out celebrating by firing a gun in the air with no thought that what comes up must come down. Somewhere!!

Monumentally stupid and irresponsible!!

Don Firth

P. S. If the government wants to waste time and money spying on me, what the hell? Smile for the birdy!

Songwronger, why so tooted up? What do you have to hide?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 07:01 PM

The U. S. is at war against terrorists

When did Congress pass a declatration of war, Q?

And I suppose i your world the Constitition can be violated at will by the Dept. of Hopeless Stupidity at their whim.

And their "making their own rules" in violation of said Constitution & Bill of Rights is perfectly OK.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 04:12 PM

Whether you know it or not, The U. S. is at war against terrorists; the rules no longer apply. The Department of Homeland Security will make its own rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Stringsinger
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 12:32 PM

Ebbie, you are a civilized voice in a forest of military rationalizations, a role that women are increasingly playing and should be shouting from the rooftops in their role as part of the US Government, emphasizing why the US Constitution must contain the ERA and perhaps a Madame President.                      (thread drift but not too much).

Drones are a logical extension of a bloodthirsty and paranoid country that kills without due process in a court of law. Will the real terrorist please stand up?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Mar 14 - 10:12 AM

With 'robot' semis (transport haulers), human error, by the truck driver, would be eliminated.

And be replaced by machine error/breakdown/failure. I'll take the humans.

Any time we allow machines to take over thinking for us, disaster is just around the corner.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Mar 14 - 05:06 PM

Robot semi trucks are a likely scenario they can go 24 hours without sleep, pay or benefits.

You apparenetly are assuming that the robot semis will carry at least twice+(?) the fuel (an additional hazard) of current trucks. Five or six hours is about the limit for what's on the road now before at least a fuel stop, if the driver keeps enough reserve to allow for going around the construciton detours and rerouting around accidents and weather affected routes.

Of course on some US routes it's common to pull two (and rarely 3) trailers with a single tractor, and "robot trucks" will almost ineveitably lead to "trains" with more towed units. (The Army tested an 8-section "transport train" 50 years ago.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Mar 14 - 01:21 PM

Songwronger does have a tendency to drone on a bit. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Mar 14 - 12:38 PM

With 'robot' semis (transport haulers), human error, by the truck driver, would be eliminated.

Similar benefits would be obtained in the case of drone automobiles.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 Mar 14 - 09:45 AM

Robot semi trucks are a likely scenario they can go 24 hours without sleep, pay or benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Mar 14 - 03:18 AM

On the original subject of DRONES, it is worth noting that SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineering) has released a "glossary for terminology to be used for technology in self-controlled vehicles."

The "press release" gives little information about the content of this new document, and the price to purchase a copy (even with member discount) is out of reach for me; but an "autonomous vehicle" (automobile) is effectively a "drone," and it will soon be mixed into traffic where I drive.

While it appears that the FAA has authority to regulate the use of flying drones, via requirements for flight plans, control over flight paths and altitudes, and exclusion from "restricted airspaces, the NHTSA has no such authority to regulate where your "self-controlled auto" goes, or when, so potentially there is the prospect of "robot cars" flooding the highways, mixed in with "human driven" vehicles in which the operators are either busy with getting lost following their GPS, or occupied texting with their buddies about "what movie to download this evening." (or which bar offers the best prospects for "getting lucky" this weekend.)

It appears that many here are frightened by the prospect of aerial drones "watching them," but I find the prospect of wheeled drone "blackboxes" tracking every mile every person drives much more invasive, and traffic densities make multi-vehicle pileups when a transister lets its smoke get out is also somewhat scary.

It seems inevitable that we soon will have robot vehicles on the roads, and in my opinion this needs closer attention than flying cameras.

(My first assognment on a flying drone design, 40 years ago, was to relocate the ashtray, redisign the seat for a taller "pilot," and install a personnel oxygen system, so maybe I'm just more accustomed to what those things can - and can't - do. Little old ladies in robot autos does sort of scare me.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 12 Feb 14 - 10:19 PM

The state assassination of a US citizen foretold

...Monday's revelation that the White House is once again preparing to carry out the illegal murder of an American citizen gives an entirely new and sinister meaning to President Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes we can."

Indeed, if the government can order the state assassination of a US citizen in the name of national security, what can it not do? Concentration camps (a remedy recently justified by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia), torture, disappearances, martial law, the suspension of the Constitution—all the methods of a police state dictatorship become equally justifiable and possible.

The apparent purpose of the Obama administration's calculated leak is to blunt popular opposition to an illegal state murder by creating a phony aura of "due process," "transparency" and careful deliberation for a criminal operation that is steeped in secrecy, conspiracy and contempt for core constitutional principles....

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/12/pers-f12.html

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 09:57 PM

Obama administration considering drone killing of US citizen

A United States citizen accused of being an overseas "Al-Qaeda facilitator" could soon be killed by an American drone, the Associated Press reported on Monday, but first the US government must find a way to legally launch such a strike.

The person — whose name and suspected location were both withheld by the AP — is believed by US officials to be actively plotting attacks abroad against other Americans....

http://rt.com/usa/drone-strike-possible-citizen-401/

No trial, no presumption of innocence. You're next if you don't speak out against it.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 05 May 13 - 10:17 PM

More U.S. Colleges offering Bachelor's Degrees in Drone Piloting

An increasing number of U.S. colleges have been offering bachelor degrees in drone piloting and engineering to students, while dozens more teach courses on UAVs. Starting salaries in the field are much higher than comparative jobs, like helicopter and commercial jet piloting. RT's Anastasia Churkina reports on the trend, while controversy over drone use inside the U.S. grows.

http://www.ingeniouspress.com/2013/05/04/more-u-s-colleges-offering-bachelors-degrees-in-drone-piloting/

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 03 May 13 - 08:07 PM

THE GAME OF DRONES

At last we know. The mysterious legal authority for Barack Obama's killer drone program flows from another administration with an elastic interpretation of executive power: that of Richard Nixon.

In a chilling 16-page dossier known simply as the White Paper, one of Obama's statutory brains at the Justice Department cites the 1969 secret bombing of Cambodia as a legal rationale justifying drone strikes, deep inside nations, against which the United States is not officially at war.

This startling disclosure is drafted in the antiseptic prose of an insurance adjuster announcing the denial of a claim based on a pre-existing condition. Yet, the bombing of Cambodia (aka Operation Menu), which involved more than 3,000 air strikes, was almost universally acknowledged as a war crime. Now the Obama administration has officially enshrined that atrocity as precedent for its own killing rampages.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/03/the-game-of-drones/

Excellent piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 11:33 PM

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:35 PM

Just think about the Crusades... If the Crusaders had drones they would have needed them chastity belts...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 06:36 PM

I agree with what you're saying, Frank, but drones, per se, are not immoral. Several highly beneficial--and life saving--uses for them have been mentioned in this thread, including finding lost people in wilderness areas, quickly checking the extent of forest fires, and a whole raft of other such uses.

In my brief (one year) tenure as a morning and evening rush hour traffic reporter on the radio, having a number of camera-bearing drones in the air during those times would have given much more accurate data on congested areas that commuters should avoid, and reveal quicker, little utilized routes.

I had to try to divine what was happening by listening to several police radios simultaneously (like reading the entrails of birds), while a couple of other radio stations in town had observers up in the air, one in a small plane, another in a helicopter. But Seattle is a big city with several large thoroughfare approaches including two large bridges and several smaller ones. So even the airborne reporters could only get a limited view.

A fleet of, say, half a dozen camera-equipped drones would have been able to show an immediate overall picture.

The tool is not the problem. How it is USED, is another matter.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 11:50 AM

Is anyone concerned that the premise for ANY of this killing is a false one?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 11:25 AM

"Is anybody concerned that innocent people are being killed in Pakistan (women and children) and Yemen?"

Just as concerned as you were about people being killed in Mali.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 10:39 AM

Is anybody concerned that innocent people are being killed in Pakistan (women and children) and Yemen? It has to be understood that killing innocent people is not restricted to the U.S. and thereby includes a policy of killing innocent people in the U.S.

Drones are immoral.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,A Regular
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 10:24 AM

LOL: good one, Q.

I can recall several occasions on which having access to drone technology would have made some firefighting work much easier/safer. In a certain situation a person in a vehicle was setting fires along a 15 km stretch of highway, part of which was in town limits, and three threatened people-occupied structures. In an hour and a half we handled nine separate fire scenes with eight pieces of fire apparatus: a water tender, three engines (then called pumpers), a rescue vehicle, an aerial ladder with a small water reserve and one of two command vehicles that transported filled water backpacks (sometimes referred to as piss packs--fifty pounds of water and a hand-pumped nozzles). When we realized when the fourth call came in that we had an arsonist at work, we alerted forestry and they got a chopper up to relay fire locations to us. Gave new meaning to the term 'busy as a guy with two rattlesnakes in one hole.'

On another occasion we got real lucky stopped a prairie fire that had jumped a river and threatened to take off, and had it got away from us in those dry conditions I estimate it would have taken a dozen farms and spread unchecked driven by fairly strong winds for many kilometers. When resources are limited which they often are in those types of situations, knowing the extent and potentials of what you're dealing with is very important. The world looks different from a few miles up.

That said, drones are open to abuse by authorities and I'd like to see laws that govern their uses in place before we have a sky full of the things.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 12:41 PM

Digressing about pot patches, a little one was made near the farm we once had, surrounded by woods. Problem- the deer ate the crop before it could be harvested.

999, are you suggesting equiping a drone with knives? If an errant mate is found, the unnecessary other could order the drone to slice and dice the offender.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 07:33 AM

Knives can be used to cut people and turnips.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 09:05 PM

This is gonna be fun, Q...

Just think about the possibilities...

Jealous husband buys drone to follow wife around or vice versa and accidentally crashes drone into the mayor's house...

Barney Fife is dronin' around looking for pot patches, finds the mayor messin' with the widow lady down the road and next thing ya' know all hell breaks loose...

Billy Bob is having a BBQ for all his friends, Barney Fife flies drone over the party and Billy Bob and his buddies shoot the thing down...

I am loving this next chapter of Big Brother now that Big Brother can be yer neighbor of Barney Fife...

Bring it on!!!

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 09:02 PM

I was watching Aljazeera a while back, and a reporter fitted a camera and transmitter to one he bought. He got some good pictures of a demonstration, but then wind came up and be lost the little drone to the wild blue yonder

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 08:57 PM

I wuz thinkin', come summer (if it does), I could equip a little drone with camera and send it out looking for pretty sunbathers. And perhaps add claws that could pick up burgers from neighborhood barbecues, not have to do my own.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 08:10 PM

Well, I ain't all that impressed with Rand Paul's little filibuster other than it seemed like ol' days... He get's credit for that... Problem is that he had to invent a straw man to beat up on...

But never mind Rand's little grandstanding...

The closest half-town from us is Monroe, NC and they are buying themselves a drone... Yup, seems that they are using $44,000 of drug confiscated money to buy themselves a drone... No one really knows how to fly it but they have been assured that flying is just like riding a bike, right???

Okay, lets do a little review here about Monroe, NC... The former city manager and the mayor were spying on one another and one of their wives threatened to kill the other one's wife and here we are with someone with a bone to pick and a drone???

This is going to get a lot more fun... Yezzir... I can all but predict that this drone will be shot out of the sky and that some deputy will end up arrested...

Ya'll have at it...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 12:56 PM

Lots of nonsense posted here, but it made me wonder about my city's helicopter use.

Calgary has two. Between 2008-2012, they responded to 12,137 calls, resulting in 1840 arrests with 3895 criminal charges. There were 192 vehicle pursuits (ground pursuit not permitted because of the danger to the public).
The 'copters provide a quick response to life-threatening incidents, and support ground units with surveilance and quick response.

Good helicopters are expensive and require both a pilot and patrolman, both costly.

Drones could take some of these tasks, possibly at much less cost to the city coffers.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 11:28 PM

Well, at least I believe they should be tried. THEY don't believe people should be tried before killing them. If they were fairly tried for their crimes, they would be executed.

And I spoke prematurely on Holder's answer about drone assassinations of Americans. He said Americans can't be targeted ON AMERICAN SOIL. Which leaves open murdering them when they're off of American soil. I suppose this could include foreign embassies, "international" airports and so on.

And Obama's murder of 16-year-old al Awlaki is "legal" according to Holder, because Obama killed him in Yemen. Specifically targeted an American kid. Obama is an intentional and knowing child murderer.

I hate Obama and Holder as much as I did Bush and Cheney. I hope I live to see them all guillotined.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 10:54 PM

"They need to be fairly tried and executed."

If that is the end result, why burden yourself with a trial?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 10:50 PM

Rand Paul's filibuster is over. 13 hours. 9th longest is U.S. history. But he got an answer. Finally, the Attorney General of the U.S. told him that no, the president can't kill Americans without due process.

Holder and Obama were arguing that they could kill anyone anytime anywhere with drones. Our chief legal guy and our chief executive were claiming this power, despite the fact that our constitution points out we have the right to trial. I'm no lawyer, but the discrepancy is obvious even to me.

So anyway, Obama killed a 16-year old American with a drone. The son of Anwar al-Awlaki. So, since our Atty General now says that the president can't kill Americans with drones, that makes Obama a murderer. An official murderer, according to the words of the Atty General.

I can't believe it takes a U.S. senator stopping business for 13 hours to get a simple fucking answer to such a simple fucking question. Holder and Obama are scum. Subhuman, lying, conniving murderers. They need to be fairly tried and executed.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 10:40 AM

"I think that the first time that someone gets busted as a result of such, where there was no probable cause, that the courts will strike down any convictions and therefore set a precedence that that ain't a proper use of the drone..."

The time for that kind of law is BEFORE they are used for domestic surveillance. You're buttering the bread on two sides, Bobert. Besides, when the laws are upheld the goal post will be moved and judges who are maybe a bit more under the "I'll trade liberty for security" umbrella will rule that that's the price of a 'safe society'.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 10:41 PM

Couple of stories/links:

Attorney General Eric Holder can imagine a scenario in which it would be constitutional to carry out a drone strike against an American on American soil, he wrote in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

"It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States," Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul's question about whether Obama "has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial."

Paul condemned the idea. "The U.S. Attorney General's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans," he said in a statement.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/eric-holder-drone-strikes-against-americans-on-u.s.-soil-are-legal/article/2523319

Sen. Rand Paul has taken to the floor of the U.S. Senate and is vowing to stay there "at length" in order to filibuster John O. Brennan, President Obama's nominee to be the next CIA director.

The freshman Kentucky Republican has said he will hold up the nomination until he gets more information about the U.S. drone execution program, which has become a major sore point for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"I will speak today until the president responds and says, 'No, we won't kill Americans in cafes. No, we won't kill you at home at night,'" Mr. Paul said.

Just hours earlier, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. testified to a Senate committee that he believed it would be illegal for the government to kill an American who did not pose an imminent threat to security.

But he could not rule out the use of drones on American soil altogether, saying only that he doubted it would happen because it's easier to capture people here.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/6/rand-paul-filibusters-brennan-nomination-cia-direc/#ixzz2MmaX1IVe

So, Obama nominates this monster Brennan to head the CIA, and Brennan waffles on killing Americans, and Rand Paul writes to U.S. Attorney General Holder asking for clarification. Holder indicates a willingness to kill Americans.

Paul is filibustering on the floor of the Senate right now, as I type. While John McCain has dinner with Obama. No kidding. This is happening right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: bobad
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 04:48 PM

Paranoid now, hah!.......check this out: Watch the World's Highest Resolution Drone-Mounted Camera in Action

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 05:56 AM

I can see areas in which use of drones would be hugely helpful. For example, catching deer poachers in the UK, who can see the lights of approaching police cars for miles, and be somewhere else by the time they arrive. Small drones would spot them easily, take car reg. Nos, and direct police to intercept them.

They could even cover vehicles and men with indelible dye.

There are hundreds of peaceful and useful jobs which would be better done by use of drones.

But, of course, Mr Paranoid Songwronger only sees the military use of Predator drones and his tinfoil hat lights up and produces showers of random synapse discharges.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Stringsinger
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 09:32 AM

Songwronger, Obama's merely continuing Bush's failed policies. Drone warfare is not new on the books.

You don't think Romney wouldn't have use it?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 09:24 AM

Seems to be some slight of hand going on here...

This thread ***isn't*** about drones being used in military operations overseas... That is a separate discussion...

This thread ***is*** about drones being used over America...

We are going to be seein' more and more uses of drones over the US in the coming years... As JtS pointed out they will be used to monitor farm animals to keep them from polluting fresh water sources... They will be used to look for missing people in national parks, for traffic monitoring, for security of large complexes...

I don't have any particular problem with drones over America as long as they are not used to conduct fishing expedition, warrant-less searches of private peoples property... I think that the first time that someone gets busted as a result of such, where there was no probable cause, that the courts will strike down any convictions and therefore set a precedence that that ain't a proper use of the drone...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 08:52 AM

Drones over the UK - Guardian article

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 08:20 AM

If your little sister or favourite cousin - a seven-year-old whose teeth had that appealing gap that makes a kid lisp for a year; an engineering student who was the pride of the family; a young mother, adored centre of her new family - was 'collateral damage' in an assassination by another state, how many of your friends and relatives do you think would begin to hate that assassin state?

It doesn't take a propaganda machine's exaggeration to make people hate; only murder from the air.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: bobad
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 08:14 AM

"It is impossible for journalists, human rights groups, or outside investigators to definitively determine the ratio of civilians to militants killed by American drones."

"The strikes kill senior leaders and weaken Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, and the Afghan Taliban, but militants use exaggerated reports of civilian deaths to recruit volunteers and stoke anti-Americanism."

Reuters Magazine: The drone wars

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 04:48 AM

We've gone very, very wrong in the way we treat each other. Assassinating people without trial or a chance of defence - I would never have believed this of America.

I would never have believed this of America, once.

In relation to immigrants and jobs, I agree with the "but where's the jobs" point - but this interesting piece from The Atlantic seems to prove me wrong: If You Want More Jobs, You Should Want More Immigrants

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 25 Jan 13 - 08:57 PM

That was my post. Cookie thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 13 - 08:45 PM

List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen

PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male

YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19

The third from the end was an American. President Buzzkill established the precedent of offing Americans with that one. And this is just Pakistan and Yemen. He's using drones in 9 countries, at last count. Mass murderer of children.

http://droneswatch.org/2013/01/20/list-of-children-killed-by-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-and-yemen/

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Jun 12 - 12:33 AM

A statement quite a bit back attracted by attention, and subsequent comment furthered what is perhaps worth a look as how an almost trivial misrepresentation can provoke invalid understanding.

The government made public the plans for weaponizing Bird Flu.

What actually happened, is that researchers in two different places were able to find fairly simple ways of modifying the genetic code of H1N1 viruses. The prevalent forms of H1N1 "bird flu" are relatively benign for humans, but a few "variants" have been found "in the wild" that are more infective. For humans infected with H1N1 in its currently common form is more lethal than (most) other flu viruses. The modifications made by these researchers made the modified virus "slightly more transmissible" to a selected variety of genetically altered laboratory mice bred for easy infection with "things similar to things that infect humans."

The researchers made arrangements to publish the results of their experiments, since it would be of critical interest and aid to medical researchers looking for how the exisitng H1N1 might, by natural genetic changes, become more highly contagious to humans.

The US Government (one agency in particular) asked them to withhold the information, since the "method" steps described might also aid "someone" attempting to develop H1N1 as a weapon. The genetic modifications described produced no changes in any way directly suitable for production of any weapon.

After a few months of discussion, mainly among researchers and scientists, and with very sparse objection from any government agency, the researchers decided that the information should be published for it's use by other medical researchers, the publishers agreed, and the reports were released.

As conducted, the methods and testing reported revealed a "weapon" that might be considered if one wants the mass destruction of a specific exceedingly rare genetically altered laboratory mouse, but is of no direct use for much of anything else.

One might be more concerned about the success of Soviet scientists who reported the manufacture of "live smallpox virus" from "raw, nongenetic materials" about 30 years ago, or the similar report of a similar "creation" of the same virus by two independent US laboratories within the past couple of years. (But I'm not particularly worried about those, and see no reason for others to worry too much thus far.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 08:51 PM

McGrath of Harlow, That is pretty much the problem I have with this thread. The because they are both called a "drone" It doesn't mean that the unmanned vehicle that the USDA uses to see if ranchers are letting their cows shit in the water supply are the same as the ones firing hellfire missiles at "suspected militants." Wronger deliberately tried to spread fear based on that confusion.

As far as I know a drone is a remotely operated or robot vehicle. Multi-use. A cruise missile is a single use flying bomb(rather than rocket or artillery) But my point stands that the technology has been around for a long time and that no non-state actor has ever deployed that technology and it is not likely to happen soon.


>>>Is anyone here concerned about this? Obama already has his secret "kill list" that he reviews daily, and he's already set the precedent of killing Americans with drones overseas, so do you really want Obamney adding YOUR NAME to the kill list? <<<

wronger

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 08:40 PM

Uh . . . maybe this will help:

CLICKY.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 07:55 PM

"Drone" is i use as a general term which covers all unmanned flying bombs. Which have of course been around since World War II. I can remember them overhead as a child.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 07:20 PM

gnu
   [noo, nyoo] Show IPA
noun, plural gnus, ( especially collectively ) gnu.
either of two stocky, oxlike antelopes of the genus Connochaetes, the silver-gray, white-bearded C. taurinus of the eastern African plain and the black, white-tailed C. gnou of central South Africa: recently near extinction, the South African gnu is now protected.
GNU Snowboards On Sale www.rei.com/Gnu-Boards REI Clearance On Now. All GNU Snowboards— 20–30% Off!
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Also called wildebeest.

Origin:
1770–80; < Khoikhoi, first recorded as t'gnu; probably to be identified with ǂnû black, as applying orig. to the black wildebeest

Jackass

See Songwronger

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 07:08 PM

Songwronger... "Isn't a gnu some kind of jackass? Fits."

Nope. It's a big dumb docile bovine that kills lions. Your post is there for all to read. Unprovoked and inane... nasty and just plain stunned as me arse. Jackass? I think everybody knows who the jackass is... except maybe you, ya stunned, rude, ignorant arsehole.

I shant ask you to apologize for your personal attack and I surely hope it's not deleted by a moderator. I hope it remains in print forever so that anyone who reads it knows what a jackass you are. I make a joke and you make a slur. Do the arithmetic, if you can.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 03:26 PM

"There's nothing that difficult about building and deploying unmanned flying bombs, especially if you don't worry too much about precise targetting."

That is not a drone. That is called a "cruise missile." They have been around since WWII, called the V1. If it is so easy why has no non-government actor never deployed one?

It is hard for a terrorist to get their hand on high explosives. It is hard to get their hands on a remote controlled vehicle large enough to carry enough high explosives to do real damage.

It is so far, impossible for them to get their hands on a non-line of site control device that is secure from jamming or detection with enough bandwidth for a video signal to be transmitted back to the operator to allow for the piloting of the vehicle. Certainly not. not by a long shot. Is that day coming? Maybe. Probably. But it is not here now. It is far from easy.

As far as "Al Qaeda" franchises using it in America. Suicide Vests and trucks full of fertilizer are far cheaper and easier. And Al Qaeda has yet. (knock on wood) to pull off even one of those attacks in America. But already they are graduating into science fiction.

It was a dumb thing to say. Just like the rest of the alarmist superstitious unwarranted associations on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jun 12 - 02:39 PM

What's biting you Jack the Sailor, with your "Are you in some sort of a "say dumb things contest?" There's nothing that difficult about building and deploying unmanned flying bombs, especially if you don't worry too much about precise targetting.

And I suspect it could be possible in time to buy them more or less off the peg, if you've got the right contacts and enough money.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 11:17 PM

Instead of the people of the USA bailing them out.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 11:11 PM

>>>What's really spooky is that now the big banks are setting up "living wills" in case they fail. Corporations have been granted personhood, so naturally those businesses will set up living wills, as any person should do.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/27/us-banks-bailouts-wills-idUSBRE85Q0AZ20120627?feedType=RSS&dlvrit=56943 <<<

You do know that this was a Government requirement because the banks were considered "too big to fail." The "living wills" are in the event of another crisis the banks would have a plan for winding them down instead of bailing them out.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 11:06 PM

Man... Very bizarre post... Jim Jones stuff... My hat is off to the wronger for stringing together the most incoherent conspiracy theory ever...

Keep up the good work, wronger...

You make Tin Foil Nation proud!!!

More, por favor...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 10:58 PM

Isn't a gnu some kind of jackass? Fits.

Here you go, oh lazy one. From your beloved National Public Radio:

Anyone and everyone can now look in the journal Science and read about how to make lab-altered bird flu viruses that have been at the center of a controversy that's raged for months.

But in the eyes of some critics, the details of these experiments are effectively the recipe for a dangerous flu pandemic.

The H5N1 bird flu virus isn't normally contagious between people, but these mutants most likely are. They were created with the best of intentions by a lab that's trying to understand how flu viruses might change in the wild and start spreading in humans.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/06/21/155504336/journal-publishes-details-on-controversial-bird-flu-experiments

Oh yeah, they were just FULL of good intentions when they made a flu that could wipe out 90% of humanity. And then it was all a big accident that the recipe got published.

What's really spooky is that now the big banks are setting up "living wills" in case they fail. Corporations have been granted personhood, so naturally those businesses will set up living wills, as any person should do.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/27/us-banks-bailouts-wills-idUSBRE85Q0AZ20120627?feedType=RSS&dlvrit=56943

This is coming at a time when 200,000 body bags have been ordered for the London Olympics:

http://investmentwatchblog.com/breaking-news-just-in-case-there-happens-to-be-a-terrorist-nuke-200k-body-bags-are-on-stand-by-at

And don't forget that Iran shot down a drone. More likely it was landed in their backyard so that later NATO would be able to say those dirty Ay-rabs backward engineered the thing to send a fleet of flu-bearing drones out to attack the infidel. Could the attack come during the Olympics? Who knows? But the City of London is the center of western banking, and it looks like they're getting ready for something. Fortunately the banks will have their wills in place so they can hold onto their wealth and continue to rule over the 10% of us that are left after those Ay-rabs bombed us with drone flu.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 05:30 PM

On the other hand, not all drones are equal.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 05:30 PM

Frightening indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 05:24 PM

I believe that US spy agencies have been routinely tapping US phone lines without warrants for decades. I don't really have a problem with that. I don't think that people have a right to privacy to do treasonous things.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 05:19 PM

Thanks, brucie for the clear and concise link that supports the facts that I laid out that beardedbruce said were "Democratic Talking Points"and "lies"...

Like JtS, I don't get "Democratic talking points"... I read lots of news, watch the national news and stay the hell away from bloggers of any stripe...

I don't know why the righties care so fascinated with mythology and conspiracy theories... I don't think there are enough psychiatrists to save this country from them...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 04:43 PM

None of it is new. Only the technology has a changed. For a while, in the early 1990's I worked at a a building in Ottawa Canada, that overlooked another building, which I see in Google Maps, is still there. Which was described as US government installation designed to TAP domestic phone calls within the US. I asked "Why is it here." I was told because they are not allowed to do it on US soil. I was also told that Canada had a similar facility in the USA to spy on Canadians.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 04:33 PM

From A CBS link from the one, Guest,999 provided:

"In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

More Fast and Furious coverage:
Memos contradict Holder on Fast and Furious
Agent: I was ordered to let guns "walk" into Mexico
Gunwalking scandal uncovered at ATF

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."

The Gun Dealers' Quandary

Several gun dealers who cooperated with ATF told CBS News and Congressional investigators they only went through with suspicious sales because ATF asked them to.

Sometimes it was against the gun dealer's own best judgment.

Read the email

In April, 2010 a licensed gun dealer cooperating with ATF was increasingly concerned about selling so many guns. "We just want to make sure we are cooperating with ATF and that we are not viewed as selling to the bad guys," writes the gun dealer to ATF Phoenix officials, "(W)e were hoping to put together something like a letter of understanding to alleviate concerns of some type of recourse against us down the road for selling these items."

Read the email

ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

The Justice Department and ATF declined to comment. ATF officials mentioned in this report did not respond to requests from CBS News to speak with them.

The "Demand Letter 3" Debate

The two sides in the gun debate have long clashed over whether gun dealers should have to report multiple rifle sales. On one side, ATF officials argue that a large number of semi-automatic, high-caliber rifles from the U.S. are being used by violent cartels in Mexico. They believe more reporting requirements would help ATF crack down. On the other side, gun rights advocates say that's unconstitutional, and would not make a difference in Mexican cartel crimes.

Two earlier Demand Letters were initiated in 2000 and affected a relatively small number of gun shops. Demand Letter 3 was to be much more sweeping, affecting 8,500 firearms dealers in four southwest border states: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. ATF chose those states because they "have a significant number of crime guns traced back to them from Mexico." The reporting requirements were to apply if a gun dealer sells two or more long guns to a single person within five business days, and only if the guns are semi-automatic, greater than .22 caliber and can be fitted with a detachable magazine.

On April 25, 2011, ATF announced plans to implement Demand Letter 3. The National Shooting Sports Foundation is suing the ATF to stop the new rules. It calls the regulation an illegal attempt to enforce a law Congress never passed. ATF counters that it has reasonably targeted guns used most often to "commit violent crimes in Mexico, especially by drug gangs."

Sounds to me that the gun dealers had more brains and principles that our own 'Justice(?) Department'

Makes me wonder, what other amenities came along with the deal.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 04:29 PM

Back in the day when an "enemy" was a state that was capable of surrender and used uniformed troops, the notion of the United States Government spying on its own citizens was considered grotesque and intolerable. Then the Cold War began and the Commie scare got all ramped up, largely due to the blown-up paranoia and delusory world-views of key CIA executives, and some teeth-gnashers and arm-wavers like Joseph mcCarthy. Bineby, Hoover began gathering all kinds of intel on citizens under the guidon of protecting the US from sneaky hidden Commie faggot bastard hippie spies. The CIA gradually followed suit, figgering that they couldn't do anything right in them furrin countries, like invade Cuba or undermine Argentina or protect citizens in Iran. Failure after failure. So they started taking satellite images and otherwise probing the lives of US citizens.

After we fucked up the Middle East so royally that we looked like Bozo-Satan to most anyone east of Berline, and they started blowing up various installationds of ours like the Cole, and eventually the World Trade Center, all bets were off. Since our melting pot nation could hide secret agents from anywhere, it just made common sense that the gummint should have carte blanche to spy on any of 'em. The age of political iinnocence in the US was beaten to death by its own paranoia and false perceptions.

So this is just another logical extension. We proved we could never pull of decent Hum in, because our intell boys were such piss-poor human beings that they couldn't conduct an honest conversation or make friends worth a shit. So we rely on high tech to spy for us and, now, to kill and die on our behalf. Whoopee-do for humanity.

It's understandable enough that we resort to solutions to our worst problems, such as terrorism. But it would make me feel a helluva lot better if we were trying to understand the goddam problems first, find out how they came to exist, and address the actual sources.

If we tried that, we would find out pretty q

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 03:04 PM

John Stewart on the Fast and Furious "scandal."

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 02:45 PM

"Can't be long before Al Quaeda and similar franchises start operating drones in America. The technology isn't that hard."

Are you in some sort of a "say dumb things contest?" If you are you must be winning unless you are competing with Rush Limbaugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Stringsinger
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 01:10 PM

American drones are being used all over the world. Instead of computer games,
we have a more lethal pastime. Innocents are being slaughtered.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 12:53 PM

Can't be long before Al Quaeda and similar franchises start operating drones in America. The technology isn't that hard.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 12:30 PM

But that cannot be 9. It contradicts what BB said about his huge cut and paste!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 12:21 PM

I think too many people here don't know what they're talking about. This article may explain.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57461204-10391695/a-primer-on-the-fast-and-furious-scandal/

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 12:18 PM

Bruce, I haven't seen the Dem Talking points. I guess they don't let me into the meetings. But what you seem to bee says is that the Bush Administration did the same thing under a different name, the difference being that the ATF got caught doing it under Obama.

Its a silly political football. It is not as if the Mexican Cartels have no access to guns except through the ATF. I swear the GOP in Congress would mark gasoline so that Hugo Chavez could be blamed for car accidents using Citgo gas.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 10:48 AM

Bobert: "It was one of those secret programs that the Bush administration not only passed on to Obama's"

LIE- Bush Program was stopped before the end of the Bush Admin. THIS IS A DEM TALKING POINT.


Bobert:"I all but insisted that it needed to be continued.' LIE- ANOTHER DEM TALKING POINT.

So the FACT that there were prosecutions UNDER OBAMA of the BUSH program PROVES that Obama KNEW IT WAS WRONG, AND DID IT ANYWAY.

As for the shouting, you seem deaf to all facts, so I doubt if you will even recognize that you are digging yourself into a deeper hole that admitting you are wrong would- At least then you might make a real contribution to the discussion, instead of just repeating proven false Dem Talking points.



You seem to insist on being exactly what you claim those who disagree with you are- Liar, repeater of party talking points, and always willing to attack the person rather than the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 10:34 AM

Okay, bruce... You are splitting hairs here... Bush had another code name... Same program... Guess you want to deny that, too???

As for GfinS fascination with my colon... No comment other than three words: polymorphous perverse guilt... Seek help...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 10:21 AM

Bobert: "Fast and Furious goes back to Bush, GfinS... It was one of those secret programs that the Bush administration not only passed on to Obama's but all but insisted that it needed to be continued..."

Well, if you'd pull your head out, and stop inspecting your colon up close, for a moment, you might be more right than you thought...but you are hung up in the Obama/BS talking points!!
You say it goes back to Bush...YES!!..Bush Sr.!!!...Ever REALLY read up on Iran/Contra???

Maybe you'll get past the charade on this and other things, as well, and see things a little more clearly, once you wipe that stuff out of your eye, that you got smeared on you during your colon expedition!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 10:09 AM

"Fast and Furious goes back to Bush, GfinS... It was one of those secret programs that the Bush administration not only passed on to Obama's but all but insisted that it needed to be continued..."

Another Bobert Fact from the Dem. Talking points- already shown to be false.
The similar Bush program was ended, and the Obama Admin had prosecuted several people for it BEFORE starting F&F, showing that they knew it was illegal yet started it anyway.

"At the time, under the Bush administration Department of Justice (DOJ), no arrests or indictments were made. After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers. Indictments began in 2010, over three years after Wide Receiver concluded. As of October 4, 2011, nine people had been charged with making false statements in acquisition of firearms and illicit transfer, shipment or delivery of firearms.[19"

"Less than two weeks later, on October 6, William Newell, then ATF's special agent in charge of the Phoenix field division, shut down the operation at the behest of William Hoover, ATF's assistant director for the office of field operations.[27] "

"On October 26, 2009, a teleconference was held at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. to discuss U.S. strategy for combating Mexican drug cartels. Participating in the meeting were Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Michele Leonhart, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Robert Mueller and the top federal prosecutors in the Southwestern border states. They decided on a strategy to identify and eliminate entire arms trafficking networks rather than low-level buyers.[3][28][29] Those at the meeting did not suggest using the "gunwalking" tactic, but ATF supervisors would soon use it in an attempt to achieve the desired goals.[30] The effort, beginning in November, would come to be called Operation Fast and Furious for the successful film franchise, because some of the suspects under investigation operated out of an auto repair store and street raced.[3]
The strategy of targeting high-level individuals, which was already ATF policy, would be implemented by Bill Newell, special agent in charge of ATF's Phoenix field division. In order to accomplish it, the office decided to use "gunwalking" as laid out in a January 2010 briefing paper. This was said to be allowed under ATF regulations and given legal backing by U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis K. Burke. It was additionally approved and funded by a Justice Department task force.[3] However, long-standing DOJ and ATF policy has required arms shipments to be intercepted.[4][5]
In November 2009, the Phoenix office's Group VII, which would be the lead investigative group in Fast and Furious, began to follow a prolific gun trafficker. He had bought 34 firearms in 24 days, and he and his associates bought 212 more in the next month. The case soon grew to over two dozen straw purchasers, the most prolific of which would ultimately buy more than 600 weapons.[3][5][31]
The tactic of letting guns walk, rather than interdicting them and arresting the buyers, led to controversy within the ATF.[5][32] As the case continued, several members of Group VII, including John Dodson and Olindo Casa, became increasingly upset at the tactic of allowing guns to walk. Their standard Project Gunrunner training was to follow the straw purchasers to the hand-off to the cartel buyers, then arrest both parties and seize the guns. They watched guns being bought illegally and stashed on a daily basis, while their supervisors, including David Voth and Hope MacAllister, prevented the agents from intervening.[3]
Responding to the disagreements, Voth wrote an email in March 2010: "I will be damned if this case is going to suffer due to petty arguing, rumors, or other adolescent behavior. I don't know what all the issues are but we are all adults, we are all professionals, and we have an exciting opportunity to use the biggest tool in our law enforcement tool box. If you don't think this is fun you are in the wrong line of work – period!"[3][33]"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 09:08 AM

"As for Arizona's immigration law... Guess your TeaPub Congress is going to have to come up with the billion$ its going to take to incarcerate and investigate people rounded up... I hear an Arizona Sheriff in NPR yesterday say that his department did not have anywhere near the resources he will need to implement the law..."

FEMA does.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 08:42 AM

Fast and Furious goes back to Bush, GfinS... It was one of those secret programs that the Bush administration not only passed on to Obama's but all but insisted that it needed to be continued...

Personally, I think it was stupid when with the gun show loopholes anyone, citizen or not (legal or not) can buy a U-Haul truck full of AK-47s and a $5 book with instructions on how to make them fire automatically...

As for Arizona's immigration law... Guess your TeaPub Congress is going to have to come up with the billion$ its going to take to incarcerate and investigate people rounded up... I hear an Arizona Sheriff in NPR yesterday say that his department did not have anywhere near the resources he will need to implement the law...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 01:16 AM

jack the Tripper: "Oh Come on 999. There are plenty of laws. Privacy laws, due process laws, aviation safety laws. RC Aircraft have been around for decades so have Private Investigators, larger airplanes and cops. In the laws that apply to those four things we have everything we need."

Yeah, well there are border laws, too....ask Arizona how well the Federal government is paying attention to them!..Gun laws, too...ask Holder if he feels like enforcing them, or breaking them...there are immigration laws..fat chance of them being enforced...need I go on??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 07:44 PM

"We're gonna have to deal with these when Barney Fife (Sgt, Bubba) uses one to spy on his wife and Billy Bob sneaking around on him."

If Barney does that we can use the same laws we would use if Barney were using spyglasses from a tree and a cat startled him causing him to fall off and hang by a snagged shoelace calling to Andy for help.


Gnu, I never saw it first run but in the reruns Andy dates lots of good looking women.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 07:38 PM

I always thought Barney was gay. Andy too, kinda. Unless he was... ahhh, nevermind.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 07:20 PM

Right, brucie... Seems the only control of them is FAA stuff... Like altitudes and restricted space...

We're gonna have to deal with these when Barney Fife (Sgt, Bubba) uses one to spy on his wife and Billy Bob sneaking around on him...

This ***is*** going to happen...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 07:18 PM

Oh Come on 999. There are plenty of laws. Privacy laws, due process laws, aviation safety laws. RC Aircraft have been around for decades so have Private Investigators, larger airplanes and cops. In the laws that apply to those four things we have everything we need.

The last thing we need are more laws for the Republicans to complain about.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 07:13 PM

Jack, what I meant by 'this shit' is having drones used in America with no laws in place to control how and on whom they may be used.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 06:52 PM

JtS... I assume you mean there is SO much shit to chose from?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 06:34 PM

"this shit."

Which shit?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 06:21 PM

I think it would require a very serious set of circumstances for Bobert to kill a cop. I know it would me.

Drones: indeed they are not new, nor is the idea. Orwell was so far ahead of the pack that he's almost gone from sight. What I cannot understand is how a once-free people can tolerate this shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 10:07 PM

Do you comprehend English, Sawz???

What did I say???

Did I say I was gonna kill cops??? Or did I say I would shoot down a drone???

Pick one and right afterwards call your Betty Ford counselor and re-enroll in the Acme Reading Clinic...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Sawzaw
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 09:55 PM

"when the cops come sniffing around looking for that pot plant you got growing in with the tomatoes then you sneak up with yours and blow them the heck up"

Now Bobert advocates killing cops. A Cop hater.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 08:50 PM

BTW, I'm looking forward to drone wars... Yup, everyone is gonna have their own drones and when the cops come sniffing around looking for that pot plant you got growing in with the tomatoes then you sneak up with yours and blow them the heck up...

Oh, this is going to be fun...

Maybe Walmart will sell anti-drone weapons that lock in on yer neighbors drone and blow it the heck up...

The NRA is gonna love this, too...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 08:30 PM

Agree, gn-ze...

Reading wacko bloggers who are paid BIG $$$ to take the truth and twist it into unrecognizable pretzels is a waste of everyone's time... No one reads 'um because when you see them they all look alike and say nothing ot little that is truthful...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 08:18 PM

I don't know what the hell yer all talkin about because when I see a post a mile long I don't read it. Especially when it's from a poster I simply ignore based on their name. Seriously. Come on eh? Ya got somethin ta say? SAY IT. Never mind the thousand word cut and paste crap. You could at least reference it and cite it with a link and give us a clue what you mean to infer. I haven't the time to read all that.

BTW, that's a general comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 07:56 PM

Well, Obama can't win...

If he talks about the drones strikes the rithties hammer him and...

if he doesn't talk about them the righties hammer him...

Will ya'll make up yer minds... That is, if you have minds...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 07:03 PM

The Executive Branch is now trying to deny public access to drone strike information.

June 21, 2012 ~

...In a motion filed just before midnight last night, the federal government asked for FOIA requests regarding drone killings by the ACLU and the New York Times to be dismissed....

...The administration merely has to state that the target is a terrorist and it doesn't matter whether they are an American citizen or not, as we saw in the case of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, who were both killed last year.

In December, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination, claiming that "U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets" and do not have the right to any legal protection against being marked for summary execution....

http://12160.info/group/attack-of-the-drones/forum/topics/obama-moves-to-conceal-drone-death-figures?xg_source=activity

Here's an oldie. Aerosol knockout gas:

The so-called Advanced Riot Control Agent Device, or ARCAD discussed in the documents is similar to the opiate gas that proved deadly when used in a hostage situation in a Moscow theater in 2002, said Hammond. Most of the 129 hostage deaths in the incident were blamed on the gas.

Hammond received the documents, with titles such as Anti-Personnel Calmative Agents and Anti-Personnel Chemical Immobilizers, after initiating a Freedom of Information Act request in 2001. According to a statement on the group's site, the calmative agent was developed at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

"The weapons were designed to knock out groups of people, in battle and in other situations, presumably including 'rioting' civilians," the statement says.

http://www.rense.com/general54/knockout.htm

The true purpose of having 30,000 drones above America is for control of population. Spying sure, for taxation and the theft of private property, yes, but when the crunch comes, civilian populations will be rendered helpless from above. And we'd better HOPE all they do is spray us with knockout gas. The way it's looking now, there's something much more sinister afoot. The government made public the plans for weaponizing Bird Flu. The article below makes some interesting points:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/nightmarescenario.php

Recently the corporate media has been filled with stories about how scientists took the bird flu (which bears many similarities to the "Spanish" flu) and through a series of just 12 steps, converted it into a form easily transmissible by air! This makes the new bug, which we shall call Captain Trips in an homage to Stephen King, a slate-wiper for all humanity. Oddly enough, the press gave a great deal of coverage to the possibility that the scientists who created Captain Trips might publish their step-by-step directions, thereby handing to "Al Qaeda" (nudge nudge wink wink) the recipe to wipe mankind off of the face of Earth.

Some important items were left unsaid, such as who was paying these scientists to create such a horror, why the government did not exercise its legal authority to classify any materials deemed dangerous to the national security, and most important, why was the corporate media blatantly advertising the availability of the recipe for Captain Trips for all to see?

The US Government classifies all kinds of documents. Even college term papers that touch on military subjects can be and routinely are classified. Yet this supposedly highly dangerous recipe for converting Spanish/Bird flu was indeed published, which means the United States Government wanted it published, and wanted it reported in the media.

Which means this is a propaganda operation.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 01:24 AM

OOPs posted this on the wrong thread...ummm...here we are...

All those in favor of drones because it takes out the enemies, raise your hands.

All those in favor of napalm because it takes out the enemies, raise your hands.

All in favor of another way, raise your......

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:46 PM

Promise??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:05 PM

Absolutely right, Jack. I gotta stop doing that.

Bloody waste of time.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 10:40 PM

>>>Don, Good Lord, you didn't have to go into all the details of your neighbor...when I put in parenthesis "Hmm, now I'm starting to understand your 'neighborhood'..interesting..
(Just couldn't let that one go by)."<<

Your first mistake was reading a GooFUSS post.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 10:04 PM

Don, Good Lord, you didn't have to go into all the details of your neighbor...when I put in parenthesis "Hmm, now I'm starting to understand your 'neighborhood'..interesting..
(Just couldn't let that one go by)."

The,'Just couldn't let that one go by' part was ..or should have been.... an indication, that I was only working off your line...as in you were being the 'straight man'.
OF COURSE I don't even know her, or your neighborhood or how ugly you are.....but at least we got a clue as to how stupid!!

(ONLY A JOKE, DON!!!!)
Sometimes a little levity in the room.......
Don, There's something in the next part, that we DID talk about, in seriousness, but I didn't think you understood the whole impact of it, BUT, at least you broached it with me, without being....ummm...well, you know....



Guest, 999,..I dug your post, and it's really cool, to read from somebody, who is not deceived by the partisan political show biz act.
That being said, I DO believe our nation is in deep trouble.
On a post with (and I can't remember which thread), I mentioned that the thing to watch, in relation to the economy, was NOT the stock market, nor unemployment figures, but the derivatives market. Today, Moodys downgraded 4 huge banks...BoA, Goldman Sachs, Suisse Bank, and Citi....not to mention, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays are all in line for a downgrade by ratings agency Moody's over fears the euro zone crisis threatens their stability.

Why this is relevant, to this thread, is I believe that America is about to be thrown under the bus, (remember that missing trillion?), and the remnant will be up for grabs, once the chaos subsides, and the 'new rules' put in place. The 'corporates' vs the Marxists...though they can easily work together...as long as the perception of the people can be held under control. What we are seeing, is a 'readying' for that. Both the higher ups of the 'right' and 'left', I believe, sense that their 'opportunity' to tip the jump ball to their side, will come probably around, or after the election..no matter who wins. I think, should Obama win, we MIGHT have a little longer window, not because he represents anything noble, but because his first term, was in conjunction with the same guys, as the 'right'...but somewhere, along the line, he 'strayed' from the original 'plan'.......In any event, between the last four administrations, this country has been financially fatally wounded. The ONLY hope, is that people seriously look to loving their fellow man, neighbors and community, and NOT allow 'political persuasions' to overcome their sense of unity.....that bullshit has to not gain any more traction, within the populace. Financial sector, and Governmental sector has screwed things up so bad...even the minds of the people...but it will be the people, working together who have ANY chance of putting back together, and LEARNING form how we got there, to never let it happen again!!...(Even though that won't last THAT long). Controlling each other's wills, morals, integrity, for personal gains must be fruitless....and that starts with each person, settling that issue in their own beings, before 'inflicting' other people with ideologies, political, social, religious, etc etc. That being said, people need the room to touch the spiritual within them...and after the mess that is to come, that will NOT be so far fetched, as it must sound now.

Bruce, you have my 'tin foil' hat off to you!!...
(at least I'm not wearing it)

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 09:21 PM

Looks like 1982 is gettin' its due...

This isn't as much a discussion about drones v. no drones... Like John in K says, they have been around for a while... A long while...

It comes down how they are used...

Drones don't spy on people.... People spy on people... LOL...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 09:04 PM

"...so public comment is still possible and lots of people will have to agree on any rules that ultimately do appear."

Maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 08:25 PM

Even the few people here who are relatively "informed" appear to have little real knowledge of the extent and history of drone use. (They flew over my house a couple of times a week in 1964, and they may still be "testing" the same ones there.)

The primary use of drones has generally been for "surveillance" but for military surveillance it's common to use very high altitudes to make it less obvious what's being watched. Improvements in photographic technologies now permit reading the spots on the dice from around 10,000 feet agl, but so far as I've heard about it that technology isn't anything that any local, or even state, jurisdiction could obtain even if they could pay for it, and "resolving" the details takes a week of arcane processing after each ten minutes of snapping pictures. People to do that kind of processing are exceedingly rare. That technology would be useless to civilian agencies, and even if they could us it, it would be a very expensive way of busting a street corner crap shoot.

Civilian law enforcement people are permitted to view "anything visible from areas of generally public access," and nothing prevents the cop on the beat from looking over a fence. The drones of kinds likely to be most useful for law enforcement simply allow looking over lots of fences fairly quickly - when you can tolerate missing a lot of the details.

Drones for surveillance certainly should be of no concern to London, since they already have remote TV cameras pointed at nearly every square inch of all "public areas" with direct feeds to the cop shop; and although we have somewhat different attitudes toward "privacy" there seem to have been few complaints about "being watched" there.

The proliferation of "weaponry" in police forces is of some concern to some of us, with the LA Police now being possibly better equipped with heavy weapons than some of our military combat units; but so far they've been restrained a lot better in the use of those kinds of "machinery" than for simple night sticks and jack-boots (which are still something of a problem, not just in LA?).

Drones are just one more tool that has obvious potential uses that could be of benefit in legitimate and legal law enforcement, and for those uses they might reduce costs and risk to personnel. As for any other tool, there are also potential ways in which they could be misused, but there is nothing (except in sensationalist press rants) to suggest very persuasively that legitimate uses should not be considered and evaluated.

Most of the recent flap is the result of the FAA being ordered to "write rules for civilian drone flights." Writing the rules requires (when done by rational writers) an evaluation of the potential uses that might need to be regulated, but mention of possible at that point isn't even a real suggestion that a particular use will be permitted.

No rules have as yet been published in anything approaching final form, so public comment is still possible and lots of people will have to agree on any rules that ultimately do appear. Informed concern is, as always, appropriate; but hand-wringing, wailing (we don't even have a good wall for it) and predictions of massive apocalypse are a little over blown - for now.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 05:33 PM

And resuming our regular programming, during my stint as a radio announcer, I worked for a year for AAA (American Automobile Association) broadcasting morning and evening traffic reports over Seattle's KIRO radio. By listening to four city police radios and two state patrol radios, I tried to put together a report of good routes and places to avoid for commuters between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 and 6:00 p.m.—a report every twelve minutes.

This was a bitch of a job, and I had to do a lot of guess-work based on listening in on the police talking to each other, and I didn't know for sure if what I was telling people bore any relationship to what was going on out there in traffic in the real world or not. But people kept telling me I was doing a good job.

KOMO radio had their "Eye in the Sky" reports from a plane flying overhead. Fred Garlatz, at the controls of his small plane could SEE what was going on, but since there was only one of him, he couldn't get an ongoing picture of the whole scene, whereas I could at least make a good guess from the information I was getting.

I keep thinking of what a boon a small fleet of drones would be when it comes to such things as traffic observation and control.

I don't see what should be so bloody expensive about this. For years, people have been playing with radio controlled model planes as a hobby. Just a matter of scale, and equipping the unmanned planes with a controllable camera. And, of course, a couple of operators who know what they were doing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 05:28 PM

GoofuS:   "Hmm, now I'm starting to understand your 'neighborhood'..interesting.."

No you're not. The woman I mentioned in my above post is not typical of the people in this quite upscale neighborhood. I live in an older section of Seattle, quite close to downtown, but it's anything but a slum. This section of Capital Hill, a few blocks south of forty-eight acre Volunteer Park (looking east, toward Lake Washington; the reservoir is in the foreground and the large building just beyond the reservoir is the Asian Art Museum). This is an area where the wealthy lumber barons lived in Seattle's earlier days and many of the houses are large, quite luxurious mansions. Barbara and I live in (are shareholders in) a cooperative apartment building, which was built in 1910, has been well-maintained, and is on the Historic Building Registry.

James, our neighbor across the hall (wife and two small children) works in a bookstore, our upstairs neighbor is a singer and actor who is currently acting in a series of Shakespearean plays at one of Seattle's many theaters (he's had parts in a couple of network television dramas), and his wife works as a docent at the Seattle Art Museum and illustrates children's books. Another neighbor upstairs is a professional photographer, another is a singer-songwriter who has released a CD. Another neighbor is also a singer-songwriter, and between singing gigs, Tamara puts in a stint at a local college radio station playing folk music. There is a doctor who lives in the building (don't know his specialty, if any) and a number of others work across the lake at Microsoft.

Two business districts within a couple of blocks, restaurants, supermarkets, drugstores, all the conveniences.

The somewhat disturbed woman I mentioned used to work as a procedures writer for the City of Seattle, as did my wife for a short time, so that's how I know her. She lives in a large, modern building a block to our south. Subsidized housing. She is essentially incapable of managing her finances or remembering to keep appointments. Barbara calls her on the phone several times a week to remind her of thing she needs to do.

And you were able to tell all of this about my neighborhood from what I posted about this woman, GoofuS? Congratulations! Now go knit yourself a Superman cape!

Back to our regular broadcast.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 05:01 PM

I like the idea of a drone based tv series. Lets call it CSI Mayberry? Or how about Law and Order - Small Town Sheriff's Department?

But seriously, getting back to my original point. A law officer legally has access to a lot of things that a truck driver doesn't. There is nothing special or more inherently dangerous about police drones. Facebook telephone and Email hacking are far more powerful in affairs of the heart.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 01:23 PM

Here is where things are going to get very sticky... There are over 15,000 police departments in the US... That opens up the potential for 15,000 different spy networks... Heck, we have some purdy redneck sheriffs who hate the US government and don't mind telling anyone who will listen...

Enter the FAA... The "F" in FFA stands for "federal"... See where I am going???

Back to Barney Fife... Lets say that Barney Fife's girlfriend leaves him for Billy Bob... Now Billy Bob ain't a cop... He drives a truck and therefore doesn't have use of drones... But Barney Fife does and is plenty steamed at Billy Bob for taking his lady friend away from him...

Hmmmmm???

I can see a new sit-com in this... The possibilities are limitless...

LOL...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:51 PM

GfS: Thank you for those very kind remarks.

That last post of yours was well-written and I agree with most of it. The one area we take differing views is the attribution of motive to posters here. Most are Americans, and they love their country as do you. Any informed people are aware that banks, the manufacturing complex and multinationals have have gained tremendous influence in Washington. There is an old rule with money. You owe the banks 10,000 and they own you. Owe the bank 100,000,000 and you own them.

People who dislike Obama will make much of his use of Executive Privilege to stop the release of documents to do with the Mexican gun fiasco--if the deaths of so many people may be called a fiasco--but I will not. There likely are security concerns that make that a good decision. But that is small potatoes when compared with the over-all state of security that can easily be used against citizens with no need for a warrant. Example: in Canada, one of our prime ministers said, "The government has no business in the bedrooms of Canadian people" (words to that effect). As the law is to do with surveillance, it is necessary that Congress get a better handle on it all than was provided by the Supreme Court. In fairness, the Supremes may only rule on the case brought before it, even when they see the pitfalls of the way the petition for redress of a wrong is worded poorly.

The la-di-da of the American people really puzzles me. I have seen people--very intelligent people on this forum--shut down statements of opinion with 'wear your tinfoil hat' or 'another conspiracy theory'. Shit. You have to be mildly brainwashed in the first place to think like that. Noticing when big money is influencing political decisions is NOT conspiracy theory. It's fucking fact!But some attitudes suggest that hope triumphs over experience so often, and I think it's doing so in this case.

Beyond all that stuff, I say this: I truly hope that you and I have our heads where the sun don't shine on these issues. I hope we're damned fools and that people laugh at us with gusto when we are proved to be wrong. (They always were strange and different.) Unfortunately, I don't see that ending in the cards.

Regardless, it is important that we all decide how best to counter government until such time as there is no recourse but rebellion or civil war. To do otherwise is nothing short of stupid and nothing less than treason. This is the type of infighting that has screwed so many resistance movements. Thermopylae, Masada, Warsaw Ghetto are examples of what happens when factions cannot agree how best to fight an enemy. We have to keep in mind that although we are pretty certain we're correct, we could be wrong. And lest we forget, we could be right.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:25 PM

"Better stay away from Copperhead Road."

This could be interpreted as a threat to local, state and federal law enforcement by the computers which sift through domestic internet traffic as authorized by the patriot act.

The only question is whether the DHS has included a "Steve Earle metaphor filter" among its Al Gore rhythms.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:15 PM

Wrongsonger is fear mongering so is Sawzaw, they are trying to play upon people's fears and ignorance of drones to the people to dislike and fear the President.

You michaelr are aiding and abetting by piling your own, unfounded as I see it, distaste of the technology into the mix. If you don't like Presidents policies, that is fair. But blaming the tools for the way they are used is just silly and extrapolating that use to here to say "You are next" as Sawzaw and Songwronger have done is nefarious.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:05 PM

Not to worry... I've grown weed going back to 1970 and learned a trick or two along the way...

Better stay away from Copperhead Road...

LOL...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:59 AM

Well, you be careful, then....I don't dislike blues players THAT much!!
(wink)

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:47 AM

I've grew pot in veggie gardens, GfinS, back when I lived in Wes Ginny where the DEA is very, very busy... Also grown it in the mountain and around fields...

The number one thing that get people caught are paths... That's right... Paths... The second biggest way to get caught is for the infra-red to pick up the heat of the fertilizer... In a veggie garden they expect to find higher heat because people do use a lot of poo in their veggie gardens... I use chicken, myself (3-2-3) because it's balanced and chicken poo will grow a tomato as well as it will grow pot...

Now I ain't growing since I moved to NC... Still thinkin' about it, though but not for this year...

Now back to other uses of drones that ain't all that terrible...

I do understand that the FAA has a lot to say about drones... And will probably have a lot more to say in the future... Especially if one takes down a Cessna...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:44 AM

Thanks, BB..I was typing that post, and went blank in regards to what I was thinking when I posted, "there's this 'deal'..."..and I racked my brain to remember the correct name. (It's not a term I use often)..but I knew it was like a spectrum analyzer, but for light emissions....(now if it would have been 'sound' I wouldn't have forgotten so easy).
Anyway, the point was, to tell Bobert, that his 'advice' could get someone in trouble, unwittingly. The same goes for indoor full spectrum grow lights, when they leak out of an opening. Perhaps, you could expand on that, to anyone interested...it's not a subject that I'm in a situation that I'd have to deal with, not growing anything of the sort. My concerns pretty much lie in keeping sound from getting out of the studio, for those late night sessions, while Mama is sleepin'. Though, as it is now, it doesn't keep her up.....at least she knows where I am!..and the music, is USUALLY not disturbing, due to the nature of it...but then there's those l-o-o-ong practice/composing sessions....I imagine those could get redundant and frustrating...to others.

Anyway, Regards Bruce!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:35 AM

Transparency and Open Government
White House

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT:      Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.....

WH rejects requests for 'targeted killing' papers
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has rejected requests from The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union seeking information about its "targeted killing" program against suspected terrorists, saying the release of the requested documents would harm national security.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Times and the ACLU sought records regarding the legal justifications for the alleged U.S. government killing of U.S. citizens and others associated with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

In a court document filed late Wednesday in New York in response to an ACLU lawsuit, the Justice Department said that "even to describe the numbers and details of most of these documents would reveal information that could damage the government's counterterrorism efforts."

The administration said the information requested is "highly classified," even though details of such operations have been leaked to the media.

"For example, whether or not the United States government conducted the particular operations that led to the deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki and the other individuals named in the FOIA requests remains classified," the government wrote. The U.S.-born al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September.

"Likewise, whether or not the CIA has the authority to be, or is in fact, directly involved in targeted lethal operations remains classified," the government wrote.

In response to the government filing, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said Thursday: "The notion that the CIA's targeted killing program is still a secret is beyond absurd. Senior officials have discussed it, both on the record and off."

The Justice Department, however, said, "None of those statements or reports constitutes an official disclosure that could vitiate agencies' ability to safeguard the classified and other statutorily protected information at issue here."

The administration acknowledged public concern about U.S. use of targeted killings, and said it has tried to "set forth for the American people the legal analysis and process involved in the determination whether to use lethal force." Those efforts have included speeches by a number of U.S. officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder.

But it maintained that the requested records would reveal "whether or not the U.S. government possesses specific intelligence information about particular individuals. Yet, Congress has made the judgment in the CIA Act and the National Security Act that information concerning such intelligence sources and methods should be exempt from public disclosure."

The ACLU's Jaffer said, "The public is entitled to know more about the legal authority the administration is claiming and the way that the administration is using it."

"We continue to have profound concerns with the power the administration is claiming and with the proposition that the president should be permitted to exercise this power without oversight by the courts," Jaffer said.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:25 AM

"deal that picks up a different light emission, given off by the plants, that distinguishes them, uniquel"

Look under "hyperspectral imaging"




I was on the NEMO (ground station design) and EO-1 (data manager) programs.

And there has been over a decade of research since then....

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 10:07 AM

Bruce, You are correct.. The American Government DOES have the money..OUR money...so do their partners, the Banks, and the corporations, and so do all of the other people who have fleeced the American public, with the crap they 'sell' to us, under the guise of needed programs to solve problems that THEY created. What they do, is just funnel the need for those programs, through whichever political party caters to the vocal crowd of supporters. Illusionary 'Patriotic' programs to the 'right', disguised as 'humanitarian' and progressive to the left....but the real benefactors are the middle man, and the bureaucracy, that keeps expanding, and operating as inefficient as anyone needs to, to not even produce ANYTHING!
The partisan hacks don't get it..because though they may 'see the needs' for whatever their conscience tells them, most of the time they are being played upon..to 'feel' those needs..to solve problems that the previous set of 'problems' created in the first place!..and because the government can relax a law, here and there, to promote THEIR agenda...which of course, is for the profiteering of their business/owners, the corrupt financial sector.
Gosh, I hope that wasn't too hard to understand.
It's gotten to the point, under the veil of illusion and secrecy, that now the financial sector OWNS our government, and tells them what to implement...and the effects are being witnessed, by both sides, even if the guy you voted for is 'doing it to you'...and you can't really explain it away.....BUT, it's your 'party', so, whatever they tell you MUST be right!...............
........................until you get together with your FRIENDS, and compare notes:
The musicians on Mudcat....and though we may disagree, getting to a common denominator, as to 'Why' and 'What', Thank you for being there, so it ALL gets laid out.

Regards,

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Stu
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 05:16 AM

"So what is it good for?"

Sticking missiles into wedding parties and blowing the limbs off kids? The good news is, if they do blow the limbs off your kids you can get compensation, just like they do in Pakistan.

Y'all better get yer heads down over there!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 05:02 AM

Police drones have some life-saving ability, that's for sure. Infrared can locate missing people who have wandered off; report on fires and help firefighters determine the scope of what they face. They have many applications that could do much good. The opposite is also true. At present, Congress has not delineated the extent to which drones may be used inside the USA. Until that happens, the American people are talking through their collective arse when they offer assurances that they 'will not be used for illegal purposes' (contrary to the 'spirit' of the Fourth Amendment).

Military drones are not as inexpensive as some people have suggested. An article from Huff says that if one includes the infrastructure required to keep drones flying, they are 2 to 6 times more expensive than what they are intended to replace.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:48 AM

"THE DRONES IN USE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE SIMPLY CHEAPER REPLACEMENTS FOR OTHER, MORE EXPENSIVE TYPES OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AIRCRAFT!!!!!!!"

Maybe so, but the problem is they ain't replacing a damned thing. They are being added to the existing law enforcement aircraft presently in use.

Who has the money? Why the American tax payer has the money. The very existence of drones attests to that!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:44 AM

Don Firth: "For some strange reason I am reminded of an acquaintance who lives about a block away from my wife and I, and whom we have known for some decades."

Hmm, now I'm starting to understand your 'neighborhood'..interesting..
(Just couldn't let that one go by).

Bobert: "Yup... Put 'um in the veggie garden... The drones don't know pot from tomatoes..."

No, Bobert. When they are looking for those type of plant, they use a deal that picks up a different light emission, given off by the plants, that distinguishes them, uniquely....just thought I'd tell ya'....what are friends for?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:01 AM

For some strange reason I am reminded of an acquaintance who lives about a block away from my wife and I, and whom we have known for some decades.

She is all tooted up about drones—and she started on this about a year ago. "They"—are spying on her! She knows it! She has seen small drones hovering outside her window. And she KNOWS! THEY are ARE spying on her!

She spent some time in a mental hospital a few years back. Multiple personality disorder. Presumably she is currently "integrated," but from time to time and on certain subjects she is very paranoid. She can't offer any explanation as to who is spying on her, or why. But she's certain. She has SEEN these tiny "drones" hovering outside her window.

Well, during some seasons, Barbara and I see small objects hovering outside our windows. Actually, I've observed them closely. There is a garden outside our window. And a garden outside this woman's window.

Hummingbirds.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 11:55 PM

Thanks, Bobert, I appreciate that. I, too, consider us friends.

JtS, not so much. I regret that my POV makes you angry, but there it is. And there is this: Are you really so naive as to believe the authorities don't do anything that "the constitution and case law does not allow"? Who needs to "grow up" here?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 11:05 PM

Songwronger started this thread for 2 apparent reasons.

1. To crap on the President. Which is the reason that he starts most of his threads.

2. To display his ignorance of technology. A drone can't do anything a helicopter can't do and we have had those in our skies since the 50's

I guess it is more fashionable to transfer one's hysterical fantastical anti-government paranoia from "Black Helicopters" to "Drones" But I, for one am sick to death of it.

"
Being unmanned, a drone cannot be considered a cheaper replacement for, say, a rescue helicopter. So what is it good for? Surveillance, of course, for starters. We have been told, ever since Bush and his henchmen began taking away our liberties and civil rights in the aftermath of 9-11, that "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." That point of view is also despicable to me."

You are really pissing me off. Do you know what the police use helicopters for? NO? Then look it the fuck up before whining about it!!!

Yes it is for surveillance. The chase suspects with them when the suspects run!!!

Local law enforcement is not going to use them to randomly spy on people. Just as they don't use helicopters or unmarked patrol cars to do the same, because the constitution and case law does not allow it.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 10:34 PM

No, michaelr, I was not referring to you...

I get involved with a lot of folks every night at the Washington Post discussions so I hear the propaganda that is out there and I am addressing it... None of what I say is personalized... It is all about policies... If you felt you got caught in one of my rants, I am so very, very sorry...

You are my friend... I don't do friendly fire as a general rule... It happens now and then and when it does I am remorseful...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 10:23 PM

Well, Bobert, if you weren't referring to me when you said "these mentally ill hypocrites" then you don'te owe me an apology. But it sure seems you were calling someone names.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 09:29 PM

Oh sure - shoot straight up with your shotgun/rifle. Sure hope there isn't some kid standing where the shot/bullet comes back down. Happened 10 yards from me once - 15-year-old girl DOA.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:45 PM

Yup... Put 'um in the veggie garden... The drones don't know pot from tomatoes... Hide your Playboy magazines, too, er might find one hanging out every day over your house with some pervert at the controls...

Oh, and ya' gotta quit having sex in the backyard 'er you might end up on YouTube, courtesy of Barney Fife...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: bobad
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:35 PM

Gonna have to hide the pot plants.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:32 PM

I heard a one hour show on these things on NPR, wronger... The ones that the cops are using aren't flown all that "HIGH"... Okay, maybe you might not bring one down with a shotgun but Rap, and maybe me (I earned a sharpshooters ribbon back when my eyes were good) could take one down with a 30/30 and a decent scope...

But I agree... The entire idea of drones being used in fishing expeditions is definitely is "unlawful search"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:25 PM

I have a 12-gauge shotgun. I'm going to buy some goose shot for it so I can reach up HIGH to bring these things down. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reaffirms our right to be free of unreasonable searches (eye in the sky crap), and the Second Amendment reaffirms our right to own firearms. If I don't use the 2nd to protect the 4th, then I deserve to be a slave.

Oh, and I'll vote for the anti-war candidate in the upcoming presidential election.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:12 PM

I didn't do any name calling, michaelr... None...

But hey... We go back and are friends so if it takes an apology for something that I didn't do then...

...I am sorry...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 07:56 PM

Seems we have two different topics mixed up here. To wit:

1. Drones being used abroad to combat whomever the government says is a terrorist.

So, if no American lives are in danger, if it's just them brown-skinned foreigners dying, that makes it OK. Safer and cheaper. Sorry, but that point of view is despicable to me.

2. Drones being used inside the US for unknown purposes.

Being unmanned, a drone cannot be considered a cheaper replacement for, say, a rescue helicopter. So what is it good for? Surveillance, of course, for starters. We have been told, ever since Bush and his henchmen began taking away our liberties and civil rights in the aftermath of 9-11, that "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." That point of view is also despicable to me.

This is how I feel about the subject regardless of which party is in power or who is President.

Still waiting for an apology for the name-calling by Bobert and Jack.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 06:44 PM

Drones for monitoring seems far fetched. Fixed cams not so much. Employed in England from what I have read. Just the $ seem to say no.

However, as Ebbie has said, when used for specific purposes, they could be useful and save $. Arming them seems disturbing.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 06:31 PM

Jack the Sailor: "Deployed randomly? Who has money to deploy them randomly? Not any government in this country. That is for sure."

RIGHT JACK!!..Boy, you are coming ALIVE!!...Well, there is a trillion dollars unaccounted for, that I keep bringing up.....interesting to find out, how else they're planning on spending it, and for 'why' for 'whom'....certainly NOT for jobs, union or otherwise..not to feed the hungry caused by this mess...or 'health care'.....hmm....now what REALLY could be up their sleeves?.....and who is the behind it, to benefit who, or what?....YOU??...ME???...a Renaissance in musical culture?....I..D-o-o-o-n't think so.....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: bobad
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 05:58 PM

Predator drones are being used for patrolling the borders with Mexico and Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 05:50 PM

Subsidized to buzz around in the sky randomly looking for what? They can't do anything a helicopter can't do and they buzz around here all the time. Legally law enforcement using drones are subject to the same privacy and warrant requirements as any other cops.

Drones add nothing new. They are just, in principle at least, cheaper and safer.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 05:18 PM

I'm waitin' for Barney Fife to get one an' buzz around lookin' for Earnest T when Earnest sees the drone first and takes it out with his 12 guage pump shotgun....

You know that this stuff is gonna happen...

Going to get very interesting...

Me??? I think that unarmed drones being used for traffic control or following known criminals running from crime scenes is acceptable... Fishin' expeditions??? No, no, no... Unconstitutional...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 05:08 PM

What if their use by states or cities were subsidized?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 05:05 PM

Deployed randomly? Who has money to deploy them randomly? Not any government in this country. That is for sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 04:19 PM

I don't know how I feel about the possibility of drones over America itself. I can see the applicability of their use for specific purposes- Waco comes to mind - but the idea of their being deployed randomly or for monitoring the state of the Union is off-putting, to say the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Arkie
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 03:27 PM

Drones can be deadly. So far it seems the Obama administration has used them against sworn enemies of the country and not risked the lives of loyal American forces. I suppose those complaining prefer expensive and deadly engagements such as in Iraq and Afghanistan since those wars have helped us get rid some of the poorer elements of society, who if they were not off dying in wars would be at home applying for welfare. As for the so-called "Americans" killed by drones, I do find it interesting that terrorists are being defended here by the same folk who defended the invasions in the middle east. But drones have added another very dangerous element to the arsenal of violence. I will admit that if Romney, Rove, or the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona were pulling the strings, it would strike fear into my heart.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 02:52 PM

To the tune of "The Volga Boatman Song:"

Para-noi-a, para-noi-a. . . .

Ebbie, up thread, has the right of it. In times gone by, as you stood there on the battlefield sweating like a pig in your chain mail armor and surcoat, you had to look your adersary in the eyes before swinging your two-handed broadsword like a baseball bat and watching his head bounce on the ground and roll into the ditch while his body spurted blood all over you and toppled to the ground.

Later on, you could sit behind your Browning machine gun and hose a whole area, not seeing any individual enemies there, but knowing that you were killing and maiming them by the dozens.

But you didn't have to look them in the eyes first.

Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card wrote a novel some years ago called Ender's Game,, in which Ender Wiggins, a young whiz at computer games thinks he's engaging in yet another game, and (spoiler alert!) later learns that the game was for real, and that, when he won the game, as he usually did, he had actually wiped out the entire population of an alien planet. He didn't know that he had been trained to do exactly this. He didn't know as he played the game that the spacehips and missles he was controling--and the enemy--were actually real.

This lead to an excellent sequel, entitled Speaker for the Dead.

Progress. . . .      ???

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 11:31 AM

Jack, I agree with you. Spying on American citizens for any number of trumped up agendas, political or corporate, or both working together, from what is perceived as either side, is a direct threat to any freedom, or Democracy, we think we have left!

How far does this have to get, before some of you realize, that the concerns that I, and some others on here, have actually been in YOUR/OUR behalf?...but those who have been blinded by which 'party' is behind it..keep blinding each other, as to what is really going on?
As I've said before, the puppet masters are working through BOTH parties!...and this is a FACT...not some Tea Party crap, that I've been accused of.....and I'm NOT a member, nor particular supporter of the Tea Party, or ANY party....but the phoney rhetoric keeps coming.

Good post, Jack..thanks for pointing that out!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 11:27 AM

Cheaper, safer, quieter = Fasism????

That is interesting math right there.

Do you know that there is Hydrogen in water? The same stuff they explode in thermonuclear devices????


And drones!!!! Drones!!!!!???/

Male bees are drones!!! there are MILLIONS!!! MILLIONS of drones all over the world controlled not by pimply teenagers but by nothing more than instincts and their own savage animal nature!!!!

Did you know that bees have stingers????

MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DRONES ARMED WITH STINGER MISSILES!!!!!!

CALL OUT THE MALitias!! Michaelr is "concerned!!!!"

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 11:14 AM

"Yes, I am very concerned. Drones are probably the most evil and cowardly development in "conventional" warfare - at least to drop the atomic bomb an actual person had to fly over Japan. Fascism is here, folks. "

So a police department that swaps its multimillion dollar helicopter budget for some much cheaper, safer and quieter drones is cowardly and the same as nuking 200,000 people in Japan?

GROW UP!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 10:08 AM

Art imitates life.......or is it the other way around.......watch.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 09:33 AM

Guess no one was up to Googling up "military science"???

Tactics v. Strategies, folks, is what people are missing...

Is it better to use conventional tactics and fill the back of a C-5A with dead American kids or use the technology of the day to accomplish more with less collateral damage???

This thread isn't about war itself, people... It's about "military science" and weaponry...

Teribus, where ever you are, stick your head in here and straighten some folks out...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:42 AM

Bobbins: "These people are just Obama-haters, KKKers, Republicans, rich or whatever...
If McCain were doing it they'd love it..."

So, Obama does it and YOU love it????
If and when Romney does it, I guess you'd be loving it too???

Now they say it's to 'patrol the borders'.....isn't this contrary to their 'immigration' policy??

Shhhh, Quick!... Look the other way!!
..but I guess when the parties are dividing America, somebody has to have the 'upper hand'....so I guess the race is on???

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:28 AM

Songwronger: "Is anyone here concerned about this? Obama already has his secret "kill list" that he reviews daily, and he's already set the precedent of killing Americans with drones overseas, so do you really want Obamney adding YOUR NAME to the kill list?"

..and they chanted even louder:
""Four more years! four more years!..Yes we can, yeas we can!!...Hope and change hope and change! "Four more years! four more years!..Yes we can, yeas we can!!...Hope and change hope and change! "Four more years! four more years!..Yes we can, yeas we can!!...Hope and change hope and change! "Four more years! four more years!..Yes we can, yeas we can!!...Hope and change hope and change! "Four more years! four more years!..Yes we can, yeas we can!!...Hope and change hope and change!"

....and they keep thinking Obama is on the 'left'????
Does this policy, (along with others, NDAA etc. etc) represent you people who identify with the 'left'????
....and attack people who call this very thing to your attention...and call them 'right wingers'?...when my contention is, it's both parties, and both of them are corrupted, beyond what their followers THINK they are..............
.....but they just don't listen.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 04:53 AM

I am pacifistic (I would like to be peaceful but I'm not quite there yet). I think war is obscene; I think war will eventually be considered not only archaic but gauche.

I don't see the big difference - given the aims of war - between one weapon or another. We started out, no doubt, with choking each other with bare hands, progressed to spears, then arrows, then bullets (single ball, rammed into the barrel) then to the Gatling and indiscriminate bombs, then to hand guns and rifles, and military guns with sheets of rapid-fire bullets. Somewhere along the way we learned how to kill each other from shipboard from miles away. Then of course we refined our skills to the ultimate bomb that could kill hundreds of thousands of people at once.

So, a drone? Just another refinement.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Megan L
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 04:07 AM

Ach drat I thought the Americans had finally decided to learn real music and were comparin the drones on their bagpipes. Of course the bagpipes ar a WMD

















Weapon of Mass Deafness

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 03:59 AM

I read years ago on this forum, when I was bitchin' about the green 'eyes', that if you have nothing to hide then why worry.

Alfred, this is why.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: michaelr
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 02:10 AM

Military Science? Really? How could that pertain to operations within the US?

"We got our guns on you at all times. Feel really secure."

And you haven't explained the insults, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 12:53 AM

Drone = radio controlled airplane. Kids...and kid-like adults...have been flying them for years. About time they started using them for something useful.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 11:27 PM

The plot here is to Google up "Military Science" and learn the difference between "tactics" and "strategy"...

Once those basic concepts are in place then, and only then, can anyone express an educated opinion on drones...

Anything less is just noise...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 11:07 PM

So let me get this straight:

If I'm uncomfortable with the idea of unmanned aircraft, controlled by some pimply video-game jockey kid miles away, patrolling the sky over my head for god knows what (but probably secret) purpose, I am

a. An ANTISOCIAL ALARMIST UNPATRIOTIC AAAAAA HOLE

b. A mentally ill hypocrite

Which am I? Could I possibly be both? Can you explain why? Someone is losing the plot here.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 11:04 PM

The headline of one of the articles linked to in the opening post:

"Texas Sheriff's Department now equipped with armed robotic drone"

The only mention the article makes of the "armed" claim:

"In the future, the drone may carry weapons (it's designed to do so), but Gage says he sees no immediate need to equip it with any."

So which one is it? Are they "now equipped" or is it something that may happen "in the future"?


Wanna hear a new oxymoron? "Unbiased Web-based jouralism."

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 10:30 PM

Yup, Jack...

Now drink a cold Iron City Beer and leave these mentally ill hypocrites alone...

We know the deal here...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 10:20 PM

Bobert. It isn't anything we haven't been doing for years by other, similar if more expensive and riskier means.


It like being afraid of your wristwatch because it has a radium dial and well, H-Bombs are radioactive too!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 10:05 PM

Yup, JtS...

These people are just Obama-haters, KKKers, Republicans, rich or whatever...

If McCain were doing it they'd love it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Janie
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 10:02 PM

I don't spend much time worrying about the idea because worrying doesn't do anything but make me feel bad - but yes, I have concerns. Just like I have concerns about what it means that I can click on Google maps and see detailed, satellite images of my yard.

1984.

I don't think I can stop it. I don't think the full effects or implications will be felt in my life time, at least in North America. But it scares me if I stop and think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:57 PM

FUCKING GEEE HOSSS A PHAT!!!!!!!!!!

THE DRONES IN USE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE SIMPLY CHEAPER REPLACEMENTS FOR OTHER, MORE EXPENSIVE TYPES OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AIRCRAFT!!!!!!!

BESIDES THE FUCKING COST. and if it crashes you don't have to go to a fucking funeral >>>>>>> What is the fucking difference between watching border with drones or helicopters. People have been shot and missiles have been fired from manned aircraft too. SAME FUCKING THING!!!!!!

GROW THE FUCK UP!!!!!
YOU ANTISOCIAL ALARMIST UNPATRIOTIC AAAAAA HOLES!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:47 PM

I hate fuckin' war, LH... We ain't doing what we could - mostly because of stupid politics - to create peace...

I don't think that Dennis Kucinich's Department of Peace was a bad idea... It was a great idea... The military industrial complex jammed it and turned it into some ***joke***???

I hate drones... I also hate everything else that we do where people get killed ...

There are alternatives... Just not profitable for the "Masters of War" and they can destroy and president, Congressman or party that gets in the way of their % of out GNP...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:39 PM

If so, they are making the same mental error you are, Bobert, only from the opposite side of the partisan hall, that's all.

You both need seriously to get over it. Those things are evil no matter which party is in power and uses them...and they both do it for the very same coporatocracy.

The new American generation of Adolf and Benito in high places are soooo happy that you guys don't mind imperial murder when your own party does it. That's the ticket to maintaining public support, even if it's only lukewarm support...just keep half of the home crowd cheering for THEIR home team, and everything will be A-okay. If you can manipulate just half of the people at any one time, that's good enough to maintain control over all the people. Heck, they'll even volunteer to inform on and help arrest the other half if it comes to that.

I hated the drones when Bush used them. I hate the drones when Obama uses them. I'll hate them when the next stuffed shirt in the Oval Office uses them.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:15 PM

Yup, Gn-ze...

The folks who hate the drones hate them because Obama is using them... If John McCain were using them they would be doing high fives everytime one is successful...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:08 PM

"Give them jobs" What Jobs?

Maybe operatin' them drones and launching those Hellfires

Don't worry if a few Civvies get toasted, we just count all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

No Trial, no report to file.

No worry over old fashioned Habeas Corpus.

It's all part of the "Fog of War"

Note the eerie music by Philip Glass

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:06 PM

"probably the most evil and cowardly development in "conventional" warfare"

Well, it saves a pilot(s) from being in theatre. It provides multiple engagements by one pilot and far more. It's cheaper. What's not to like about death from afar over death from above? Death is death, no? Why not sterilize and sanitize it? Make it truly impersonable? After all, the politicians and the rich who control them are at arms length to those that die for their gain. Why not make it easier for the people that do their killing for them? Surely this is a win-win for the rich and for the poor that the rich pay to kill for them?

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 08:47 PM

This is one major reason why the US needs a comprehensive immigration policy... And soon... We are educating some every smart people who would love to stay here but can't...

Seems we are always reading about bad folks who got their education here in the US... Keep 'um... Give them jobs... Make them feel welcome... Don't send them back to messed up countries...

These people are the ones who will figure out how to defeat the computer programs that could possibly control drones...

The other problem with drones is that we can detect them and they really don't have the range that is needed to make a trip to the US... But that's in the future...

Keep the bright people, stupid...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 08:43 PM

Yes, I am very concerned. Drones are probably the most evil and cowardly development in "conventional" warfare - at least to drop the atomic bomb an actual person had to fly over Japan. Fascism is here, folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 08:36 PM

Stay inside. It worked for bin Laden for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Drones Over America
From: gnu
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 07:17 PM

NO! But, maybe yours.

Subject: BS: Drones Over America
From: Songwronger
Date: 19 Jun 12 - 07:03 PM

30,000 drone aircraft to be deployed across the U.S. by 2020:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/coming-to-a-sky-near-you/print/

People have no idea what's going on. They think they're UFOs:

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oG7kYJ_OBPNScAtGlXNyoA?p=drone%20ufo&fr2=sb-top&fr=yfp-t-701

Law enforcement agencies are being lobbied to buy the drones:

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/2234/728/Smile..html

Cops are already talking about arming the things, for use against U.S. citizens.

http://www.tecca.com/news/2011/11/01/texas-sheriff-department-robotic-drone/

Is anyone here concerned about this? Obama already has his secret "kill list" that he reviews daily, and he's already set the precedent of killing Americans with drones overseas, so do you really want Obamney adding YOUR NAME to the kill list?