Armed drones now flying over the US

Originally posted by tkwasny
You all know that state and local police and federal agents carry weapons, right? There is little difference between an armed federal agent, or group, mixing in a crowd and an armed drone flying over that same crowd. It's a squad car without wheels. Very much like what roams freely through our neighborhoods for decades now.

Your squad cars aren't armed with hellfire missiles. That's more than a little difference.

What would be the charge for shooting it down? Is it even illegal? Can someone that knows about the law maybe clarify this?

It seems this would fall under Federal law.

Also, any ideas on how to take one down? Maybe fly a large radio controlled plane into one?


This might catch one.....



ETA: All you gotta do is hit the propeller on the drone.
-Alien

Originally posted by satron
Shoot it down!

edit on 15-5-2012 by satron because: (no reason given)

Soon a new American hero will emerge .. Well according Fox news.....

www.freerepublic.com...

Originally posted by thoiter

Originally posted by tkwasny
You all know that state and local police and federal agents carry weapons, right? There is little difference between an armed federal agent, or group, mixing in a crowd and an armed drone flying over that same crowd. It's a squad car without wheels. Very much like what roams freely through our neighborhoods for decades now.

Your squad cars aren't armed with hellfire missiles. That's more than a little difference.

Hellfire missiles or machine gun mounted drones, there is always the human factor. Humans can use their judgement vs drones where they dont have a brain but definitely a human operator sitting in a chair few miles away. However the chances of it being hacked and used are high too in addition to mals). After all, its a human made mechanical object.

reply to post by hp1229


Sorry to say we cannot post or link to petitions even if there were one.
I do believe it's a tremendous waste of resources at a time when things are really tight.

I do understand the need for drone surveillance, there is a legitimate need for such a platform though sadly privacy rights will take an awful blow.
I think we can all agree that 10's of thousands of these is way overboard and misuse of taxpayer funds.

Robocop wasn't such a far-fetched idea for a movie after all.

reply to post by Alien Abduct


That brings up a good question as per how the law(s) will be changed for owning/operating a RC plane Or how would it affect the manufacturers of the RC planes They just might ban the high speed and moderately high flying capable RC Planes. I have been to RC plane event and there are almost drone sized RC planes which can easily be used as personal drones

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
reply to post by hp1229

 

Sorry to say we cannot post or link to petitions even if there were one.
I do believe it's a tremendous waste of resources at a time when things are really tight.

I do understand the need for drone surveillance, there is a legitimate need for such a platform though sadly privacy rights will take an awful blow.
I think we can all agree that 10's of thousands of these is way overboard and misuse of taxpayer funds.

Robocop wasn't such a far-fetched idea for a movie after all.

Concur. Is ATS allowed to send a link to all the members via email?

I believe they should use the ones strictly manufactured for surveillance (which there are plenty different cheaper versions) and not weapons based drones for the most part. The number of drones should also be dropped and should be used in troubled hot spots only. Who the hell even lives in some of the remote areas of few states where the land is about 20 bucks an acre? Its an overkill for such zones. Moreoever the useage should also be mandated to special events and/or disasters (human made and/or natural).

reply to post by Alien Abduct


Thanks for the clip, wow, that little jet was fast!!!

As far as taking them out goes, I would think making some type of signal scrambler/interference would be possible. Screw up the control signal and the things would drop like bricks. Hopefully not on someones head though im sure they're pretty secure signal wise, but America has lots of brilliant folks who could figure something out.

Oh great, all we need is bigger bugs that pack a mean wallop. If we can't shoot them is it all right to spray them with Wasp and hornet spray if they start to bug us? I'll soup up one of those electronic pest repellant things that people use to keep neighborhood kids away. If I run it through an amplifier and blast them with that maybe they will stay afar. I suppose noone will come around anymore though since I will be acting nuts.

reply to post by 2ndFUTURE


That's pretty much proof that either NATO or Israel is using drones against the Syrian government. I couldn't tell if it was dropping ordinance or just being used for surveillance but we can be sure that this is not something in the Syrian government arsenal.
Which means these people aren't really so much "rebels" as insurgents receiving aid from outside.

use a 3d printer and build your own army of drones
feds might have to think it over when they discover they can't jam yours

especially if you have multiple means of controlling them
like whistles
modified semaphore hand signals
infrared
brainwaves?

diydrones.com...

Build yourself a Drone NOW (before they become illegal)


Francis Fukuyama isn't your standard tech guy. He's a policy guy at Stanford that writes hefty books on very philosophical topics. That's why his detailed blog post on his efforts to build a surveillance drone are so cool. Here's a little video of the test of his drone outside of his office at Stanford. youtu.be...

Fukuyama

Francis makes two simple observations that are worth repeating. Here's the first one:

"I don’t have to spell out the implications of this. I want to have my drone before the government makes them illegal."

The Inevitable Ban on Drone Tech

I agree with Francis, it's pretty clear that drones will become illegal sooner than later. Let me run through a scenario for you. I'm going to have some fun with it:

The ban will likely start by closing down the drone flight amateur loophole -- under 400ft, line of site, away from built up areas (which Francis obviously violated with his test flight). You will need a license to fly even small drones. Commercial licenses will be very restrictive (right now it's illegal to take pictures from a drone for commercial purposes).

However, that's not going to last. There will be too many violations as people build and use drones without regard to the legal restrictions. It will then be made illegal to own a drone w/o a very restrictive license.

Of course, that won't last long either. People will continue to build and use them using generic parts. This technology will prove way to useful and too easy to access. At that point, like we have seen recently with efforts to put limits on general purpose computing (ACTA, SOPA, etc.), we are going to see the following:

Bans on general purpose robotic technology from hardware to software.
Controls on general purpose fabrication technology (since parts can be made with these technologies). There will be lots of support from commercial patent and copyright holders for government bans on 3D fabrication.
Controls on people that know how to build drones. Dangerous people must be tracked and monitored (I had a physics teacher once who designed nuclear bombs, he couldn't travel more than 50 miles w/o government authorization -- it would be much easier to do that for many more people now using modern tech).

Now, all of these steps will accelerate to the end point if a single terrorist incident is based on drone tech.

So, what should you do?

Build yourself a drone. Before they are made illegal.

stop fearing gizmos and tech and build your own stuff

homemade rail gun

diy emp
www.dhbolton.com...

They are just setting up the pieces to their PRE-PLANNED Grid work. They need things in place before they make their move. Thats my total guess, but the U.S. has its habits and they always move to preset the stage for wht they know is coming. They do it in wartime aswell. I seen somewhere that they have 30,000 of these? You dont need that many for the Chicago convention. Something is not right here!

Holy crap! I'm In Kane county and saw one that looked like that this morning! It thought it was odd. The only way I can describe it is. Like.
It didnt have a "tail"
There was no part that extended past the wings on the end

It almost looked like a plane flying backwards.
I have a video as well I'll try and upload.
But I use my iPhone so I couldnt zoom


I was trying to get videos of all the the low flying planes I've been seeing and then that thing flew over my car, you can hear me say "and I don't even know what kind of #ing plane that is." xD

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Where does the need for surveillance drones end? I mean it is not impossible to imagine smaller drones being invented, that can look through your windows and follow you around. These security measures are not a passing fad, they allow a precedent for just more intrusive security measures.

I don't believe there is a need for surveillance drones. Maybe in a war scenario, but there should be no need for this in a civilised society.

It has a Panopticon effect.

The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by hp1229


But everyone will think those RC planes are government drones and nobody will even complain. Perfect time to build one now. Retrofit it with RC paintball guns and chase people around.

Fake.

That looks like a Predator drone. Predator drones do NOT fly that low to the ground.

Op
If you follow the youtube link and read the comments you will see that it has been reported as fake.

reply to post by Alien Abduct


That little jet was just awesome. Maybe equip it with some type of EMP burst

Maybe that video is fake, the the planes are not. I saw one this morning before work. I'll try to post it. There have been planes (commercial, jet, and smaller ones (I'm guessing air force)) flying low around here. I'm right by Elgin il. And I can tell you that I have NEVER seen this much air traffic before

I honestly just sit outside in my car and smoke a cigarette and watch them fly over.
Now that my phone is fixed I'll try to get more videos.