Can you smell the police state coming? Just when I think the attack on our rights and privacy couldn’t get any worse, another entirely unbelievable threat shows up on the horizon. The House and Senate have recently voted for the passage of a bill (H.R. 658) that will allow the use of surveillance drones to spy on American citizens. But hold on… it gets worse. In addition to surveillance cameras, these drones will reportedly be equipped with shotgun tasers, so they can shoot and disable you right where you stand before you even know what’s coming!
Since unmanned drones have already been proven so effective in the summary executions of American citizens who were suspected of having connections to crimes of terror (one of whom was a teenager), and since all American citizens are now considered “guilty until proven innocent” under NDAA, what’s to stop them from arming drones with rockets or machine guns?
Rep. Ron Paul:
“If the American people accept this blindly and casually, that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys. I think it’s sad,” Paul told reporters after a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“Al-Awlaki was born here, he’s an American citizen, he was never tried or charged for any crimes,” Paul said. “To start assassinating American citizens without charges – we should think very seriously about this.”
It might be easy to dismiss the concern of flying drones tasing or gunning down Americans in the streets as paranoid, knee-jerk alarmism, but it’s hard to tell what is these days. If someone had warned me about the Patriot Act or NDAA back in 2000, I would have thought those things could never happen in America either. And even if these drones are to be unarmed (which, I frankly doubt), just the fact that another layer is being added to the Big-Brother surveillance grid should be enough to cause great concern.
American Civil Liberties Union:
“Unfortunately, nothing in the bill would address the very serious privacy issues raised by drone aircraft. This bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected.”
And let us not forget general safety considerations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has strict restrictions against domestic deployment of unmanned drones in U.S. air space for a good reason – the safety risk that comes with filling the sky with flying robots!
In case you don’t know, they tend to crash a lot more frequently than commercial aircraft.
Here’s the details about what the bill would do:
- Require the FAA to simplify and speed up the process by which it issues permission to government agencies to operate drones. It must do this within 90 days. The FAA has already been working on a set of proposed regulations to loosen the rules around drones, reportedly set for release in the spring of 2012.
- Require the FAA to allow “a government public safety agency” to operate any drone weighing 4.4 pounds or less as long as certain conditions are met (within line of sight, during the day, below 400 feet in altitude, and only in safe categories of airspace).
- Require the FAA to establish a pilot project within six months to create six test zones for integrating drones “into the national airspace system.”
- Require the FAA to create a comprehensive plan “to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.” “Civil” drones means those operated by the private sector; currently it is all but impossible for any non-government entity, except for hobbyists, to get permission to fly drones (for-profit use of drones is banned). Industry groups and their congressional supporters see this as a potential area for growth. Congress specifies that the plan must provide for the integration of drones into the national airspace system “as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015.” The FAA has nine months to create the plan. The FAA is also required to create a “5-year roadmap for the introduction” of civil drones into the national airspace.
- Require the FAA to publish a final rule within 18 months after the comprehensive plan is submitted, “that will allow” civil operation of small (under 55 pounds) drones in the national airspace, and a proposed rule for carrying out the comprehensive plan.
Here’s a list of the Senators who voted for this bill. See if your state’s legislators think the government should be allowed to spy on you from the sky.
From www.Senate.gov
Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
John Boozman (R-AR)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Scott Brown (R-MA)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Dan Coats (R-IN)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Chris Coons (D-DE)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Charles Grassley (R-IA)
Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Dean Heller (R-NV)
John Hoeven (R-ND)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Dan Inouye (D-HI)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Herbert Kohl (D-WI)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Joe Lieberman (ID-CT)
Dick Lugar (R-IN)
Joe Manchin (D-WV)
John McCain (R-AZ)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Jerry Moran (R-KS)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Rob Portman (R-OH)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
John Reed (D-RI)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Marco Rubio (R-FL)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
John Thune (R-SD)
Pat Toomey (R-PA)
Mark Udall (D-CO)
Tom Udall (D-NM)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Jim Webb (D-VA)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
To read more, go to: http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/report-protecting-privacy-aerial-surveillance-recommendations-government-use
