Sunday, May 19, 2013

Drones Over the Homeland: From Border Security to National Security

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it is the "leading edge" of drone deployment in the United States. Since 2005, DHS has been purchasing Predator drones - officially called unmanned aerial systems (UAS) - to "secure the border," yet these unarmed Predator drones are also steadily creeping into local law enforcement, international drug-interdiction and national security missions - including across the border into the heart of Mexico. DHS will likely double its drone contingent to two dozen unmanned UAS produced by General Atomics as part of the border security component of any immigration reform. The prominence of border security in immigration reform can't be missed. The leading reform proposal, offered by eight US senators, is the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 - which proposes to spend $6.5 billion in additional "border security" measures, mostly high-tech surveillance by drones and ground surveillance systems. Most of the concern about the domestic deployment of drones by DHS has focused on the crossover to law-enforcement missions that threaten privacy and civil rights, and that, without more regulations in place, the program will accelerate the transition to what critics call a "surveillance society." Also alarming is the mission creep of border drones, managed by the DHS' Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency with increasing interface between border drones, international drug interdiction operations and other military-directed national security missions...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've talked about this stuff with friends online since about 8 years ago when (expensive then, dirt-cheap today) remote flying cam tech was easy to get. My first prediction (oughta be the first *anyone* predicts) was pervs doing porn-shoots at bedroom windows, and online presentations of the product. Some of that stuff onlne today, but lots more with each passing week.

Today (as then, but vastly cheaper), it's possible with exactly the same technology to detonate a kilo of RDX within 10 yards of its target. If it's 20 kilos you've got available, you can kill everything within 50 yards of your target with 20-yard accuracy.

Do the math... and don't forget there are 300 million possible-pervs with the same technology available at Wal-Mart.