Air Force Drones Trail Civilian Auto Traffic in New Mexico

[plank white]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/usaf-drones-trail-civilian-auto-traffic-in-new-mexico/259517/

"Some may shrug and say that the undisclosed high-altitude tracking of US vehicles for training purposes is harmless, but the line between civilian privacy and an increasingly Orwellian capacity of the U.S. federal government to track its own citizens is blurred just a bit more by this practice."

Yes, I would say so.

[Guest BungieCord]

Excellent idea. Let's borrow another $20 billion from the Chinese to build MilSpec UAV training simulators so their operators can stop using free and readily available training aids.

[BrasilNuts]

Excellent idea. Let's borrow another $20 billion from the Chinese to build MilSpec UAV training simulators so their operators can stop using free and readily available training aids.

Yeah, that would be the obvious answer.

Here is a less obvious answer.... in the article itself, no less.

"This should not be happening. There should be controls on what the U.S. Air Force can target. The Department of Defense has no shortage of vehicles, enormous swaths of federal land for their own staff to traverse.

If Air Force video pilots need to train by tracking something from the air, they should target soldiers in their ranks."

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I think it's getting terribly close to turning the military on the civilian populace. The natural progression

of a government is to grow and control, not right, but that's why we should fight continually for our freedom.

It will always be an incremental game and some people will always let it slide until it hits bottom. Just remember

the militarization of police forces. Same thing and for the same reasons it is wrong.

When are we going to say "stop!"?

[DaveTN]

More tin foil hattery that really is no concern. We need to use all available resources we have. It’s time to repeal Posse Comitatus and use the military when they are available to help protect or borders or other law enforcement when needed. The idea that our military is going to be used against the civilian populace is non-sense.

[RobertNashville]

Many times when I read info like this I think “so whatâ€.

It’s not that I’m not concerned, even outraged at the amount of government intrusion and potential intrusion into our lives; it’s just that I believe that the ability of the government, through technology, to monitor just about anything we do or say is so pervasive that any one example such as drones overhead just doesn’t, by itself, get me that excited anymore…I think we completely lost the ability to lead truly private lives a long time ago. What we know the government could do 20 or 30 years ago is enough to turn your hair grey (if you still have hair); what they can do today that we don’t even have access to know would probably simply cause us to get out the tin foil and go live in a spider hole.

Although not the only encroachment, the Patriot Act dealt a serious blow to our rights; Obamacare if it’s allowed to continue will pretty much be the final nail in the coffin. I looked at some of the record keeping and reporting requirements of Obamacare for a health informatics Master’s level class I just finished a few weeks ago and when it comes to privacy; we’re screwed.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

More tin foil hattery that really is no concern. We need to use all available resources we have. It’s time to repeal Posse Comitatus and use the military when they are available to help protect or borders or other law enforcement when needed. The idea that our military is going to be used against the civilian populace is non-sense.

May be, but every little encroachment adds up. I don't consider that tin foil hattery. You can say nonsense until

it becomes nonsense to say otherwise.

I imagine the Germans said "nonsense" while Hitler was accumulating and consolidating power. But forget history.

[RobertNashville]

May be, but every little encroachment adds up. I don't consider that tin foil hattery. You can say nonsense until

it becomes nonsense to say otherwise.

I imagine the Germans said "nonsense" while Hitler was accumulating and consolidating power. But forget history.

I agree.

the phrase "It Can Never Happen Here" is a very dangerous mantra - I suppose part of the reason why it's dangerous is that the when we starting thinking that way we tend to stop looking at what should be obvious signs that it's getting ready to happen to us.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Many times when I read info like this I think “so whatâ€.

It’s not that I’m not concerned, even outraged at the amount of government intrusion and potential intrusion into our lives; it’s just that I believe that the ability of the government, through technology, to monitor just about anything we do or say is so pervasive that any one example such as drones overhead just doesn’t, by itself, get me that excited anymore…I think we completely lost the ability to lead truly private lives a long time ago. What we know the government could do 20 or 30 years ago is enough to turn your hair grey (if you still have hair); what they can do today that we don’t even have access to know would probably simply cause us to get out the tin foil and go live in a spider hole.

Although not the only encroachment, the Patriot Act dealt a serious blow to our rights; Obamacare if it’s allowed to continue will pretty much be the final nail in the coffin. I looked at some of the record keeping and reporting requirements of Obamacare for a health informatics Master’s level class I just finished a few weeks ago and when it comes to privacy; we’re screwed.

That's why I think the Patriot Act should be nullified/ repealed the same time as Obamacare. That would just be a start.

[TMF]

Let me know when the drones have hellfires on them.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Ouch!

[RobertNashville]

Let me know when the drones have hellfires on them.

Now, why would we bother to do that? If they've got them and they use them we're toast; literally.

Unless of course you have a hardened bunker capable of surviving a hellfire you can get to into which case, if we let you know are you going to let us in there with you?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

It is wasteful of resources training human drone pilots. Too slow to learn and too error-prone. In the interests of accuracy and economy, put them under control of SkyNet.

Long ago was talking to an old guy who claimed to have been a pilot either Korea or early VietNam, can't recall which. Never can tell who is full of BS but his tales didn't sound outlandish. Was saying in training they would take off from FL and practice bombing New Orleans, among others.