President Can Use Drone Strikes Against Americans on U.S. Soil

[mikegideon]

The 118th Airlift Wing's based out of Nashville has had its mission has changed to include MQ-9 Reapers.  They're replacing the C-130s.

 

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/08/ap-tennessee-air-national-guards-118th-airlift-wing-mission-includes-drones-uavs-083012/

 

I didn't know it was published info. I knew it wasn't a big secret either. I heard it from one of the TEMA guys a couple months ago. I haven't looked to see if the 130's are gone yet.

Edited March 7, 2013 by mikegideon

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That's sad to hear. Long way from a foreign target for a drone. Or am I misunderstanding?

[scoutfsu]

You're misunderstanding.  They pilot these things for strikes from thousands of miles away.  For the planes locally, how do you think they get their training?

Edited March 7, 2013 by scoutfsu

[Grunt67]

Clinton & Reno didn't need drones for Ruby Ridge & Waco.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I figured as much. I knew the piloting thing, just didn't think about the training.

[MacGyver]

That's sad to hear. Long way from a foreign target for a drone. Or am I misunderstanding?

Seeing a lot of the tech as it's developed, I think we're at the very edge of a new era.

 

When it comes to drones, there are a lot of hard questions that need to be asked.  I applaud Paul, Cruz and Wyden for asking a question publically.  I hope they keep the pressure on the administration.

 

You can't stop innovation (though the government has done a huge amount since September 11, 2001 to discourage it).  As an engineer, I live to innovate.  New technology, new processes and new value are exciting to me.  But, technology always has to be balanced with morality.  And, morality evolves a lot more slowly than technology. 

 

Our law enforcement agencies are already chomping a the bit to employ drones.  Law enforcement here in Middle Tennessee can't wait to turn them loose.  And it should be noted that drones won't be used solely by the government.  Private companies are looking to use them as well.  Note that the article I referenced above talks about air guardsmen using their new skills in the private space.

 

The questions surrounding drone use are hard questions.  We need to wrestle with them.  It's important for us as humanity. 

 

It's not like this is a particularly new debate, though.  Call Captain Kirk a prophet before his time.  From A Taste of Armageddon:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKmUd0zHW4w

[Romad7]

Not for nuthin', but "most" isn't that comforting a word in this case. 

 

If it makes you feel any better the rest (not counting new pilots straight out of school) are also seasoned military pilots.  Airlift, tanker, helos, etc.

 

The professionalism and competency of the armed UAV crews is on the same level as any other attack platform.  

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Clinton & Reno didn't need drones for Ruby Ridge & Waco.

All they needed were idiots trained in the use of deadly force, and one or two egotistical criminal federal agents-in-charge.

Just imagine if they had drones.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Seeing a lot of the tech as it's developed, I think we're at the very edge of a new era.

 

When it comes to drones, there are a lot of hard questions that need to be asked.  I applaud Paul, Cruz and Wyden for asking a question publically.  I hope they keep the pressure on the administration.

 

You can't stop innovation (though the government has done a huge amount since September 11, 2001 to discourage it).  As an engineer, I live to innovate.  New technology, new processes and new value are exciting to me.  But, technology always has to be balanced with morality.  And, morality evolves a lot more slowly than technology. 

 

Our law enforcement agencies are already chomping a the bit to employ drones.  Law enforcement here in Middle Tennessee can't wait to turn them loose.  And it should be noted that drones won't be used solely by the government.  Private companies are looking to use them as well.  Note that the article I referenced above talks about air guardsmen using their new skills in the private space.

 

The questions surrounding drone use are hard questions.  We need to wrestle with them.  It's important for us as humanity. 

 

It's not like this is a particularly new debate, though.  Call Captain Kirk a prophet before his time.  From A Taste of Armageddon:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKmUd0zHW4w

I agree with you. My problem with the use of the technology is when it gets in the wrong hands, and that is terribly

close to home, nowadays. That element of trust is just about used up.

[gun sane]

It's interesting what this ex-Navy captain has to say:  "Why do we need them?"  Pick it up one minute in to the video.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/americas-newsroom/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2207180216001/sen-slams-holders-refusal-to-rule-out-us-drone-strikes/?playlist_id=86909

[MacGyver]

I agree with you. My problem with the use of the technology is when it gets in the wrong hands, and that is terribly

close to home, nowadays. That element of trust is just about used up.

Agreed.  And, just to be clear I would have the same problem with this if Mitt Romney had won the election. 

 

When you start with the proposition, as I do, that as a general rule our federal government is incapable of creating value - then they must continue to draw their power from somewhere.  At some point, they will either result to taking it wholesale from a free people, or taking it in parts by criminalizing behaviors of groups they don't like.

 

You can't put Pandora back in the box.  We're going to see the use of drones over civilian airspace - even though I think there are some interesting Posse Comitatus questions there.  The problem I have with it is that it simply knocks down one more barrier to having armed drones overhead.

 

It's not like you really need a drone to keep up with most people, though .  If the government decided they wanted a person gone, most phones these days would get a JDAM within a few meters...

[MacGyver]

Just to add some clarity onto why we need 30-round magazines - these things are going to be damn hard to kill when the turn them on us ;)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp89tTDxXuI&feature=player_embedded

 

 

 

Imagine just dumping these over a battlefield - a drone equipped take on leaflet bombing.  Picture these equipped with pneumatically fired nerve darts or similar.  They're all talking to each other, and are coming for you...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk

[TMF]

Good thing our government doesn't have weapons capable of destroying whole cities, or guided munitions that can be fired from hundreds of miles away, or manned aircraft that can deliver precision guided munitions of every sort... good thing, it would be scary if they had THAT kinda stuff at their disposal.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Just to add some clarity onto why we need 30-round magazines - these things are going to be damn hard to kill when the turn them on us ;)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp89tTDxXuI&feature=player_embedded

 

 

 

Imagine just dumping these over a battlefield - a drone equipped take on leaflet bombing.  Picture these equipped with pneumatically fired nerve darts or similar.  They're all talking to each other, and are coming for you...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lCUGPixEnk

 

On the first video the fella mentions the system re-computing the position/trajectory 60 times per second. If that is true, even with control interpolation between updates, that seems "on the surface" surprisingly good real time performance at such a slow update rate? Perhaps the nature of the physical system (craft inertia, air resistance, time-delay of motor speed modulation, etc) is the only interpolation necessary. But with progressively smaller/more responsive devices, interpolation would seem necessary at some point?

 

Ad-hoc networks of small passive surveillance devices would also seem a fertile application, from military perimeter defense, down thru law enforcement surveillance, commercial or private snooping, home security, even game tracking. Small camera/sound sensors the size of marbles or smaller scattered over an area. Short-distance networking between devices, and your receiver/monitor picks off data from the farthest devices (out of radio range) passed via network thru the intermediate-distance and close-distance sensors. Add a small explosive or poison-gas-release to each "smart marble" for more active defense or even to "assist an assault"?

 

High-flying (or low flying) long-flight-time google bots (or real estate agent bots, or snoopy neighbor bots, or burglar bots) would be just as onerous a problem as law enforcement, epa, or irs bots?

 

Maybe some ad-hoc nets could use optical com, but that would seem too limiting? The com would break too often, under too many real world conditions? Some kind of RF networking most likely, or are there other alternatives? Though vastly illegal with the FCC, defense against a bot-net attack would most likely be RF jamming good enough to mess up the net communications?

 

I'm not very imaginative, but trying to imagine how a bot-net ruby ridge might play out-- Assume some of the same conditions as the original-- Gov entrapment + court screwups leave incompetent government agents believing that Randy Weaver is an "at large criminal" and Randy knowing nothing of the sort, and being a reclusive private grumpy quasi-paranoid sort of fella.

 

Randy's son is out with the dawg and encounters a flock of incompetently-positioned surveillance mini-drones on the property. Either assume "old tech" and Randy's son takes out the mini-drones with a shotgun, or "new tech" he takes em out with RF attack. Though the incursion bots are zapped on Randy's property, he is now on the hook for destruction of gov property and maybe "resisting legal surveillance" and "illegal radio interference" in addition to "resisting arrest". With agents as brain-dead as the ones at Ruby Ridge, how does it escalate from there? At least at that point nobody is dead, so they aren't yet going after a cop killer, merely a bot-killer. If the standoff lasts awhile, I suppose after awhile Randy would also be plagued by swarms of google-bots, CNN-bots, FoxNews-bots, and White Aryan Resistance bots (his buddies "helping out").

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Good thing our government doesn't have weapons capable of destroying whole cities, or guided munitions that can be fired from hundreds of miles away, or manned aircraft that can deliver precision guided munitions of every sort... good thing, it would be scary if they had THAT kinda stuff at their disposal.

It's also a good thing that the military is barred from firing on American citizens on American soil, or, at least that's

the way it used to be.

[Guest sculpinyakker]

How far into the atmosphere do property rights go in tn?

[c.a.willard]

for air rights see United States v. Causby

 

 

Also on the topic of drone strikes the justice department has released a second memo in response to a follow up question from paul.  In the secod memo the question asked was if it the president could use a drone strike on a US citizen not engaged in combat against the united states.  The answer was a simple no. 

[Guest 6.8 AR]

How long did it take for Justice to get him that memo? Was it a response to the filibuster?

[Guest sculpinyakker]

Thanks c.a.willard!

Sounds like property rights extend as far as a bullet may fly! (ha ha. probably not tho)

[Grunt67]

All they needed were idiots trained in the use of deadly force, and one or two egotistical criminal federal agents-in-charge.

Just imagine if they had drones.

 

 Exactly!

[c.a.willard]

the memo was dated today

[Kalel]

With the history of the use of force by the federal government at Waco and Ruby Ridge, I will never trust

our federal government until they admit they were wrong, and you and I know that will never happen. That's

a bad enough precedence set for me.

Amen

[Guest 6.8 AR]

the memo was dated today

Yeh, I found it, in response to the filibuster.

 

Sometimes good things come from actions by patriots. If Sen. Paul hadn't done it, you and I probably would

have never seen that memo.

[Guest nra37922]

Let just one very good hacker or some group like Anonymous hijack the signal and take over a drone, much less an armed one.  

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Now, there's a thought.