Unmanned Aerial Drones Coming Soon Above U.S.

cnet-declan writes "Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been flying over Iraq and Afghanistan, but now the Bush administration wants to use them for domestic surveillance. A top Homeland Security official told Congress today, according to this CNET News.com article, that: "We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United States territory." One county in North Carolina is already using UAVs to monitor public gatherings. But what happens when lots of relatively dumb drones have to share airspace with aircraft carrying passengers? A pilot's association is worried."

Israel does this already...

At major events in Israel, they already use unmanned blimps to monitor it from a distance. If they can keep it out of commericial airspace, it shouldn't be a problem.

Re:Israel does this already...

...and NASA plans to do it too for terrain mapping purposes (presumably within US borders):

http://esto.nasa.gov/obs_technologies_uavsar.html [nasa.gov]

UAVs are something we're going to have to get used to. Up next: pilotless passenger planes. Most modern aircraft are already equipped with auto-takeoff, auto-pilot (cruise), and auto-land. What more do you need? The ability to control them from the ground? That's being worked on for security reasons.

-Oliver / TreasureTunes.com [treasuretunes.com]

Shouldn't be a problem?!?

Shouldn't be a problem for who?

Are they armed? How long until they are?

Re:Israel does this already...

Israel does not have the Bill of Rights. It does have borders completely surrounded by hostile neighbors, including daily rocket attacks and suicide bombs, many originating within its territory.

Israel has lots of unamerican "problems", like a state religion and the draft. We don't want those things here.

UAVs vastly superior to blimps

Unmaned blimps are far more fuel efficient than unmaned planes. Plus they can stay airborne for more time. Why don't they use blimps all along ?

Because you can't reroute blimps to get a closer look at something very easily.

Funny this article gets posted while I'm in the middle of writing a proposal for follow-on funding on my research into UAV control algorithms...

Endurance is a concern. Collision avoidance is a concern. But UAVs offer incredible surveillance opportunities that stationary sensors just can't match.

• First, blimps are pretty damn obvious. Small UAVs (SUAVs) aren't nearly as noticable so there's the ability to conduct covert surveillance. Very useful if you're using the videofeed from an SUAV to direct police to intruders.
• UAVs can be rerouted to obtain favorable viewing geometries. Suspect went around the corner so you lose clear line of sight? Just move the sensor to another position. Same with obscuration due to smoke, fog, etc. UAVs give you the ability to pick your line of sight.
• While SUAVs can be used for covert surveillance, they can also be used to make it very obvious to a vandal or other petty criminal that they are being observed. Want to scare off the suspect? Just have the UAV follow him really conspicuously. Eventually he'll hear the motor of the plane and notice this thing is tailing him.
• SUAVs are reasonably cheap, too. Some of these models are little more than model aircraft with sensors glued onto them.

I could go on and on but I need to get back to writing my UAV proposal. UAVs are one of the hottest military technologies these days. It's not surprising that the commercial and civilian sector is starting to take a look at how these maturing drones can be used to solve their problems.

GMD

Re:UAVs vastly superior to blimps

Take your pistol, shoot it down and wait and see who will come after you to you arrest you for shooting down their drone.

Even better! Build you own drones to fight the drones that stalk you or build a EMP emmiting device and watch these suckers drop from the skies like frozen turkeys.

Well you know that old saying

Boil a frog slowly...

My new sig seems even more appropriate than usual.

Re:Well you know that old saying

Place a frog in a pan of cold water. He doesn't hop out.
Place a frog in a pan of boiling hot water. He immeadiately hops out.
Place a frog in a pan of cold water, and slowly raise the temperature to boiling. He remains in the pan until being boiled to death.

Place a person in a peaceful, law-abiding (gov. & civilian) society. He doesn't speak out.
Place a person in a totalitarian nightmare. He fights back.
Place a person in a law-abiding society and slowly remove his civil rights bit by bit. He doesn't fight back because "it doesn't affect me" until he is living in a totalitarian nightmare with no rights and no one to back him up.

Re:Well you know that old saying

This is an urban myth [snopes.com], but I get your point.

huzzah

hail skynet.

what happens?

But what happens when lots of relatively dumb drones have to share airspace with aircraft carrying passengers? Hilarity ensues...

"Security" makes it all OK?

First it was the domestic wiretap issue; the administration not only didn't deny doing it, they flat-out flaunted it. Now they want to put unmanned drones in the air to watch God-knows-what. There's no longer even a pretense, a facade, even the slightest attempt to hide the surveillance society.

I thought that actions like appropriating the military for civilian law enforcement, spying on US citizens within the US, etc. were illegal. Why doesn't anyone seem to give a shit anymore?

Everybody is blinded

Everybody is blinded by the media and by schools. Teachers are threatened by the government, and are forced to spread the propaganda to our children, and it is even starting to happen in Universities. Patriotism is being turned into extremism. History teachers and professors know about it, people who read the news from free media outlets such as this one know about it, but the masses cannot even fathom the idea that our government is corrupt and are fixated into this mindset that if a superior (President, Media, Retail Salesman) tells them something, that they must obey and follow. Any out-speak or saying different to them is seen as uncivilized and outrageous.

Re:"Security" makes it all OK?

Well from the perspective of most people outside the U.S.A., Americans seem to be happy with a powerful, corrupt government controlled by corporate and military interests. You voted one of those space monkeys from the 60's in as President, and seem to be a country to be utterly sucked in by the lies you are told, no matter how laughable they are.

Your take on democracy is a joke, and you don't seem to care while your over-inflated military launches illegal invasions against countries with oil or strategic significance. Your secret service and other agencies and corporations prop up dictators while it suites them (e.g. Saddam Hussein, Pervez Musharraf, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Teliban), giving them power, sophisticated weapons of mass destruction (missiles, illegal armaments, fighter jets), all while turning a blind eye to their various crimes (genocide, drug trafficking, torture, etc.), and of course giving them lots and lots of money.

You don't care about corruption at home (e.g. Florida vote rigging), you don't care about inaction at home (e.g. New Orleans), you don't care that you have a completely insane attitude to firearms (everybody should have one (which the rest of the world sees as ludicrous)), drugs (the war on drugs can be won, all pot smokers are criminals, drug abuse is a disease (for crying out loud)), etc., etc.), and you actually voted in George W. Bush. Is that guy really the very best example of humanity you could find to be your surpreme leader?

To the rest of the Western world, and then some, the U.S. is a country of lazy, fat, stupid, nut jobs who are too pathetic to question their leaders, question their government, or question the U.S. democratic system which keeps things as bad as they are. You are quite simply hopeless. All (a very few of) you do is winge and wonder how your rights could be slowly ebbing away and why nobody cares. Well *YOU* don't care, or you'd be protesting in the streets, you'd be throwing down your governement, you'd be routing out corruption, you'd curtail the corporations who would otherwise bleed the world dry for the sake of their shareholders' greed.

Parent post summarized in one sentence:

"I don't see these measures as an infringement on personal freedom, because the measures will target people I don't like."

We can't control our own borders...

We can't control our own borders but we will use tech like this to monitor our own citizens...

Anyone else find that just a little weird?

Goddamn Homeland Security Slush Fund...

"The issue came to head when AOPA learned that the Gaston County Police Department in North Carolina had bought a "CyberBUG" UAV from Cyber Defense Systems."

Every fucking time I turn around another police outfit from Bumblefuck, U.S.A. has bought itself a shiny new toy with my "homeland security" tax dollars. (Add your least favorite story about the new SWAT team in a county with three homocides a year, an armored car for a town of 50K people, etc.) And because there usually aren't any terrorists anywhere near them, these knuckledraggers end up figuring out a way to chase the usual crowd of inbred drunks around town with it.

Re:Goddamn Homeland Security Slush Fund...

Not all UAV's are all that expensive really. The Raven UAV used by the US military costs about $35,000. Less than the average squad car and probably much more useful. This is probably the closest thing to what they are talking about using in current use by the US government. It's been used with great success in the field http://www.1id.army.mil/1ID/News/September/Article _06/Article_06.htm [army.mil] . Also, as they are used more widely and production increases, costs to produce them will drop.

2084

I wish Orwell's 1984 was required to be taught and discussed to death in citizenship classes in high school. What most people don't seem to understand is that 1984 is not really about "big brother" but instead it foretells what Orwell deeply distrusted: a global information system and the abuse of it. In a way Orwell was a pessimist - he knew that no matter how well intentioned any system would be abused. UAV's are a symptom of Orwell's fears, they are just more information inputs into a global database. By themselves it's almost silly to complain about them but in aggregate with other databases the whole becomes dangerous to liberty. Everyone has broken some law somewhere and if that information is easily looked up it makes everyone susceptible to blackmail - who did you have an affair with last year? There was an old soviet joke about having laws against everything so if the KGB wanted you they would simply selectively enforce any law they wanted to against you. What citizens should demand to combat Orwell's dystopia is transparency in the process' and records of their government. Yes some things do need to be classified but they are usually the exception and not the rule. And no matter how classified everything should eventually become known.

Anyway, I'm too drunk to continue so please correct and extend what I've said. Goodnight. ;) :)

You must.

You must give up freedom to protect freedom. That is, unless you hate freedom. How did this happen to my country in 6 years? How the fuck.

Time to move...

We've got little time left before the borders completely close.

There are only two choice at this point in my opinion:

1) Openly take back the government by hook or by crook. This is costly in life, money, and security but has been shown by other people of the world to work.

or

2) Leave the country until it collapses or someone cleans it up. Depending on how you look at it this could be construed as an abandonment of one's responsibilities as a US citizen but those of you with family and small children, like me, should seriously think about what kind of country they are going to grow up in. If they can't defend themselves then you have to move them elsewhere.

This is one of those times I wish I hadn't been right to wear my tinfoil. I wish I could see a path to be able to remove it. But I don't see that in my lifetime especially if these things get worse as I suspect they will.

In my opinion this is one step before the wall.

(Why isn't this article in the YRO section?)

I await the inevitable mod down by those that think I'm OT, Troll, Overrated, or Flamebait...

Closing down of airspace

Most of the airspace below 12500 feet in north america is class X (dont remember X), where you can fly around anywhere without a previously declared plan. You need a mode C transponder, but youre free to fly VFR. Thats reflective of the freedom provided to you. Certain regions, cities, airports etc are more restricted, but the default piece of ground is this VFR class.

Looks like this class might be eliminated completely to allow drones to fly around anywhere. Which means a general aviation airplane will have to always file a flightplan and possibly remain on IFR, except on airport approaches, where they can request a VFR type approach. Flying will never be the same.

Its easy to sell this to the general public. "We dont want to let anyone fly just anywhere" and "we could use the extra security" and "War against terrorism" whatever that means. But somewhere in the future Americans will realize what they lost.

Re:Closing down of airspace

Your interpretation is incorrect. Most airspace is class E -- which is controlled airspace -- but airspace designations are primarily about visibility minimums and communications requirements, and have little bearing on flight plan or instrument flight status. Classes D, C, and B are all associated with areas in and around airports, with increasing requirements for communications (D,C, and B all require communications with the airport tower, C requires transponder, and B requires transponder and permission to enter the airspace.) So today, even the most restricted airspace (B) you can fly over without a flight plan.

So unless most airspace is declared class B, it's not really an issue. I really don't think the FAA / ATC want to deal with the millions of clearance requests, etc they'd encounter if they did something so drastic.

What's more likely is that they'll swiss-cheese the airspace with temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) around areas where the drones operate. Presumably they could become so numerous as to make private flight planning a bit difficult. Before then, however, there will probably be enough crashes with drones to result in them be forced into small saftey zones. If the Predator is any indication, there will be many, many crashes as UAVs get used more extensively -- which would totally undermine any safety-selling approach that might be tried.

Re:BY and FOR the people?

World Trade Center building 7 fell in exactly the same exactly symmetrical way as WTC 1 and 2, and it was NOT hit by an airplane. ALL the collapses looked like controlled demolitions. See the news footage in the movie Loose Change. It is a work in progress, but already very informative.

Why is there always one of these?
 
Okay, I'll preface this by saying that I'm a leftist, and hate the Bush administration as much as anyone, but there WERE NO FUCKING EXPLOSIVES IN THE TOWERS.
 
They fell like controlled demolitions because controlled demolitions are implosions. What do you think happens when you heat and soften the trusses on an exoskelital building?
 
(I'll tell you because you obviously don't know.) The trusses sag and fail causing the outside, load bearing members buckle without their lateral stabilization, the top falls, and the whole thing comes crashing inward.
 
It's the fire, not the impact that caused the real damage, and if I remember rightly number seven was heavily fire damaged as well. Next time try a little science before breaking out the crackpot conspiricy theories please. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate the Bush administration that don't make you look like a nut.

Re:America's new twist on an old sport

I'd watch myself if I were you.. these people don't exactly have a sense of humor.
In fact, saying it publically in my town (via letter to the editor) will get you arrested:
http://www.wlio.com/localNews.aspx?NewsID=3246 [wlio.com]