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Jewish World Review
May 17, 2012/ 25 Iyar, 5772
Drones Against Democracy
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In one of the most disturbing developments of our technology-obsessed times, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved the expanded use of unmanned drones--over domestic airspace. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act, signed by President Obama on Feb. 14, enables the integration of drones into its National Airspace System by 2015. A government report published March 9th notes that the "FAA Administrator is required to establish a program to integrate unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system at six test ranges." How large is the rollout? A Freedom of Information Act filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation reveals that at least 60 entities including the military, universities, police departments and sheriff offices have received Certificates of Authorizations (COAs). Privacy rights? MIA.
The fallback position for advocates of using technology designed to carry surveillance equipment, including video cameras, infrared thermal imagers, radar, and wireless network detectors? They are a "force-multiplier" for local cops. A logical extension of that argument? A camera on every street corner. Cameras that are now powerful enough to zoom in and read one's text messages, a reality revealed at at a privacy conference in Wellington, New Zealand. It was further revealed that since 9/11 attacks the number of surveillance cameras in the U.S has increased by about 30 million, including a 400 percent increase in Manhattan between 1998 and 2005.
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And now the use of drones, courtesy of HR658. And lest anyone think the vote on this was close, think again. In a rare show of bipartisanship, the House approved the bill by a vote of 248 to 169 on February 3rd. The Senate approved it by a margin of 75-20 with 5 abstentions on February 6th. 38 Republicans, 36 Democrats and one Independent voted in favor of expanded drone use. The result?
The FAA estimates 30,000 drones could be in the nation's skies by 2020. And as usual, a big part of the reason behind the effort is money-related. Some estimates, conclude the commercial drone market in the United States could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Behind those dollars is the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVS), a private lobbying federation made up of drone companies. It doubled its Congressional lobbying expenses from 2010 to 2011, and set up a congressional pro-drone caucus headed by Reps. Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX).
Thus, it was unsurprising that Gretchen West, executive vice president of the AUVS, tried to downplay public concerns regarding drone use. "They're not going to be used for constant surveillance--typically they can stay in the air for about 30 minutes, so they're only going to be used for specific missions," she said. Fox News also made a rather dubious effort to do the same, noting that "(U)nlike some of the drones used overseas, these will not be equipped with missiles. They are to be used purely for surveillance." In other words, Americans should be comforted by the fact that citizens, while being subjected to high-altitude surveillance, cannot be dispatched from the sky absent some sort of due process.
Make that on American soil. Precedent for taking out American citizens from the sky abroad has already been established with the elimination of Anwar al-Awlaki, whose well-deserved killing was considered an act of war against a terrorist. Yet one is left to wonder who determines what constitutes an act of war or a "domestic terrorist" on American soil. An unmanned drone has already been used to facilitate the arrest of Rodney Brossart, who was involved in a 16-hour standoff with a SWAT team at his North Dakota farm. Brossart claimed six cattle that had wandered onto his property as his own. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lent the SWAT a drone to monitor Brossart's activities and make sure it was safe to arrest him.
Furthermore, as most Americans are well aware, incremental additions to law have been an integral part of the ongoing diminution of freedom in our nation. Today's unarmed drone could be the armed drone of tomorrow should a "national emergency" be declared. Considering how easily the current administration has engaged in Constitutionally dubious adventures under the banner of "never letting a crisis go to waste, such concerns are entirely legitimate. In a blog entry at their website, the ACLU reveals that such incrementalism is already in play. "Drone manufacturers are also considering offering police the option of arming these remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas," it says.
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) offered "legitimate uses" for drones followed by the obvious caveat. "It would be okay for a drone to be used in order to make sure that all the cattle on a ranch are identified on an ongoing basis, said Markey. "It's okay ... to survey a forest to make sure there are no forest fires. But it would not be okay if that individual who purchased the drone then decided 'I think I'll go and check and see what's going on over in my neighbor's backyard.' That would be wrong and that has to be protected against."
If that is the case, why were no specific protections written into the law itself?
Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Advisor for the ACLU is seemingly resigned to accepting the new policy. "Drones are coming," he explained at an April 26 press conference. "There are increasing demands by police departments to use them for surveillance. Drones are cheap. Currently there are 300 authorizations to use them. Current privacy laws are not enough in the face of this technology." Stanley then added something chilling. "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled you don't have Fourth Amendment rights to privacy from aerial surveillance," he said. "Drones will be an eye in the sky tracking our every move … police should not be able to use drones unless under specific conditions." Stanley is correct. In a 1989 case, Florida v. Riley, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police officials do not need a warrant to observe an individual's property from public airspace.
Drones ought to be a different case however, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer explains why. "Drones are instruments of war. The Founders had a great aversion to any instruments of war, the use of the military inside even the United States. It didn't like standing armies, it has all kinds of statutes of using the army in the country...Yes, you can say we have satellites, we've got Google Street View and London has a camera on every street corner but that's not an excuse to cave in on everything else and accept a society where you're always under--being watched by the government. This is not what we want."
He also made a prediction. "I would say that you ban it under all circumstances and I would predict, I'm not encouraging, but I am predicting that the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that's been hovering over his house is going to be a folk hero in this country," he warned.
One can only hope, just as one can hope such an assault on freedom--for the convenience sake of a law enforcement force multiplier effect, no less--will transcend an electorate divided by ideological partisanship. It is long past time that a public infatuated with the advances in technology recognize the inherent danger of those advances. It is not hard to image a day where an unmanned drone replete with a database of personal information, coupled with face and voice recognition technology along with thermal imaging, can make anything resembling privacy, even one's home, an historical anachronism.
"I'm going to go hard left on you here, I'm going ACLU," said Krauthammer. Every American dedicated to the Constitution should join him.
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Previously:
05/17/12: Pay Up --- Or Else
05/07/12: A Tale of Two Women
05/01/12: 2012: The Economic Paradox No One Wants to Talk About
04/23/12:2012: A Referendum on Our National Character
04/13/12: Feel This
04/11/12: Teaching Dependency
04/04/12: Network News Shapers
04/02/12: Stabbing Israel in the Back Is More Like It
03/19/12: Gas Pains and Debt Bombs
03/12/12: Israel Under the Bus
03/05/12: Baby Steps Down the Road to Depravity
02/27/12: Debasing Our Military, One Politically Correct Moment After Another
02/20/12: The 'New Normal' of Rampant Illegitimacy
02/13/12: Sandwiches or Freedom?
02/10/12: Progressive Obsolescence
02/06/12: Safeguarding Kids No Match for Following Procedure
01/29/11: 2016: R.I.P. GOP
01/26/11: Obama's Happy Talk Versus Bernanke's Action
01/23/11: South Carolina Goes for the Media-Masher
01/17/11: Nuking the Strait of Hormuz?
01/09/11: Coercion and Incentive Are Not Interchangeable Terms
01/06/11: Will We Retire Obama --- or the Constitution?
01/03/11: Dumb -- or ‘Disabled?’
12/27/11: Islamists ‘Celebrate’ Christmas
12/19/11: A Deficiency of Decency
12/16/11: Better a A War On Whiners Than Christmas
12/12/11: Anybody But Obama
12/07/11: Connecting the Feckless Foreign Policy Dots
12/05/11: Can We Keep Our Republic?
11/28/11: Cyber Crack-heads
11/21/11: Water Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Think
11/18/11: Walking along Avenue J(ew)
11/09/11: Military Scandal, Media Blackout
11/09/11: Open-Mics and Closed Minds
11/07/11: Back in the EU--SSR
10/31/11: Camping Out in La-La Land
10/14/11: Bagman Tim
10/13/11: Are Colleges Too Big to Fail?
10/11/11: Why aren't they upset when their child is mugged in school?
10/07/11: I Stand With the ‘One Percenters’
10/03/11: Can We Legalize Assassination?
09/29/11: Tim, Liz and Bev Equals Moe Larry and Curly
09/26/11: No Acknowledgment of Israel? No More Money
09/19/11: ‘Jobbing’ America
09/16/11: Carville knows a few things about ‘crazy’
09/12/11: Contemptible Krugman
09/09/11: Solving the 9/11 Invitation Controversy
09/06/11: Our Progressive Economic Wrecking Crew
09/01/11: Summer Swoon
08/29/11: The Real American Fanatics
08/24/11:The Five Stages of (Progressive) Grief
08/22/11:The Inevitable Descent From Progressivism to Nihilism
08/22/11: Perry Stands Firm. Obama Stands Mute
08/15/11: Give Me a Flatscreen TV, or Give Me Anarchy!
08/11/11: Resign, Mr. President
08/08/11: Facts? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts
08/03/11: Manufactured Crises
08/01/11: Stay Healthy, America --- or else!
07/28/11: Existential Crisis, Part 2
07/25/11: Three-Out-of-Four Americans Are Radicals
07/21/11: What Does Two Plus Two Equal?
07/18/11: News Nuggets
07/13/11: The ‘Write Stuff’
07/11/11: Completely Expectable ‘Unexpectedness’
07/07/11: Organized Cheating
07/05/11: Stimulating Disaster
06/30/11: Progressivism Masquerading as Education
06/27/11: America: Greece With Better PR
06/23/11: NBC-ya Later
06/19/11: One Man's Conversation About Race
06/10/11: An Exhibitionist in an Exhibitionist Age
06/07/11: NAACP Betrays Black American Schoolchildren
06/02/11: For the First Time in My Adult Life . . .
05/31/11: If I Were President
05/25/11: California Dreamin'
05/23/11: On Wisconsin!
05/20/11: Obama's Farewell to Israel Speech
05/16/11: ‘Krauthammering’ Amnesty
05/11/11: Bounce, My Backside
05/09/11: The Epicenter of Progressive Contempt for the Rule of Law
05/03/11: SEALing Osama's Fate
05/02/11: The Education plantation
04/24/11: The Bell May Toll for Jersey Toll Collectors
04/19/11: From Medical Dependency to Dependency on the Welfare State
04/14/11: Trumping the Debate
04/06/11: It Takes a Bigot to Expose a Death Cult
04/04/11: Charlie and Snookie --- and Barack
03/30/11: ‘Disabling’ America, One Lawsuit at a Time
03/28/11: The MSM Kills the ‘Kill Team’ Story
03/23/11: Another Military Scandal
03/21/11: Barry, Joe, Helen and Wisconsin Teachers
03/16/11: The Inevitable Viability of Conservatism
03/14/11: Progressives in Their Own Words
03/09/11: $61 Billion in Cuts --- Vs. $223 Billion in One Month of Spending
03/07/11: Bean Bag B.S.
03/02/11: A ‘Green’ Catastrophe in the Making
02/28/11: Ain't Noting Like the Real Thing
02/23/11: Progressive Rot vs. the ROTC
02/21/11: Wisconsin: Progressivism in All its Ugly Glory
02/18/11: News reporters --- or Narrative Shapers?
02/16/11: The Presidents Budget Proposal: An Obamination of Progressive Profligacy
02/14/11: Only Another 9/11 Will Alter the Illegal Immigration Status Quo
02/10/11: Is O'Reilly losing his touch or is he just irresponsible?
02/07/11: Tossing Britain Under the Bus
02/03/11: Starving the World In Order to Save It
01/31/11: Walking the Middle East Tightrope
01/27/11: Small-scale Terrorist Attacks: Big Strategy?
01/24/11: Jeffery Immelt: A Crony Capitalist In Charge of Job Creation
01/20/11: An ‘Intimate’ Prime-time Interview
01/17/11: Progressives: Always Angry, Newly Desperate
01/12/11: Twain vs. the Totalitarians
01/10/11: Politically Correct Passports?
01/05/11: Showdown at the Fiscal Corral
01/03/11: Reading the Constitution Aloud is a Good Start
12/30/10: Getting Our Moral Mojo Back
12/27/10: PC Airport Safety is an Oxymoron
12/23/10: Getting America Back On Track
12/20/10: A Collectivist Coalition of Convenience
12/15/10: The President Who Wasn't There
12/13/10: Tech-No!
12/08/10: A Lethal Military, Inclusive or Not
12/06/10: The ‘Unexpected’ Consequences of Progressivism
12/01/10: Leakers and Losers
11/29/10: ‘We Won’, Part One
11/22/10: Keep Your Hands Off My Constitution
11/17/10: Grope and Change
11/14/10: Taking Back Our Country, One School At a Time
11/11/10: Checks (and Balances), Please
11/08/10: Curtain Up, Progressives Down
11/04/10: Last Chance, Republicans
11/01/10: By Their Own Words Shall Ye Know Them
10/28/10: Progressive Determination to Undermine American Elections
10/25/10: Shock, but more importantly, action: De-Unionize Public Schools now
10/20/10: Multiculturalism? Check, Please
10/18/10: Healthcare: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ vs. The Constitution
10/11/10: Vote for Restoring the Rule of Law in November
10/11/10: Dems: Running From Clarity
10/07/10: Hypersensitive Hogwash
10/04/10: ‘Comprehensive’ Con Artists
09/29/10: Why Dems Are Going Down in November
09/27/10: The Unholiest of Unholy Alliances
09/22/10: Two Words for Republicans to Remember: ‘I Won’
09/20/10: Purging ‘Me First’ Politicians
09/17/10: No More ‘Lesser of Two Evils’
09/15/10: ‘Recovery’ Arms Race
09/13/10: ‘Bigots’ in the Majority --- Again?
09/09/10: Giving Voters Something to Vote For
09/07/10: Irresponsible Dems, Incomprehensible Bills
09/02/10: War Weary Americans vs. Implacable Islamists
08/31/10: A ‘Dream’ Debased
08/25/10: American ‘Bigots’ Versus Media Propagandists
08/23/10: Recovery Bummer
08/19/10: An Unholy Alliance of Radicals
08/16/10: You've Lost America, Mr. President
08/13/10: The Twin Towers of Progressive Disconnect
08/11/10: A Far Better ‘National Discussion’
08/09/10: It's ‘Only’ One Dead Nun
08/06/10: Incremental Tyranny
08/04/10: Ground Zero Mosque: Context Counts
08/02/10: The Arizona Ruling: a Gift for November
07/29/10: The United Cities of America
07/26/10: JournoList: ‘Coordinated’ Ideological Bankruptcy
07/20/10: Go For Broke Or Get Out of the Way
07/14/10: You're a Liberal/Progressive if You Believe…
07/12/10: $33-an-hour--For Sleeping On the Job
07/08/10: Extortionist Government
07/06/10: ‘Commerce Clause’ Totalitarians
07/01/10: Another Public School Travesty in MA
06/30/10: Calling YOUR Bluff, Mr. President
06/28/10: A Trifecta of Progressive Corruption
06/23/10: Plug the Darn Hole --- In Our Border
06/21/10: Our Empty-Suit-in-Chief
06/16/10: Betraying Our Children
06/14/10: Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt?
06/07/10: Politically Correct Warfare
06/01/10: Bill Maher's ‘Black’ President
05/25/10: A Mosque At Ground Zero
05/23/10: Libs Stand Tall --- For Mexico
05/19/10: The 'Unintended Consequences' of Liberalism
05/17/10: 'Los' Suns: Stuck on Stupido
05/12/10: Union Audacity: Yes We Will!
05/10/10: Greeks, Leaks and and Double-Speak
05/05/10: Twelve Million Illegals --- or Thirty?
05/02/10: Republicans: Playing Not to Lose Doesn't Cut It
04/28/10: Arizona: Progressivism's Waterloo?
04/26/10: Son of Amnesty
04/22/10: Mortgages and Moral Meltdowns
04/20/10: Bashing Christians — Or Gays?
04/15/10: Personal Integri-‘tea’
04/12/10: Fools, Tools and Ghouls
04/08/10: (Tea) Party On
04/05/10: The Triumph of Mediocrity
04/02/10: Two For the Road
03/29/10: The Innate Immorality of Liberalism
03/24/10: The Art of War
03/22/10: I Want My Country Back
03/18/10: A Perpetual Process
03/17/10: American Exhibitionists
03/15/10: A Light Bulb Moment of Clarity
03/10/10: Little Things Mean A Lot
02/03/10: Budgetary Fork in the Road
02/01/10: Liberal Economic Illiteracy
01/27/10: ‘Roe-ing and Wade-ing’ Back to Reason
01/25/10: Arrogance When Up, Denial When Down
01/20/10: Connecting the Educational Dots
01/19/10: The Next Tea Party?
01/15/10: The Myth That Keeps on Giving
01/13/10: Airport Security Begins Away From the Airport
01/11/10: Secrets and Lies
01/08/10: Embracing Bigotry — or Rejecting Bullying?
01/06/10: Hanging by an Ideological Thread
01/04/10: Our ‘Wonderama’ Bureaucracy
12/30/09: A Day Off
12/28/09: Dangerous Myths
12/25/09: I, Me, Mine
12/23/09: A Very Harry Christmas
12/21/09: My Opinon
12/18/09: The Party of Repeal
12/15/09: Privileged Exemption
11/30/09: ‘Settled’ Science and Unsettled Children
11/30/09: American Sharia Law
11/23/09:The Trial (Travesty) of the Century
11/04/09: American Vampires and Their Political Enablers
11/01/09: ‘Opting Out’ of Insanity?
10/28/09: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer. Brain Required
10/26/09: Communism: Nazism With Better PR
10/21/09: Just Asking
10/16/09: Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
10/14/09: News you can use …
10/07/09: Incremental Insidiousness
10/05/09: MIA: Common Sense and Common Decency
09/30/09: Iran: Bad Options and Unpreparedness
09/21/09: Crying Racism: the Last Refuge of Scoundrels
09/11/09: 9/11 Cannot Be Sanitized
09/08/09: ‘Truthers’ and Consequences
09/01/09: A ‘Paper Trail’ Challenge for the Mainstream Media
08/31/09: Drowning in Amorality
08/26/09: The Republican Recovery Program
© 2011, Arnold Ahlert
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