Drone guidelines may offer police a loophole re: obtaining warrants
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/06/04/the-age-of-drones-military-may-be-using-drones-in-us-to-help-police/The Age Of Drones: Military May Be Using Drones In US To Help Police,
Critics fear invasion of privacy
June 4, 2012 7:43 AM
LOS ANGELES (KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO) —
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A non-classified U.S. Air Force intelligence report obtained by KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO dated April 23, 2012, is helping fuel concern that video and other data inadvertently captured by Air Force drones already flying through some U.S. airspace, might end up in the hands of federal or local law enforcement, doing an end-run around normal procedures requiring police to obtain court issued warrants.
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The revised Air Force report is a continuation of a policy already a few years old, but is causing more alarm now as drones appear poised to soon become a ubiquitous presence in U.S. skies thanks to a federal policy to promote their use....Drone manufacturers are gearing up to pitch an estimated 18,000 police departments in the U.S. on the benefits of flying drones.
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What has critics alarmed is that data collected by drones accidentally, under the guidelines, can be kept by the military up to three months before being purged and can also be turned over to “another Department of Defense or government agency to whose function it pertains.”
The Air Force guidelines permit using drones domestically to assist law enforcement in “investigating or preventing clandestine intelligence activities by foreign powers, international narcotics activities , or international terrorist activities.” More vague is language that also allows military cooperation with local law enforcement for the purposes of “preventing, detecting, or investigating other violations of law.”
...Capt. Richeson goes on to say that “a court order or warrant is not required in all circumstances.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
Saturday, Dec 24, 2011
How the feds fueled the militarization of police
Billions in post-9/11 taxpayer dollars have paid for combat-style gear on display in the Occupy crackdowns
The militarization of America’s metropolitan police forces was on full display in recent months as police from Los Angeles to New York cracked down on Occupy protests, decked out in full SWAT gear and occasionally using strange pieces of military hardware.
Less well known is that police forces in small towns and far-flung cities have also been stocking up on heavy equipment in the years since Sept. 11, 2001.
In spite of strained city and state budgets in local years, the trend has continued thanks to generous federal grants. According to a new story by the Center for Investigative Reporting, $34 billion in federal grant money has financed the past decade’s shopping spree.
To learn more about the trend, I spoke with G.W. Schultz, who co-authored the story with Andrew Becker. (Also worth a look is the slide show accompanying the story.)
Q: You start your piece with Fargo, N.D., where the police have a “$256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret,” kevlar helmets and assault rifles in their squad cars. What did they say when you asked why they need this kind of heavy equipment?
Q: What is the federal grant program that is handing out all this money?
Q: You write in your piece that there’s a lot of information still lacking about this spending. What don’t we know?
Q: Has most of this equipment — assault rifles and armored vehicles and so on — just not been used?
Q: Who is making money off of all this?
Q: Are there any dissenting voices within the police community about all this militarization?
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/how_the_feds_fueled_the_militarization_of_police/
Answers to the questions and more at the link...
You didn't think they would just scrap the drones and other equipment once we didn't need it in Iraq anymore, did you? Our government is simply trying to obtain maximum utility from our military hardware in order to get we, the taxpayer, the most bang for our buck. So you see, it's really about protecting taxpayers' interests! I believe the old saying is, "Waste not, want not."
Well, all that stuff, plus the ever-creeping militarization of city, county, and state police departments. It seems every backwoods town with 20,000 people either has a SWAT team that was fully outfitted by a grant from Homeland Security, or they belong to a multi-jusirdictional (counties, cities, parishes) group formed to eradicate drugs, gangs, or guns, or some combination thereof. Said groups train like commandos and must use military-grade weapons, including armored vehicles, when at all possible.
If the picture below doesn't invoke feelings or thoughts of possibly too much militarization of local police forces, I fear our nation is lost.
