U.S. plans more drone flights over Caribbean
Source: Los Angeles Times
U.S. plans more drone flights over Caribbean
The move is intended to fight drug smugglers who have been pushed to the ocean by greater border surveillance. But the unmanned aircraft have a limited record of success over the open water.
By Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau
June 23, 2012, 5:00 a.m.
WASHINGTON — After quietly testing Predator drones over the Bahamas for more than 18 months, the Department of Homeland Security plans to expand the unmanned surveillance flights into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico to fight drug smuggling, according to U.S. officials.
The move would dramatically increase U.S. drone flights in the Western Hemisphere, more than doubling the number of square miles now covered by the department's fleet of nine surveillance drones, which are used primarily on the northern and southwestern U.S. borders.
But the high-tech aircraft have had limited success spotting drug runners in the open ocean. The drones have largely failed to impress veteran military, Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement Agency officers charged with finding and boarding speedboats, fishing vessels and makeshift submarines ferrying tons of cocaine and marijuana to America's coasts.
"The question is: Will they be effective? We have no systematic evidence on how effective they are," said Bruce Bagley, who studies U.S. counter-narcotics efforts at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drugs-caribbean-20120623,0,3135494.story
= new reply since forum marked as read
Book it. 
Time Magazine: Congress Passes Bill to Proliferate Drone Use in US Airspace (FAA says up to 30,000 by 2020)
http://techland.time.com/2012/02/08/congress-paves-way-for-unmanned-drones-in-u-s-commercial-airspace/
Ready to see drones flying over your house? A new bill passed by Congress will give commercial, private and military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) greatly increased access to U.S. airspace that’s currently reserved only for manned planes. Right now drones are mostly limited to the U.S.-Mexico border and military airspace, as well as use by around 300 public agencies located far away from cities and airports. That is now scheduled to change by September 30, 2015.
The main focus of the bill is the FAA’s adoption of NextGen, a program that will allow commercial aircraft to install and use GPS technology for steeper, more efficient take-offs and landings instead of the ridiculously outdated way things are done now. All in all, this should help make air travel a lot more time efficient. We shouldn’t, however, ignore the implications of letting drones into airspace that was previously off-limits. While the military and local police forces have long been able to use UAVs in operations on U.S. soil, the prospect of commercial and privately owned drones presents plenty of new questions.
First, there’s the issue of privacy. Rigging a cheap drone with a video camera was no problem for an Occupy protestor; http://techland.time.com/2011/12/21/occupy-wall-streets-new-drone-the-occucopter/ how hard would it be for someone with deeper pockets to finance a drone with even more powerful surveillance equipment to monitor, well, who knows what? How will we know what purposes any private citizen has for deploying a drone overhead?
Then there are the corporations. Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/07/congress-welcomes-the-drones/ points out that companies like Google could ditch their Street View cars and start deploying advanced, autonomous drones to roam the country for incredibly thorough mapping. If the idea of fleets of corporate-owned drones monitoring us from above doesn’t scare you, then you are a much less paranoid person than I.
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Coming soon: Bigger drones: The FAA has decided to allow larger drones to fly in U.S. airspace
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/faa_approves_bigger_drones/
Public safety agencies can now get expedited permission to fly drones weighing up to 25 pounds in U.S. airspace, according to new rules approved Monday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The size of the craft was the most significant change made by the FAA in responding to a congressional mandate to integrate unmanned aviation vehicles into domestic airspace. In February, Congress passed legislation calling on the FAA to expedite approval for law enforcement and first responder agencies that want to use drones smaller than 4.4 pounds.
FAA officials decided to boost the size of the largest permissible public safety drone after meeting with federal, state and local law enforcement representatives, a spokesman said. The officials “determined that small unmanned aircraft systems under 25 pounds would be the most cost-effective, easiest to manage and overall most appropriate to carry out the various first responder missions.”
The decision opens up the market to American drone manufacturers seeking customers in the public safety sector, according to Ben Gielow, general counsel for Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a trade group. An industry survey of drones under 4.4 pounds found 79 different models for sale by 54 companies, Gielow said. Now public safety agencies shopping for North American-made drones to fit the FAA regulations will be able to choose from 146 models manufactured by 69 different companies. The larger drones will be able to carry more sensors to improve “situational awareness,” he said.
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US military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?
http://www.rt.com/news/us-drones-swarms-274/
A small insect or a mosquito over your ear may now be much more than simply annoying. Those could easily be micro drones which now come in a swarm of bug-sized flying spies. In an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out of the way and adverse environments, researchers are mimicking nature.
The University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab showed off https://www.grasp.upenn.edu/ a network of 20 nano-quad rotors capable of agile flight, which could swarm and navigate in an environment with obstacles. This is another step away from bulky heavily armed aerial vehicles or humanoid robots to a much smaller level of tiny remote-control devices. While current drones lack manoeuvrability, can’t hover and move fast enough, these new devices will be able to land precisely and fly off again at speed. One day the military hope they may prove a crucial tactical advantage in wars and could even save lives in disasters. They can also be helpful inside caves and barricaded rooms to send back real-time intelligence about the people and weapons inside.
A report in NetworkWorld online news http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/80845 suggests the research is based on the mechanics of insects, which potentially can be reverse-engineered to design midget machines to scout battlefields and search for victims trapped in rubble. In an attempt to create such a device, scientists have turned to flying creatures long ago, examining their perfect conditions for flight, which have evolved over millions of years. Zoologist Richard Bomphrey has told the British Daily Mail newspaper he has conducted research to generate new insight into how insect wings have evolved over the last 350 million years.
“By learning those lessons, our findings will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they are as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings," the newspaper quotes him as saying.
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they are pointed at very specific coordinates to take highly detailed pictures. They are what are called cued sensors - we have indications from some other means that there is something of interest at a specific location. We don't have satellites staring at blank ocean in case something interesting happens.
This picture from Wiki shows the two standard orbits US satellites use.
None pass over the Caribbean.
Here is a good article on spy Satellites with their orbits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNAN
We have many other means of detecting attacks from that area, starting with powerful landbased and airborne radars.
The already had Carnivore and Echelon since the 1990's. The 9-11 scam gave the excuse to roll out the rest full-stop.
In the UK they flat out admit they do this already:
Government spy programme will monitor every phone call, text and email... and details will be kept for up to a year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103314/Government-spy-programme-monitor-phone-text-email.html
In the USA, see this massive series from The Washington Post:
Top Secret America
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/
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My take:
It's all about a track, trace, and database way of systemic control. Each week or month, a further erosion of civil rights and privacy is thrust into the gut of an open, democratic polity. The data is used for predictive neofeudal social control, profit (multi-national´corporations use this data to market goods and steer collective group behaviour), and weeding out of dissidents via a highly complex convergence of the velvet glove of soft tyranny (media control, societal-wide imposition of acceptable intrusion and self-censoring ie doublethink) followed up by the hard version of the police state thumping in, whether overt brutal coppers dressed and trained as stormtroopers , or the drone and snooper software stealth invasions.
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The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/
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Local Cops Ready for War With Homeland Security-Funded Military Weapons
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html
Nestled amid plains so flat the locals joke you can watch your dog run away for miles, Fargo treasures its placid lifestyle, seldom pierced by the mayhem and violence common in other urban communities. North Dakota’s http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/12/12/police-use-predator-drones.html largest city has averaged fewer than two homicides a year since 2005, and there’s not been a single international terrorism prosecution in the last decade.
But that hasn’t stopped authorities in Fargo and its surrounding county from going on an $8 million buying spree to arm police officers with the sort of gear once reserved only for soldiers fighting foreign wars.
Every city squad car is equipped today with a military-style assault rifle, and officers can don Kevlar helmets able to withstand incoming fire from battlefield-grade ammunition. And for that epic confrontation—if it ever occurs—officers can now summon a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. For now, though, the menacing truck is used mostly for training and appearances at the annual city picnic, where it’s been parked near the children’s bounce house.
“Most people are so fascinated by it, because nothing happens here,” says Carol Archbold, a Fargo resident and criminal justice professor at North Dakota State University. “There’s no terrorism here.” Like Fargo, thousands of other local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-style equipment in the name of homeland security, aided by more than $34 billion in federal grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Daily Beast investigation conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found. http://centerforinvestigativereporting.org/
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Willowbrook, Illinois
