Posted on 01/13/2013 2:34:10 PM PST by blam
Orlando Florida Patrolled By Surveillance Drones As Early As This Summer
Robert Johnson
Jan. 13, 2013, 8:18 AM
Octatron shows the camera aboard the SkySeer drone used for surveillance and reconnaissance for law enforcement
When Congress passed a bill last February allowing unmanned drones to fly American skies it became only a matter of time before UAVs patrolled U.S. cities for local law enforcement.
While most drones in the U.S. are flown along the Mexican border, the Orange County Sheriff's Office wants to put them over metro Orlando within the next few months. The Greater Orlando metropolitan area is home to more than 2 million residents and is Florida's third largest city.
Dan Tracy at the Orlando Sentinel reports the local sheriff wants a pair of unarmed UAVs able to record the activities of everyday citizens and criminals alike.
From the Sentinel:
Sheriff's spokesman Jeff Williamson ... would not say exactly how the drones would be used, he wrote in an email that they might be deployed when looking for explosives, barricaded suspects and to inspect "hostile/inaccessible terrain" or at train accidents.
As for civil-rights concerns, Williamson wrote, "The OCSO has the privacy of its citizenry as a foremost concern. The device will only be put into operations on the command of the high risk incident commander."
Thermal drone image of a house showing rafters in the roof and the heat lamps in the bathroom
The sheriff still needs the County Commission to sign off on the request before it goes to the FAA for approval. The federal agency should have no problem accommodating as it was ordered by Congress to get as many drones as possible into the air by November, and be able to handle 30,000 UAVs by 2020.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
You are correct. With all the laws on the books no such person exists.
Since everyone is guilty of something, selected use of the drones will be at the discretion of the high incident czar, Piers Morgan, David Gregory, Dianne Funnystein or fill in the blank.
bookmark
No Blam, this is Not directed at you.
Unmanned. Yeah, and for now probably not armed.
How is it going to play out when a convoy of vehicles is taken out along I-4, because they “might” be on the way to a T.E.A. party rally? Or the rally itself is targeted, because they “might” be terrorists?
Of course, should CAIR mount a similar convocation, the roads would be cleared for their free passage. Nothing like a little “crony politicking”. That translates as, we will pick the terrorists WE want to back. None of you America-Firster, home-grown individualists need apply.
“Red Dawn” may be coming sooner than anybody expected. But wait, at what point does this vast Skynet become sentient, and begins controlling the behavior of humanity autonomously, determining what is to be allowed and not allowed?
The Terminator series might just be more prophetic than anyone ever imagined.
Being good, but not thorough enough, yet enlightened, more than most in History, I will not underestimate the ingenuity of the American People!
Other than that , no further comment.
I was more thinking how to set up “hot” dummies.
Looks like a badge...”Sheriff Los Angeles County”.
“....and WHY do we need 30,000 drones in the air by 2020?”
To keep track of all you despicable counterrevolutionary running dogs!/s;)
That would be an accident. I am actually more concerned about non-accident crashes into general and military aircraft in a specific zone of vulnerability! (See my tag line.)
Don't know.....but consult your local Trap range for speed, lead and distance ratios....*grin*
Don’t know. Do they fly low enough for a 12 guage full choke to work.Can’t say about the city, but it looks like if one was doing unwarranted surveillance in a rural area and got shot down.....
Well, one important reason is to enrich drone makers, who will probably be big campaign contributors to Our Leaders /half joking
Revenue enhancement. It's for the cheeruns. Citizen.
A surveillance society is a totalitarian society.
Somehow I am visioning a traveling veterans RC club that uses 1/4 scale attack aircraft from the venerable Spads on up to real jet F-16s. I myself have a 1/4 scale Ryan STA, a low monowing military trainer used prior to WW2.
With the right engine I could carry aerial torpedos and operate it with a camera.
If it was a twin engine like a P38 design an auto loading shotgun could be installed, use a titanium barrel and a magnesium receiver.
Seriously these drones won’t last long, a very good marksman with a single shot can drop one.
Several thousand bad shooters can do the same.
I can just imagine this renegade RC club that travels the country in search of drone prey.
No way -- have you ever been to Mouse House and seen how gigantic that airport iss (MSO), for the nominal size of the city? The remote terminals are the size of Burbank Airport -- and there're three or four of them. The main concourse is the size of a moderately-megalomaniacal imperial palace.
Then there's SFO, Orlando-Sanford, another entire airport on the northeast side, that regularly gets an odd mix of feeder-airline and GA traffic mixed in with jumbo excursion operators and leasers (Monarch, Ryan Air) coming in from Europe in 747's and big Airbuses.
......Or even a second civil war.
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