Posted on 07/30/2013 7:53:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Conservative leaders? Where?
FUMFCSMF’s. Prattle to your boots, you bastards of humanity.
Do you support drones along the border to enhance border security and interdict smuggling? Do you support drones off our coast for the same reason?
I think drones can make sense in specific situations, but you could make a good argument that drones along the border would unfairly intrude on persons who live near the border.
For specific uses - tracking criminal suspects instead of several surveillance units being needed they seem to be a good fit. It would save taxpayers lots of money. I also agree that non-stop 24/7 drone coverage for no articulated reason would violate the spirit of the constitution.
This is one of those difficult issues that will require conservatives to articulate reasonable exceptions or we will lose the arguments. I don’t think we can fall back to a blanket negative response. Drones would definitely be the best way to patrol the northern border with Canada and there are lots of spots on the southwest border where they would be extremely effective.
I think the recent case law on police placing GPS trackers on vehicles in public places seems to indicate that the courts may view some drone use as an unreasonable intrusion on privacy requiring a warrant if it is targeted against an individual and does not involve the border.
What happens when there is no private?
Great point. The less privacy there is, the more Tyrannical government will become.
“Other than a 90 degree (or thereabouts) change in azimuth of observation, there is not much difference between a police car cruising down the street in front of your house and a drone flying over it.”
When drones are regularly equipped with thermal imaging equipment that can see right through you fences, window shades, and walls, then there is a world of difference.
Won’t work, they’ll just get the FAA to declare it “restricted airspace”, or require civilians to get “drone licenses” and file their flightpaths with the FAA for approval.
Drones for me, but not for thee!
Yes, good point. We should also remember that these things will drop off in cost dramatically over the next few years. So, while the government could never pay enough officers’ salaries to do general surveillance of the citizenry 24 hours a day, they WILL be able to afford swarms of drones to accomplish the same task.
“For specific uses - tracking criminal suspects instead of several surveillance units being needed they seem to be a good fit. It would save taxpayers lots of money. I also agree that non-stop 24/7 drone coverage for no articulated reason would violate the spirit of the constitution.”
The problem with saying that we need to allow them for “reasonable uses”, is that they will not only be used for those “reasonable uses”. Remember when SWAT teams were only going to ever be used for hostage rescue situations? Now they are used daily as a matter of course whenever the police feel like it.
You can’t give the government a sledgehammer and expect them to use it delicately. Government is an unthinking beast that will abuse whatever tools you give it access to.
If the government wanted to watch you or your home they can already do that with satellites - they would not need drones. Drones already exist and they grow every 6 months in capability and decrease in price. Period. There is no way to prevent them - we can only attempt to put safeguards in place to protect personal liberties pursuant to the constitution.
However, outside of your home there is very little legal basis for privacy - if I can see your house in a plane there is no way to legally prevent the government to see your home with a drone. Google Earth is pretty darned accurate and we can’t legally stop them. I have heard of cases where county tax assessors have used it to locate new construction on homes, new swimming pools, and new decks/patios and levy new property taxes on homeowners.
Technology is here to stay and it will continue to grow- the key question for those of us concerned with personal liberties is how we protect personal freedoms. The blanket “no” is not going to win us a chair at the table and it does not reflect reality. They already do the same stuff with planes and the blanket negative response is not realistic and it will preclude conservatives from shaping the debate.
Do you think a majority of Americans would oppose the use of a drone to find a lost 10 year old in the forest, or track a wildfire from the air, or catch smugglers on the border? The obvious answer is a majority of Americans would be fine with it.
Your SWAT analogy is very valid and I agree that it is now far overused and abused. However, the answer to that problem is the same as the drone problem - have a government that people can trust and demand accountability from them.
Troll???? I do not think so.
Tell me then what did your three heros do that has impressed you? Who have they convicted and put in jail? HUH? Who?
All they have done is sit up there let the Obama admin lie to them over and over again under oath and NOTHING...
If you or I lie under oath we go to JAIL, no questions asked.
PM me when they do something that warrants my attention.....other than that they are chest pounders and hurrumphers....
“If the government wanted to watch you or your home they can already do that with satellites - they would not need drones.”
Ah, but satellites are not equivalent to drones, or nobody would need drones. Drones have benefits that make them desirable for the government, and more intrusive of our liberties than satellites. First, they can be equipped with thermal and other technologies to look right through your walls. You might be able to equip a satellite like that, but without the second advantage of drones, higher resolution, such surveillance from a satellite would still be very limited. Third, drones are much cheaper, versatile, and easier to deploy than satellites. Only the feds can afford to field spy satellites, while every police department in the country will soon have drones. The few satellites out there that can spy on you mostly can only do it a few minutes a day, while a fleet of cheap drones can target many people 24 hours a day, and follow them wherever they go.
We may not be there yet, but soon enough drones will also have other, wider spectrum surveillance abilities. They will be able to pick up the audio inside your house, or siphon traffic from your home wireless network. Small drones will even be able to crawl right into your house undetected. Satellites will never be able to do those things.
“However, the answer to that problem is the same as the drone problem - have a government that people can trust and demand accountability from them.”
I guess this is where we will have a pretty fundamental disagreement. I say we’ll never have a government people can trust, and to think that we will is foolhardy. We have to assume that government will abuse any tool that we give them, and try to make it unfeasible for them to do so, perhaps by limiting their funding or setting up counterbalances to their powers. Oversight and accountability are easy solutions to trumpet, but government has already demonstrated that they are well versed in co-opting or evading any of those kind of measures we put in place.
...”The blanket “no” is not going to win us a chair at the table and it does not reflect reality.”... So, we need to win a chair at the table? The table we already own?
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