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Bug or bot: Civil-rights questions raised as scientists develop fleet of flying robots
www.freenewmexican.com ^ | 10/09/07 | Rick Weiss

Posted on 10/10/2007 6:50:31 PM PDT by machman

WASHINGTON — Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an anti-war rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up, and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Others think they are, well, dragonflies — an ancient order of insects that even biologists concede look about as robotic as a living creature can look.

(Excerpt) Read more at santafenewmexican.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: New Mexico; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: miltech; robots; tinfoilhatcrowd
Didn't see this posted. I have my tinfoil hat securely fastened.....
1 posted on 10/10/2007 6:50:37 PM PDT by machman
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To: machman
“Civil-rights questions raised as scientists develop fleet of flying robots”

Dummies smelling more potential voters.

2 posted on 10/10/2007 6:53:33 PM PDT by vetsvette (Bring Him Back)
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To: machman
I, for one, welcome our robotic overlords!

Shhhh! They might be listening!!

3 posted on 10/10/2007 6:53:49 PM PDT by Reaganesque (Romney for President 2008)
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To: machman

What could possibly make these people think they are so important that the government would spy on them with micro robots?


4 posted on 10/10/2007 6:57:02 PM PDT by popdonnelly (Get Reid. Salazar, and Harkin out of the Senate.)
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To: machman
"It's alive..........ALIVE !"


5 posted on 10/10/2007 6:57:08 PM PDT by traditional1 ( Fred Thompson-The ONLY electable Republican Candidate)
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To: machman
I read a story about a year ago that covered the invention of these tiny spy-bots. It was being done at a university somewhere on the West coast.
6 posted on 10/10/2007 6:58:03 PM PDT by peeps36 (OUTLAWED WORDS--INSURGENT,GLOBAL WARMING,UNDOCUMENTED WORKER,PALESTINIAN,TERMINATED PREGNANCY)
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To: Reaganesque

Way too funny.

We must prepare an offering for them! :-)


7 posted on 10/10/2007 6:58:57 PM PDT by CCGuy (USAF (Ret.))
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To: Reaganesque

Way too funny.

We must prepare an offering for them! :-)


8 posted on 10/10/2007 6:59:15 PM PDT by CCGuy (USAF (Ret.))
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To: machman
Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an
anti-war rally in Lafayette Square


9 posted on 10/10/2007 7:03:00 PM PDT by mikrofon (Dalekrats)
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To: machman
"...Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security..."

I just wish we could get this out to all the earthy crunchy types. Perhaps send them a little pot as well, just to ratchet the paranoia levels up a little bit higher...:)


10 posted on 10/10/2007 7:03:22 PM PDT by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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To: machman
...the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up, and I'm like...

Being a college senior is far, far too young to learn to speak the English language.

11 posted on 10/10/2007 7:20:36 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: machman

Gnatzis, I hate Gnatzis.


12 posted on 10/10/2007 7:24:23 PM PDT by tlb
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To: machman

Revelation 9

3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

7The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.[a]


13 posted on 10/10/2007 7:32:56 PM PDT by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: machman
Here's the twisted truth; the hyperlegalistic US government is unsure about the legality of some weapons and surveillance technologies; the "pain ray" is one such new technology. Therefore, the place their prefer to first try this crap out on is AMERICANS.

I am not kidding.

I'm not representing the operation of micro-UAV's as treachery, and I actually love UAV's and non-lethal weapons.

But it should not be lost on you that YOUR government is more comfortable trying out new defense-related technology on YOU than it is on TERRORISTS.

Weird, huh? But that's true.

14 posted on 10/10/2007 7:36:14 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: machman

Here you go. Adjust the tin foil hat a little tighter.

http://www.bizbuzzmedia.com/blogs/flight_international/archive/2006/11/2.aspx


15 posted on 10/10/2007 7:38:57 PM PDT by Log
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To: machman

Hillary’s army?

I talked to a guy years ago who was working for the govt trying to develop flying spy drones about the size of a baseball.


16 posted on 10/10/2007 7:41:27 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (Fight the illegal Mexican colonizers & imperialist conquistadors! Long live the resistance!)
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To: machman
Unfasten your tinfoil hat. The drones exist. Read about them here
17 posted on 10/10/2007 7:56:12 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: machman
The only way that any sort of surveillance or eavesdropping could raise any "civil-rights" issues whatsoever would be for the right to privacy to be a privilege granted by the government exclusively to citizens, as opposed to a human right that applies intrinsically to all persons.

So here's a question for the author of the article: If you can't be bothered to use core terms of political discource correctly, why should anyone pay any attention to anything you have to say on the subject?

18 posted on 10/10/2007 8:44:40 PM PDT by sourcery (Referring a "social conservative" to the Ninth Amendment is like showing the Cross to Dracula.)
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To: machman

19 posted on 10/10/2007 9:41:21 PM PDT by maine-iac7 ("...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" LINCOLN)
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To: machman

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/10/4439/


20 posted on 10/10/2007 9:42:15 PM PDT by maine-iac7 ("...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" LINCOLN)
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