Predator drone spy plane used in civilian arrests

LA Times ^ | December 10, 2011 | Brian Bennett

[Jet Jaguar]

Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates.

Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them."

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

[TLI]

Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June.

Unarmed.

Sure.

For now...

.

[2ndDivisionVet]

What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Isn't there something called posse comitatus or something like that says this is not okay? Kind of blurring that line aren't they?

The trick they are using is the military is transferring weaponry to civilian law enforcement. Or at least pretending to.

[bigbob]

If they don’t have them already, there are new drones designed for “hover and stare” surveillance that work like miniature helicopters that are cheap enough even mid-sized police departments will be able to afford them.

[ZOOKER]

"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them."

Right now there's someone thinking: "Surveillance is very useful in solving crime. Those apartments are a blind spot, though. We need to figure a way to see in there ..."

And that's how the telescreens ended up in every room. I feel much safer now, don't you?

[FlyingEagle]

Predator drones for 6 cows?

“Brandishing rifles”? How does one carry a rifle without “brandishing”?

Why is Eric Holder running around free when a border patrol agent is dead from Fast and Furious? Are cows taking priority?

[Cockroach]

Could have predicted this years ago...

But I’m just a kook, dontcha know.

[null and void]

August.

[Ace's Dad]

As the former commander of a “pseudo military force”; The CAP, I’d very much put a Predator B into the air instead of an unarmed Cessna 172. This report states that the Customs and Border Protection Service was doing the flying; seems OK to me, given the armed nature of the threat. Bad guys are bad guys, folks, and yes, I see the potential for abuse, making electing the right people all the more important! Keep working to elect the right people!

[Usagi_yo]

Let’s see.

- Armed men
- Stolen property
- Search warrant

No problem here, however the ease of which the government can implement surveillance is alarming on all fronts, as technology grows in leaps and bounds.

Does casual and passive surveillance from public areas violate anything other than what we feel in spirit?

If so, what about beat cops patrolling your neighborhood?

Or how about border surveillance over a mix of private and public property?

[theDentist]

If this happened when Bush was President, the Press would be screaming and demanding heads. No matter who owns or controls them, it’s be on Bush’s head. Whew, good thing we have a President who takes so many vacations, or they’d think HE was responsible.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

What happens if drone technology falls into the hands of drug criminals?

Federal laws restricting non-government use of drones coming soon.
No drones for civilians!
Do it for the children!

[Tammy8]

The article said the drones belong to Customs and Border Protection, not the military so that would not apply. Many claim since the laws passed after 9/11 and formation of Homeland Security Agency that P/C in reality doesn’t exist anymore.

[WVKayaker]

Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson), a mysterious billionaire, developed a computer program for the government that predicts terrorist threats to the US. It was designed as a means to prevent another 9/11-type disaster, but Finch discovered that it was also predicting many "irrelevant" (non-terrorist) crimes. The non-terrorist data is dumped to a separate database and deleted each night. Finch realized that a great many domestic crimes could also be prevented if that data could be used. Finch built a backdoor into the machine that allows him to retrieve a list of Social Security numbers of people who will be involved in those crimes in order of occurrence. Unable to investigate the data on his own, Finch hires John Reese (Jim Caviezel), a former Green Beret and CIA field officer who is presumed dead, to help stop the crimes from taking place. The world thinks that Finch, like Reese, is dead. Finch made the choice of only transmitting the Social Security Numbers of the persons of interest so that if the backdoor is discovered, the government would have no clue as to what the numbers mean or that Finch is still alive.

Opening: narrated by Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson):

“You are being watched. The government has a secret system--a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because...I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything...violent crimes involving ordinary people; people like you, crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act so I decided I would, but I needed a partner--someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You will never find us. But victim or perpetrator, if your number's up, we'll find you.”

At the point where Finch says "But whether victim or perpetrator, if your number's up, we'll find you", the person of interest of the week is shown. -

Watch current episodes...http://www.cbs.com/shows/person_of_interest

[Tammy8]

I can promise all of us that live on the border are under close scrutiny, a couple days ago a Border Patrol Agent told my daughter all the places she had gone that day...creepy, just creepy. Yet illegals and drugs are still making it across, makes you wonder.

[AlmaKing]

Stazi

[Sarajevo]

So, this is how it starts.

[1010RD]

Local suburban park districts now have their own police forces. It’s getting ridiculous.

[wac3rd]

The NWO is moving at light speed. Population reduction comes when the economic system collapses and the “useless eaters” are taken down by a few billion.

[LucyT]

.

Ping.

Predator drone spy plane used in civilian arrests

Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates.

[snip]

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

When we exit our homes, the assumption is that we are always camera.

Thanks Jet Jaguar.