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.

[USNBandit]

Since nobody would take you to court on that evidence alone, you would need a lawyer anyway. The legal precedence on FLIR are pretty well set. The bigger legal concern these days is the use of trackers and the lowering of the bar for federal warrants.

[The Theophilus]

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.

Now prostitutes and hot-looking exhibitionists can loan themselves out to criminals as "decoys". During good sunbathing weather, they do their thing while the crims can do whatever they were doing while the TSA-like perverts manning the drones are distracted.

[rightly_dividing]

I have not seen it in the air. I wonder how much air time it gets and where it is based at.

[Razzz42]

[Still Thinking]

Domestic drone use ping.

[Still Thinking]

Domestic drone use ping.

[Still Thinking]

Domestic drone use ping.

[moehoward]

"Only applies to military forces, not pseudo military forces run by the legislative branch of government."

I don't think that angle will fly. (heh heh)

That drone flew out of a US Air Force base, and I'll bet you a steak dinner there was Military pilot at the stick.

[DuncanWaring]

Isn't there something called posse comitatus or something like that says this is not okay?

There's also a law called Sarbanes-Oxley that says you can't misplace $1.2 billion of your client's money.

Nobody pays attention to that one either.

[brityank]

One of the more interesting shows on OTA TV.

So far, they've been respectful of citizen's rights - criminals gave up any claim thereto. Also they are acting as private citizens, not affiliated with a government entity. I can suspend belief for that hour.       :^)

[Principle Over Politics]

Just because you may have an expectation of privacy does not mean that it will not be violated.

What was once expected to be reasonable in the past is no longer reasonable in the age of the so-called patriot-act.

I never mentioned anything about using “film” in court.
Under the patriot act you would be lucky to even make it to court.

[af_vet_rr]

I have not seen it in the air. I wonder how much air time it gets and where it is based at.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/New-Police-Drone-Near-Houston-Could-Carry-Weapons/-/1735978/4717922/-/59xnnez/-/index.html

They are very excited about their new toy and it sounds like it could be deployed from just about anywhere.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Conroe paid $300,000 in federal homeland security grant money and Friday it received the ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter made by Vanguard Defense Industries of Spring.

A laptop computer is used to control the 50-pound unmanned chopper, and a game-like console is used to aim and zoom a powerful camera and infrared heat-seeking device mounted on the front.

"To be in on the ground floor of this is pretty exciting for us here in Montgomery County," Sheriff Tommy Gage said.

He said the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) could be used in hunting criminals who are running from police or assessing a scene where SWAT team officers are facing an active shooter.

Gage said it will also be deployed for criminal investigations such as drug shipments.

"We're not going to use it to be invading somebody's privacy. It'll be used for situations we have with criminals," Gage said.

[servantboy777]

We've just received our very own lil spy drone here in Montgomery county Texas, thanx to a Dept of Homeland Security grant.

Guess Montgomery co. is chalked full of Middle Eastern muzzie terrorist.

There everywhere I tell ya...everywhere.

[driftdiver]

Carrying a rifle on 3000 acres is brandishing?

[familyop]

"As the former commander of a “pseudo military force”; The CAP, I’d very much put a Predator B into the air..." I'm aware of what the Civil Air Patrol really is.

"...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!"

That's not a wise political tactic. It's dangerous. Many Americans are being imprisoned for no reasonable cause, and their properties (e.g., hundreds of head of cattle), confiscated without reason. Watch, as the collapse continues.

Spite against such communism in politics will only grow, and it's already too late for reversal. Anyone who's had real combat training, learned a few things about public affairs and trained others can see problems with some of the new anti-American policies and Republican complicity in passing and implementing those policies.

Good-guy-bad-guy socialism is destined for failure.

Friends, avoid buying anything that you don't really need. Become more self-sufficient each month, and practice producing something useful. Starve the politically correct B, until she has a worthless currency and no more lenders. Be nonpolitical.

[La Lydia]

Well, if that is the case, we should take away their vehicles, their weapons, their radar, their binoculars, their night vision glasses, their fingerprint database, their DNA database and all the other equipment and tech they use they use because, gee, it’s unconstitutional. Oh, and take the brands and tags off the ears of those cattle because they threaten the Constitution. Really, I don’t see this as any more threatening to liberty than a police helicopter. CBP has had a marine and aviation unit for years, the drones have been flying the border for years, and there’s never been any problem. Why all of a sudden is this a nefarious plot against the Constitution? John Wayne was not a nutcake.

[kiryandil]

Really, I don’t see this as any more threatening to liberty than a police helicopter.

Many of those who weren't here for the impeachment wars don't understand that the rule of law ended in 1999.

Now, we have laws for the peasants, and winks for the elite & connected. It's why Obama the Tool can say that "they [the Banksters] did nothing illegal, only found loopholes that we worked to close."

In a militarized police state where EVERYTHING is against the law, you want the police to have MORE military gew-gaws? Why not Abrams tanks?

This is a major problem with the Right - many of us think that if it has the "law enforcement" stamp, we're good to go! Ya-hoo!

I beg to differ. I'm not duped by the Holy Trinity of the Left - teachers, police & firefighters.

[kiryandil]

I have no problem with this. No different than helicopters, only quieter.

They have helicopters that can fly at an altitude of 2 miles, and can tell if you're armed from that distance? Hmmmmmmmmm.

[La Lydia]

How long have you worked on being so condescending? Or did it come naturally. I have been here since the year 2000. I do not consider cattle rustling to be part of “everything is against the law.” In fact, cattle rustling has been against the law since the founding of the Republic. The Rule of Law includes a concern for the security of one’s private property, in this case cattle. There are a lot of things in our country we need to worry about, CBP drones aren’t really very high up on the list.

[kiryandil]

In this case it was private property and the office had the required paperwork. Hard to argue that he could not use all the technology he had available to him.

I'm sure many thought this same thing about the Warsaw Ghetto....