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Neighboring county seeks drone site

March 19, 2013
A drone in action.

A drone in action.

Ventura County officials are angling for a contract with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to become one of six test sites nationwide for unmanned aerial vehicles — drones. (Sacramento Bee)

A legislative committee in Sacramento is hearing testimony today regarding the proposals of both federal and county representatives in a presentation called “Manufacturing for Global Aviation: California’s strategy to win a federal designation as an unmanned aerial vehicle test site.”

Drones have been used liberally in military strike applications against alleged terrorist groups and other perceived threats in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere. And recently, the question of drone use for law enforcement and other civilian applications in this country against U.S. citizens was the subject of a 13-hour filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul, a Libertarian Republican from Kentucky.

Paul suggested the government could use the technology for not only surveillance, but for “taking  out” individuals or groups considered to be some kind of threat.


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US military drone strikes increased from 257 in 2005 to 494 in 2012. [The day after Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster against drones, the US Air Force excluded drone-attack statistics from its monthly report.]


DailyMail 2013 Mar 9


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290912/Air-Force-erases-drone-strike-data-Afghanistan-war-report-just-day-Rand-Pauls-filibuster.html


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Similiar to the Fed ceasing to publish what they proudly “print” yearly that they incorrectly call money.


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Domestic drone usage is ill-conceived, elitist, and end-runs our inherent Constitutional protections.


Here are two (2), very well-produced, videos that anchor my points:


Emmy Award-winning newscaster Shad Olson’s ‘The Great Drone Debate’, featuring US Senator John Thune:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoOASanKao


Here’s a mind-blowing, well-done animated short that really captures our collective angst that if the road to perdition is paved with good intentions, then domestic drones are a superhighway to an Orwellian panoptic gulag.


http://vimeo.com/59689349


For national security purposes, Americans are already subject to warrantless wiretaps of calls and emails, the warrantless GPS “tagging” of their vehicles, the domestic use of Predators or other spy-in-the-sky drones, and the Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of all our behavior through “data fusion centers.” 


http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/


America’s promise has always been the power of the many to rule, instead of the one. Ungoverned drone usage, particularly domestically, gives power to the one. 


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Every Drone has an operator. A member of the United States Armed Forces. As a retired Marine I would normally take some comfort in that fact. Our government used a Drone to take out an American born self proclaimed terrorist in Yemen. I’m sure that he was a danger to Americans here or abroad and it had to be done. I understand that. However…In the same strike his American born son and his son’s American born classmate were also killed. Some would call that a necessary evil…Okay fine but here is my point; I was dumbfounded by the lack of curiosity by our American media both national and local regarding that incident. I was equally amazed at the lack of digging the media has accomplished regarding other issues like Benghazi for example or the fact that we didn’t drone strike OBL’s spokesman we took him into custody and gave him his Miranda rights. Nothing said; total media silence. As long as the American media is working in conjunction with the Government; both local and federal… we would be stupid to stay silent about this or any other issue of concern. So Trib… you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.


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whose government? Bush or Obama?


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Who’s Government? Our Government. Although one would not know that these days…


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faint praise for Bush


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The major media is merely the Public Relations arm of Gov’t AND Wall st. It’s job is not to reveal but filter the news.


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“Drones have been used liberally in military strike applications against alleged terrorist groups and other perceived threats in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere. And recently, the question of drone use for law enforcement and other civilian applications in this country against U.S. citizens was the subject of a 13-hour filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul, a Libertarian Republican from Kentucky.


Paul suggested the government could use the technology for not only surveillance, but for “taking out” individuals or groups considered to be some kind of threat.

”

Obviously this is about drones being used against civilians and has nothig to do with military applications.

And our government has every intention of using drones for that purpose. This is a severe infringement of our rights under the Constitution…


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NO! The government would never leap to the conclusion of killing people inside our borders! These are merely for watching bad guys… this will not be abused seven ways ’til sundown. Never!™


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For those not familiar with your views, that may be a little too subtle.


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As a former NSA employee, I’ve been following Tom Drake’s recent whistle-blowing on internal operations.


When I was there, it was a VERY CLEAR directive that it was ILLEGAL and IMMORAL to “spy” on Citizens of the United States. It was even extended to our allies (the reunification of Germany was an interesting time for this).


What sounded like radical rants: limiting religion, limiting firearms, limiting freedoms… they all add up. Time to stop blaming Bush, blaming Obama, blaming any of them, they are all the same. Our rights are gone. Bush was WRONG and CRIMINAL for taking away these rights, and Obama is worse for “doubling down” on the CRIMINAL, unconstitutional directives and orders he has not only enacted, but kept in place (from Bush).


Seriously people, DRONES to MONITOR US? Data centers to save ALL e-mails sent through American telecom servers? You want to give them this power? Tough sh!t, they didn’t ask you, they just took it.


Go back to sleep, it’ll all be over soon.


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I think it is ok to shoot peeping robots, on land, in the water or in the air. Inalienable rights are to be defended. I say we watch each other’s backs and not allow the robo snoops to watch our backsides.


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if they do, drop trou


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The Feds are finally getting ready to do something about the County Homeless Services.


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CIA Looking at Drone Strikes on Syria


http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=306615


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