Just what we needed:
It is now legal for law enforcement in North Dakota to fly drones armed with everything from Tasers to tear gas thanks to a last-minute push by a pro-police lobbyist.
With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, no one noticed that the state became the first in the union to allow police to equip drones with “less than lethal” weapons. House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a lobbyist representing law enforcement—tight with a booming drone industry—got his hands on it.
The bill’s stated intent was to require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge in order to use a drone to search for criminal evidence. In fact, the original draft of Rep. Rick Becker’s bill would have banned all weapons on police drones.
Then Bruce Burkett of North Dakota Peace Officer’s Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. “Less than lethal” weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones.
Becker, the bill’s Republican sponsor, said he had to live with it.
“This is one I’m not in full agreement with. I wish it was any weapon,” he said at a hearing in March. “In my opinion there should be a nice, red line: Drones should not be weaponized. Period.”
Even “less than lethal” weapons can kill though. At least 39 people have been killed by police Tasers in 2015 so far, according to The Guardian. Bean bags, rubber bullets, and flying tear gas canisters have also maimed, if not killed, in the U.S. and abroad.
This is where the jackasses who have been mocking me about drones for several years tell me that they will never allow armed drones to be flying in the US/It’s just the same as other weapons/Drones are just a tool.
West of the Cascades
Rubber fucking bullets from a drone? Can we get some federal legislation or FAA regulations prohibiting this?
Ha ahahahaha ha federal legislation haaahahahaahahaah.
smintheus
Presumably the chill-out crowd will argue something like: the police can already taze you from a helicopter or drop stun grenades down you chimney with a really good cast from a fishing pole, so it’s no big deal now that they can chase you around and attack you with a drone.
Baud
Well, so are tanks, but no one here believes the police should have them.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I don’t think anyone was arguing in favor of arming drones for domestic use. We were pointing out that *weaponless* drones are useful for a wide variety of non-police activities:
http://www.nps.gov/fire/aviation/safety/unmanned-aerial-systems.cfm
Currently, the Forest Service in California is using unmanned drones to monitor our wildfires. But I guess they should be banned from doing that because conservative jackholes have to ruin things for the rest of us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: This.
Roger Moore
What a fucking joke. You’re a legislator, dude, not an idle spectator. If you don’t want that crap in the bill you’re sponsoring, yank your sponsorship. At the very least, propose a “no weapons at all” amendment so you and like-minded legislators can get your opposition on record; there might even be enough of you to accomplish something. But don’t just pretend you’re powerless.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@smintheus:
No, the chill-out crowd will argue that there are *non-police* uses for drones and it’s stupid to ban all domestic government use of them. Ban law enforcement use except in search-and-rescue operations (which are rarely run by law enforcement anyway) and let the departments that need *unarmed* them for firefighting and wildlife research keep using them.
But I realize that this is America, so there’s no possible halfway point between “ban them all” and “let people do anything they want without restrictions on their FREEDOM!”
kindness
Well….I would expect everyone in North Dakota has a shotgun. Use the drones as bad target practice in place of doves. I think it’d be fun to nail those drones.
srv
John, I think the proper term would be ‘Courtesy Tasing’
No one could have foreseen. Next up, drone cops will be filing for disability over all the stress droning all those kind of people takes.
And of course, when a mistake is made, we won’t talk about the pilot or the policy, we’ll talk about the ‘errant’ rubber bullet from a ‘drone.’
Poor Chomsky, even the liberals do it now.
justawriter
North Dakota has become something of a hotbed of drone research, or UAVs as they insist on calling them. Heitkamp and Hoeven have pushed through funding to make the University of North Dakota a major UAV research center and have persuaded the FAA to open the airspace over North Dakota to UAVs in ways that aren’t allowed anywhere else in the country, including IIRC flying out of the operator’s line of sight and up to an altitude of 1,200 feet.
Frankensteinbeck
It was already legal.
The law to stop something that was already legal was amended and weakened.
There are a Hell of a lot of ‘may be’s and ‘perhaps why’s and ‘Big Drone’s for an article whose actual facts are that a local police department was given two camera drones (that they couldn’t afford otherwise), legislators worried that this might be a slippery slope, and the police got an amendment removing part of the law passed to limit what could be done with those drones.
I actually would have liked the full bill passed, but this article is a pile of conspiracy theorist gibbering.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m disappointed in The Daily Beast.
Amir Khalid
@kindness:
Don’t people who shoot down drones get arrested for destroying private/public property, discharging firearms within town limits and so on? As I recall, just last week a guy got arrested for bringing down a drone with his T-shirt.
Brachiator
@Baud:
And so? What’s your point? No drones or no weaponized drones?
Apart from their use to help fight fires, drones have been used in limited situations in addition to helicopters to assist in police pursuits, reducing danger to suspects, police and civilians.
But there have also been posts here protesting the use of drones by the military for any purpose, as though they are the tools of the Divil. Maybe so. But Skynet is coming anyway, and the idea that you can prevent tech from being used by the government, including the police, is a idle fantasy.
And recently the larger drone threat in California was from jacka$$ civilians flying drones which interfered with firefighting efforts.
Howard Beale IV
Time to buy high-power blue laser pointers I guess. Either that or modify flame-throwers to shoot narrow and longer pencil-size flames, or modify a t-shirt cannon to shoot nets.
samiam
Wrong way Cole back to his idiotic fearmongering obession with drones. If Amazon ever starts delivering packages that way he won’t be able to ever leave the house.
Baud
@Brachiator:
My point is that Cole is off base again.
samiam
Wr0ng way Cole back to his idiotic fearmongering obession with drones. If Amazon ever starts delivering packages that way he won’t be able to ever leave the house.
Anoniminous
Cool. North Dakota now becomes the Go-To place to test autonomous, armed, drones. And if the Swarm Intelligence software doesn’t work out quite right. Well. that’s the way it goes.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Samsung and the South Korean military have already deployed autonomous armed robots to guard the DMZ. They can shoot to kill without user input.
That’s the next, inevitable step.
Sleep well thinking about that.
flukebucket
I had to kill them. I feared for my drone….
Cacti
@Brachiator:
This.
The greatest threats to safety from DR0NEZ!1! have been from nitwit private owners. The FAA receives an average of 25 complaints a month about drones flying too close to manned aircraft, or above the operational ceiling of 400 feet they’re restricted to by Federal regulation.
The drone that flew into White House airspace was also privately owned, the drone that nearly collided with an Airbus A320 during take off: privately owned, and the drone that nearly collided with a news helicopter in Washington state: you guessed it, privately owned.
Frankensteinbeck
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
It is neither the next, nor an inevitable step, at least if you’re referring to domestic law enforcement use. It is a distant, extreme, and unlikely possibility, particularly given that this article does not actually include any use of weaponized drones or intention of weaponizing drones. The only drones in the article are camera drones that the police department in question was never proposing to weaponize. Someone tried to pass a law in case it ever happened. The law was weakened. It’s a fine reason to get mad at how the police reflexively defend their right to use violence whenever they want, but it’s not evidence of a slippery slope in action.
Baud
Now if drones are one day programmed with WordPress…there’s your dystopian future.
Cacti
And guess what, Cole?
Crooks are using drones too.
The narco cartels are using them to mule product across the border.
Frankensteinbeck
I will further note that the law that was weakened wasn’t even primarily about weaponized drones. That was a side issue to a bill about when camera drones should need warrants to be issued. That is the actual issue that prompted the bill, unproven suspicions that a police department was overusing their two camera drones. This article is not just jumping the shark, that shark has a frickin’ laser on its head.
bystander
One of the ABC idiots said, I think about a weaponized drone, “Not everyone is using drones for good purposes, like Amazon with their drone-delivery plans.” Of course, what a great idea! Let’s let Amazon convert the sky into a system of conveyor belts to deliver their crap. Then we can give them a big tax break since they’re not using those crappy highways!
Chyron HR
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
We already have robots in the US that are programmed to kill people without human input. We call them “police”.
Tommy
@Cacti: I am not so sure I want police forces using drones with weapons on them. But I get this geeky daily email from a site I buy a lot of stuff from. StackSocial. Drones are getting dirt cheap. I am more worried about some random person owning one. Peering into my house or worse yet getting in the flight path of a plane.
Mike J
If the military stopped using drones tomorrow do you think it would have any effect on what cops think they should be able to do?
Anybody can build a drone. It’s pretty easy. The way you stop the cops from having them is to vote for people who will stand up to them.
Cacti
The genie is out of the bottle on drone technology.
Tighter FAA regulations for their use and stiffer penalties for their misuse is what’s warranted at this point.
raven
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Oh boogie boogie. That SO much different than arty, mortars, air strikes . . .
Mike in NC
As drones get cheaper and more commonplace, police departments all over the country will want them, armed or unarmed. Why send a SWAT team to bust down a door if you can take out bad guys with a drone-launched rocket?
Oatler.
Anything that increases chaos in North Dakota is fine with me, even with all that oil industry going on (he said, rubbing his hands fiendishly).
Thoughtful Today
A curious number of folk here saying essentially, ‘yes, militarizing our police is a good(TM) thing.’
No.
No, it is not.
kindness
@Amir Khalid:
Yes that is probably true….if they catch you. If you are gonna shoot one, try to not be photographed doing so. Don’t shoot them from a car. Wear a common hat. You know the drill.
Frankensteinbeck
@Thoughtful Today:
Of all the arguments presented here, for or against, none of them are ‘militarizing our police is a good thing.’ Nobody is saying that. No one. I checked.
The closest to that argument is the implication that camera drones do not count as ‘militarizing’.
Zandar
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I’m black.
Police don’t need drones to kill me.
Already don’t sleep very well.
Thanks.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Roger Moore: That’s exactly what I was going to say. I mean, if if this describes your feeling:
Then don’t sponsor the bill, and don’t vote for it. As a legislator, that is your responsibility. Do what you think is right for once in your pathetic life.
Doug R
@smintheus: hey Philadelphia police released an explosive device from a helicopter…
C.V. Danes
I wonder how many shotgun blasts it would take to shoot down one of these weaponized drones, push comes to shove?
Tommy
@Zandar: And a head bow/nod to you. Clearly that should not be how things are. I am a white dude but I totally understand your fear. I think it is very real.
sukabi
Becker, the bill’s Republican sponsor, said he had to live with it.
Really? Under whose authority. Why was it turned over to the lobbyist, and who / what gives that lobbyist ultimate authority over the construction of the bill. Isn’t it the job of the legislature / legislators to craft and amend the bills. Seems like if they are giving their power away, they shouldn’t in the job in the first place.
Hungry Joe
1) Part of the problem is that drones are inherently cool. Irresistible, even. They all but beg to be used.
2) Nit: “Unmanned drone.” Can’t get any more redundant. Makes me want to write something about “manned drones.”
3) Irrelevant info: Bertie Wooster (of the “Jeeves” series) belonged to the Drones Club, an assemblage of harmless, cheerful, upper-class wastrels and nitwits.
Lee Rudolph
@Amir Khalid:
And how that drone got his T-shirt, he’ll never know!
Frankensteinbeck
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: and @sukabi:
Keep in mind, his choice was a bill that reduces how drones can be used by police to observe and makes it illegal to put lethal weapons on them, or not passing a bill, which leaves the police free to put whatever they want on the drones. So, while I definitely would want the ‘no non-lethal weapons’ part as well, it’s not like he’s passing a bill that makes things worse.
Cacti
Were Tamir Rice and Michael Brown killed with drones, or just boring old sidearms?
Was Eric Garner killed by a drone, or a choke hold?
Police killing with drones is a hypothetical problem. Police killing with centuries old firearm technology, or even their bare hands is an everyday occurrence already.
Drone paranoia is a suburban tech bro hobby horse.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
So are the drones that have been interfering with water dropping helicopters and airplanes trying to fight wildfires here in California.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not true. He had the power to do more than just vote the bill up or down. He could have offered an amendment to make the bill say what he wanted it to.
Lavocat
Yeah, well, my flying monkeys will fuck this shit up, let me tell ya!
UNLEASH THE FLYING MONKEYS!!!!!
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
Isn’t the point that he couldn’t get it passed without the police amendment? If I’m wrong, yes, you’re right he is an ass not to have done more.
gvg
I think the reason the sponsor didn’t back out, is this was a side issue to the problem he was trying to fix which was requiring a warrant to spy camera people. From the comments I gather that one police department wanted a camera drone right now, not a theoretical future and I think this is a valid fear. So in order to get the warrant requirement, he didn’t kill the bill. that kind of compromise has to happen all the time or government will shut down and it works to get us nice things as well as not so nice in each persons opinion.
I think it’s a stupid idea. I don’t think controllers can be accurate not to mention right enough to be a good idea but we are going to have to learn this the hard way.
We do need FAA regs fast. Not only do I think private individuals need licenses and training, there will have to be antipeep laws and enforcement and even law enforcement ought to have to have operator licenses. Not all departments will really be up to safely buzzing around us. there will need to be rules about right of way and not flying around dense crowded areas…
bin Lurkin'
Any drone that weighs more than a couple of ounces is damn dangerous, I was going to get into them and bought a very small lightweight drone, learned to fly it fairly well.
Then I started looking into the more powerful units capable of carrying a decent camera, found images of people who had been sliced and diced by their drones like someone took a Kukri to them. Way too much liability in a drone as well as the danger, someone nearly decapitated themselves with a model helicopter a couple of years back.
sukabi
@Frankensteinbeck: don’t buy it. Legislators have been giving their power away to lobbyists, the highest bidders for quite a while. It’s a really weak excuse that he didn’t have a choice. His bill, pull his support, strip the amendment, and make it clear why.
dedc79
@Cacti: Huh, and here i’ve always associated the “We can’t and shouldn’t do anything about X until we’ve done something about Y” BS argument with gun nuts, but here you are raising it…. I guess it’s more widespread than I realized.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: WordPress drones? They’d be realy sloooowww, probably barely able to get off the ground.
Omnes Omnibus
So a law putting limits on drone use is being characterized as something else by the Daily Beast? Boy, am I surprised.
RSA
“You people who tend to get targeted by the police, though… Maybe not so much.”
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
But capable of disappearing people as easily as comments.
wasabi gasp
The slope, can it even get more slippery?
Rusty
Just living in North Dakota is a “less than lethal” situation. Death by sheer boredom is a threat to every one in the state with the exception of some chick named Polly Anna. North Dakotans are probably looking up into the skies and shaking their fists at drones, crying out, “I live in Bismark! Give me your best shot!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Ah, a stealth drone. I’m asking Santa for a drone for Xmas.
Cacti
@dedc79:
Right.
Because real problems and imaginary problems are worthy of equal consideration.
Linnaeus
We’ve even got people arming privately owned drones.
Lawrence
@West of the Cascades: The drone, probably a four or six rotor helicopter, has to function as a recoil carriage for any kind of projectile weapon, and still stay in the air. Probably not going to work for a rubber bullet or beanbag round, or even the taser shotgun shell. And you still have to aim it. Even military drones don’t use gun systems due to the problems with targeting. So, chemical agents, yes. I have seen footage of one with a taser prod of sorts. And yes, I think this is a horrible idea.
What’s the fascination with this in North Dakota? You’re only going to piss off rural white people using this stuff in North Dakota.
kc
Only dudebros care about DRONEEZZZZ!!11!
kc
@Cacti:
LOL.
LeeM
Given the Court’s recent deference to collateral damage from SWAT raids, I can see why Cole would be leery. Drop a cluster of flash-bangs prior to a no knock raid, its all good!
I should send that Legislator a box of red pens to strike out objectionable provisions in future bills.
divF
@Hungry Joe:
Then you’d be giving 110%.
RSA
@Lawrence:
Snakes. I can see that.
dedc79
@Cacti:
1) it’s getting less imaginary by the minute
2) who said anything about equal consideration? Your position appears to be that we can’t/shouldn’t do anything about it (like, say, push for the repeal of this dumb legislation) until we’ve resolved a mutli-century history of police injustice against blacks.
? Martin
@Lawrence:
Undergraduate engineering students can build such a thing now. A couple of accelerometers and a working knowledge of PID controllers and you’re done. Would take less than a day to modify an existing quad.
But no worries – the North Dakota militias I’m sure are already working on countermeasures.
Davebo
Is this a bad time to point out that Jackasses mocking Cole have a history of being right?
Honestly I can’t get all riled up over what happens in North fucking Dakota.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Lawrence:
They can use ’em to keep the Injuns under control.
/jerkass North Dakotan
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore: THIS.
Remind me again how “courageous” and “bold” our modern GOTea is in its steadfast defense of the Greatness Of Ahmurrca™.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
There’s no indication of that in the article. What the article says is that the bill was originally proposed with a warrant requirement for surveillance and a no weapons rule. The drone supporters were allowed to get their hands on it when it was in committee and added the rule allowing less-lethal weapons but were unable to kill it completely. But there’s no indication about what happened to the bill when it was brought to the floor, except that it apparently passed with the changes that were made in committee intact.
I will agree with the people who say that the warrant requirement was a bigger deal than the weapons restriction, so it was a good deal overall if the watered down weapons restriction was necessary to get the bill to pass. But there just isn’t enough information on the overall history of the bill to know for sure. I’m guessing, though, that if the sponsor had tried to amend it on the floor to restore the no weapons of any kind rule, he would have mentioned it.
Joel
I will say this about drones; they are annoying, and they are ugly.
Roger Moore
@Lawrence:
Two things. First, their economy has taken a big hit from dropping oil prices. Second, they’re already fairly big in the drone business. They’re the home to the USAF’s drone forces, and apparently they’re doing a lot to develop drones for agricultural use. So they’re already in the pockets of Big Drone.
? Martin
And this is all probably fairly moot. I don’t believe they could fly these without FAA approval unless they limited them to indoor use.
NotMax
One day everything shall be armed.
Traffic signals.
Vending machines.
Mailboxes.
Baby carriages.
And yea, the NRA shall look down upon the carnage, smile, and declare it Good.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Big Drone? Really. Companies are practically shitting drones and quadcopters. They’re becoming so ubiquitous (and cheap) that the next time you buy a box of organic cereal, a free drone will be inside. And 3 weeks from now, lazy mooks will attach cameras to them and use them to walk their dogs.
Where is the Big Drone in this?
@Martin
Twelve year old geeks will be hacking drones for shits and giggles. Drones are easy to use, and easy to screw with. Part of the appeal.
boatboy_srq
@gvg:
True; however, ending up with a law requiring a warrant to spy-camera-and-taze people isn’t exactly an improvement.
NotMax
Posted this link at BBC about armed drones (with “blinding lasers ” among other add-ons) made to sell on the open market quite some time ago. Time to bring it out of mothballs.
Omnes Omnibus
@boatboy_srq: Would you rather that police be able to use drones without a warrant?
SatanicPanic
Still not managing to care. I try, I just can’t
Zinsky
I’m sure the right-wing fascists will say, “Well, if you aren’t doing anything wrong, then there isn’t anything to worry about”. The correct response, of course, is, “Well, you won’t mind me putting these surveillance cameras in your bedroom and bathroom then, will you?”
Right to Rise
Word on the street is Jeb Bush may be embarking on a new primary strategy.
That strategy? Abandon Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, use Nevada as a springboard into a better than expected showing on super Tuesday (the Bush name is key in Texas), then go “all in” on Florida and Ohio. After that it’s winner-take-all, and the delegate math just plain adds up for Jeb.
Not a final decision, but the campaign is beginning to think in that direction.
Why would Jeb even need the small, early primaries? He’s got the money and name power to stay more than afloat until the Big Boys vote in March and April. It’s really a revolutionary strategy, only one a Bush could pursue.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Calling the use of drones an example of police militarization even seems like a bit of a reach.
Any Jim, Jack, or Jill can get a fairly durable 4 rotor drone with an HD camera for $1,000.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Rank cowardice.
It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
Cherry-picking is all well and good. For cherries.
Right to Rise
@NotMax:
Cowardice?
Hardly.
Such a strategy is simply living to fight another day. What the Russian Empire did to Napoleon, Bush can do to Trump or whoever becomes the far-right alternative.
Mike J
@Cacti:
You haven;t been by Fry’s lately. They can be had for $300.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Roger Moore: Well, you could go read the legislative history at the legislature’s website. Doing that, it’s not entirely clear, but it looks like the language stripping a ban on nonlethal weapons was voted on as part of a package of amendments. If that is correct, there’s no reason to think that an amendment explicitly putting that language back in would have passed. As I said, though, it’s not entirely clear to me what happened and I’m not going to dig farther.
There are a couple of other things of interest. One is that this isn’t really news; all of this happened during the regular legislative session, which ran from January to April. It looks like all of the coverage of this from today stems from the Daily Beast arriving on the scene four months after everything interesting happened. The closest thing I could find to a prompting event is that the legislation took effect on August 1.
The other is that the University of North Dakota should be stripped of its funding until they can agree on a new mascot for their teams.
Right to Rise
Jen Rubin is floating the Bush “Czar Alexander” strategy as a media trial balloon:
weaselone
@Right to Rise: with all that money he has the ability to compete in NH and Iowa. This is essentially an admission that he is going to get trounced in those states.
Comrade Dread
What will really be “fun” is when/if one of these psychotic loons decides to carry out their shooting spree or bombing via armed drone.
Right to Rise
@weaselone:
Why compete in a proportional primary with seventeen other candidates when you can wait for the field to be narrowed, then take the big prizes in Texas, Ohio, Florida, and (especially) the post-March 15th winner-take-all primaries?
Right to Rise
@weaselone:
Why compete in a proportional primary with seventeen other candidates when you can wait for the field to be narrowed, then take the big prizes in Texas, Ohio, Florida, and (especially) the post-March 15th winner-take-all primaries?
Trump has media attention.
Bush has The Math. And The Math always wins.
? Martin
@Brachiator:
They already do. There are multiple universities where the first semester engineering project is to build a quadcopter from random parts. The control software is open source: https://www.openpilot.org/products/openpilot-coptercontrol-platform/ You can drive a quadcopter from a $30 arduino.
People don’t really get how ubiquitous this stuff is now. Toss a $300 3D printer and it’s super-easy to custom build pretty much anything you want.
That all said – as I noted above the FAA rules for drones that don’t require a license only apply to civilians. If you are a government agency or corporation you need a license direct from the FAA to fly. That’s why Amazon doesn’t have these things whizzing around already and it’s why the NDPD can’t quite do this with the impunity people think.
Roger Moore
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
You don’t think it’s good enough that they dropped their old, offensive mascot?
Mike in NC
Jennifer Rubin — AKA J-Rub — has a track record as a wingnut hack that’s as dismal as Bill Kristol’s.
? Martin
@Mike J: Our cost for parts is around $85 direct from the manufacturer. That’s for a quad rotor with camera, control unit, and battery. Doesn’t include a lot of the structural elements but those are pretty cheap – maybe $20 if you’re on a budget. No battery charger, no RC controller, etc. Presumably most people would have those things that could be reused.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Keep flogging that horse. Guess it pays the bills.
BTW, just curious if you really believe you are ever going to convince anyone here of Jeb’s magnifitude?
Right to Rise
@Mike in NC:
She’s not the one suggesting it.
She’s simply a means to an end, it’s a trial balloon being floated to the donors by the Campaign.
Right to Rise
@NotMax:
Deep down, you know he’s inevitable.
The Bush family will never be denied again when they desire the presidency.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Dynastic oblige. Bwah-ha-ha to infinity.
You ought to take that act on the stage.
There’s one leaving in ten minutes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Right to Rise: Sounds like flop sweat panic.
Thoughtful Today
Interesting.
Curious number of glibertarian trolls here proclaiming support for the drone industry.
And yes, drone use by law enforcement is part of the militarization of the police.
Bobby Thomson
@Roger Moore: or he can count votes.
The level of ignorance in this thread is worthy of the GOS.
Bobby Thomson
@boatboy_srq: because police should be able to do that on their own sayso without a warrant? Seems legit.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
My son has two friends who are part of research teams using drones. One is part of a team using drones to collect samples of whale snot. They call the drone the “snot bot”. Apparently the whale mucus that is ejected through their blowholes provides tremendous information. Another is part of a team doing research with drones on precipitation in Kenya. Drones are a tool.
I don’t know any regular B-J commenters, save for trolls, who think militarizing police forces is a good idea so I have no idea why Cole is framing this story in this particular way.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Again, point to a specific “glibertarian” comment here or STFU until you have something useful to contribute.
burnsobesq
You are still wrong, Cole. You were always wrong about this.
Thoughtful Today
;)
Hilarious.
The same glibertarian ubermensches selling Drones today were selling Corporate Insurance last week.
Bobby Thomson
@Right to Rise: I’m very disappointed in this effort.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
I guess, but I find the ignorance and the fear to be astounding.
And folks here are already behind the curve on arguments about drones. Yeah, the FAA is getting involved, but some officials originally tried to apply the rules and thinking that applied to remote controlled airplanes to drones, and found it woefully lacking.
And you have some conflicts. A guy wants to use a drone with a camera to record him while he climbs a rock at a state park. Other people just want to enjoy the park in peace with a minimum of tech gadgets “interfering” with their enjoyment of the park.
And as others have noted here, the scientific uses are just exploding. Drones with special cameras have been used to fly over archaeological sites to help map out areas that could not easily be seen before.
Meanwhile a tech head used a drone to fly over and record his son’s wedding, which was held outdoors.
And yeah, we can talk about cautions and police work. But even here. Drones flying over a marathon or other events. Good or bad?
But any way you slice it, drones have become cheaper and more available much more quickly than other tech devices, and along with other tools like small cheap go pro cameras, smartphones used as controllers and other gadgets, lots of people, including governments as well as tomorrow’s geek geniuses are coming up with new ways to do all kinds of new things.
Sad to see the weird luddite vibe here. But, as a wise Vorlon once said, “The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
And yeah, if you want to consider military uses, think back to when somebody said, “hmm, can we put some guns on this airplane? Drop bombs from it?”
But drones are also so cheap that ragtag guerrilla forces will be able to deploy them against large advanced armies. And I am not thrilled about this, but the obvious logic is just freaking there. And people who think that they can stop this are blind beyond belief.
Kropadope
@Thoughtful Today:
There are plenty of non-military and non-law-enforcement applications for drones that are perfectly well worth supporting.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
California National Guard Uses Drone To Search For Missing Teacher
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/41aadb532c934049b4e940f963bb9685/california-guard-uses-drone-search-missing-teacher
So I guess they should let the missing person die of exposure in the woods rather than use an evil, evil drone in the search?
Kropadope
@Right to Rise:
That strategy worked SOOOOOO well for Giuliani in 2008.
They’ll greet us as liberators!!!!
Thoughtful Today
!
Libertarian fascism: “South Africa-based Desert Wolf told the BBC it had secured the sale of 25 units [drones that fire pepper spray bullets] to a mining company after showing off the tech at a trade show.”
A mining company expects to fire pepper spray bullets at ???
.
Galt’s private army expects your immediate submission.
Kropadope
@Thoughtful Today:
“Libertarian fascism:” perfect term for that.
boatboy_srq
@Bobby Thomson: Considering that the preferred alternative was a warrant for cam drones with no armaments whatsoever, giving up that fight just to get the warrant requirement doesn’t seem like an especially good tradeoff.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
I missed the news that South Africa and the United States are now the same country and have the same laws. Links, please.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Scroll up to #83.
Frankensteinbeck
@boatboy_srq:
But the ‘no action at all’ alternative was no warrants required, and the drones could be armed in any way the police wanted. Theoretically. Purely theoretically, since nobody was proposing arming the drones, and the issue that prompted the law was only about whether camera drones were being used appropriately.
Bobby Thomson
@Right to Rise: ok, Karl. And with that, you HAVE to be a parody troll.
different-church-lady
@Thoughtful Today:
It’s a South African mining company. So, their own workers, of course.
Bobby Thomson
@boatboy_srq: kill the bill! Public option or death!
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Well, I suppose it depends on whether the guard is going to pepper spray her or not.
Thoughtful Today
And of course there’s this Instant Classic:
“Teen who mounted gun on drone arrested, charged with assaulting officers.”
http://kxan.com/2015/07/23/teen-who-mounted-gun-on-drone-arrested-charged-with-assaulting-officers/
‘Libertarian Paradise.’
Yup.
magurakurin
@Right to Rise:
Why do you think anybody here gives a shit about your theories on Jeb?? It’s like walking into a bar in South Philly and talking about how the Rangers are gonna win the cup while a Flyers game is the tv.
sukabi
@Right to Rise: thing about that is, ¡Jeb! doesn’t have a brother that’s a governor of any state, and another SC ruling that would change the outcome of another presidential would cause an outright revolution.
Capt Seaweed
I can’t hardy wait until one of our endless supply of unstable citizens figures out how to strap a pipe bomb on a drone and flies it into a packed football stadium some fine Sunday morning. No one could have predicted…
Omnes Omnibus
@Thoughtful Today: What point are you trying to make?
Thoughtful Today
Erm,
Military applications of drones are obvious and irrefutable.
Corporations using military drones with pepper spray bullets was an obvious next step.
Drones will be used by government, the military, and corporations in ways drone salesman are being dishonest about.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@NotMax:
Still not seeing where the company sold the drone to a US company. Can you highlight that part?
Labor suppression has a very nasty history in South Africa, so I don’t doubt for a second that a local company bought it. I’m still not seeing why that automatically means that all drones of all types, armed and unarmed, must be banned immediately.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Your total ignorance of history astounds me anew every day.
Drones are here. They’ve been here for years. They are easily available to governments, corporations, and private citizens alike. What’s needed are regulations and laws about their use, not Luddite attempts to turn back time and pretend they never existed.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Unsure where I ever implied a U.S. company was definitely involved.
Oh, while on the subject, South Africa implemented new drone laws just last month.
The Republic of Stupidity
Apparently so are state legislators in N Dakota…
Wtf is a LOBBYIST doing directly rewriting a bill before it’s voted on?
Sad_Dem
@Howard Beale IV: The only thing that can stop a bad armed drone is a good armed drone.
HR Progressive
Actually, a weaponized drone in and of itself doesn’t bother me.
In the hands of a completely sane, rational, solemn police force.
Not sure we have any more of those in the You Ess of Eh anymore though, so……
Yeah I’d call this a bad idea.
Thoughtful Today
Sad_Dem says:
“The only thing that can stop a bad armed drone is a good armed drone. “
Libertarian dystopian fiction delivered straight to your doorstop.
Via Bezos’s surveillance drones.