State/local governments pushing for unmanned drones more



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The state is worried about the safety issues of putting the birds in the air? Disgusting.

We kill innocents in the Afghan theater indiscriminately (yes, with drones), target our own citizens for assassination, and hire and protect cops/feds who continue to coerce those they swear to protect (here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.). **

Unmanned drones within our borders are a logical next step. People who vote should think critically before they do so.

*hat tips to Greenwald and Balko for links.

** If you are inclined to believe that police/feds/politicians/etc. tell the truth, please ignore the links regarding cops.
 
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Here comes more. Expect your tax dollars to be watching you swim in your pool.

Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, have been leaning on the FAA to approve requests to use unmanned aircraft along the Texas-Mexico border.
So you're in favor of not being tough on illegal immigration?

Yes, let's let all of the illegals in, while states could be diverting their resources into unmanned technology to stop the problem, while saving money, and protecting the lives of local police and border patrol agents who put their lives on the line to protect our country from terrorists and illegal immigrants ruining our economy.

Sorry, but you sound like a liberal socialist from the ACLU in this case, I have to admit...

Keep in mind that this is state/local governments of a Republican-leaning state petitioning the federal government to let it protect its own borders. This is not some outrageous overreach of the federal government's authority, and if anything, the feds are the ones holding up the petitions...
 
Slippery slope my friend. I'd trust another 10,000 border patrol agents to do their job before I'd trust some politician playing with a joystick.

It's funny how willing libs are to accept drones patrolling our borders but when it comes to actually putting boots on the ground they scoff at it using 'racism' as the reasoning.

Makes you wonder about the ulterior motives.
 
Slippery slope my friend. I'd trust another 10,000 border patrol agents to do their job before I'd trust some politician playing with a joystick.

It's funny how willing libs are to accept drones patrolling our borders but when it comes to actually putting boots on the ground they scoff at it using 'racism' as the reasoning.

Makes you wonder about the ulterior motives.
I wouldn't exactly call myself a liberal - I'm a moderate, independent thinker, unlike the sheep on both sides. I read WSJ more than I read NYTimes. Not sure why you trust politicians with controlling border patrol agents (can you say cost and goal ineffective based on past experiences) but not with drones - and either way, law enforcement controls them, not politicians.

Rather than letting the government claim "job creation" by creating jobs for more ineffective border patrol agents (raising my taxes, ahem) put some border surveillance drones out, and then start prosecuting companies that hire these illegals. Then you'll have REAL job creation, rather than some federally-paid-for jobs that you're suggesting. Nobody seems to want to go down that route though - Democrats will claim it's an invasion on privacy or racial profiling, and Republicans will claim that it's anti-business.

The government already has extremely powerful spy satellites that they can easily use on the US, but the reason you're not bitching about government trust or overreaches there is because you're either not thinking about them since they're out of view, or you'll give me some national security reasoning (just like I did, here) as to why it's necessary... Governments can already deploy helicopters, spy on you per the patriot act, break into your home with little proof needed to get a warrant, and you're concerned about a drone that doesn't do anything that the government can't already do, and just does it more effectively?

The states are pushing for this because border agent deployment by the feds up until this point has been ineffective. Why are you trusting the feds to fix this problem if they've proven they cannot? Return power to the states.

I guess you support Obama's plan to sent 1,200 National Guard troops to secure the borders. Sending troops to the border sounds like a great idea, until you realize that without good technology from overhead, you have no idea where to deploy those troops to stop the illegals.
 
Return power to the states.

I guess you support Obama's plan to sent 1,200 National Guard troops to secure the borders. Sending troops to the border sounds like a great idea, until you realize that without good technology from overhead, you have no idea where to deploy those troops to stop the illegals.

I agree with returning power to the states.

Obama sent the troops as a pacifier to Americans. 1200 is only symbolic.

I don't agree with giving the federal gov even more power to spy on me and last I heard, drones aren't very good at apprehending suspects - what good will a photo do us really?

I've got friends who are Texas State Troopers and they're great at apprehending perps.
 
This isn't just about illegals, if you read there it says they plan on using them to catch speeding drivers and other pointless shit.
 
Law enforcement wants to use the most advanced tools available to get their job done, is anybody surprised by this? I don't find this alarming, we can't tell the cops, "okay, you guys can't use any technology developed after 1984".
 
^ What he said

As long as a city/state is enforcing it's own laws on it's dime within their legal authority then I don't see what the problem is.
 
Why is it that immigration issues always devolve to someone bashing liberals?

Whether you are liberal or conservative, if you are here you better be a fucking CAPITALIST.

The war on immigration is like the war on drugs -- never going to work unless you reduce demand. Sure we should have security on our border. But unless / until we have the stomach to punish businesses that hire illegal immigrants, illegal immigration will continue.
 
^ What he said

As long as a city/state is enforcing it's own laws on it's dime within their legal authority then I don't see what the problem is.

Privacy concerns. Why do you need an unmanned drone to catch people speeding?
 
Privacy concerns. Why do you need an unmanned drone to catch people speeding?

You don't "need" an unmanned drone to catch speeders just you don't "need" wordpress to create a website; you can catch speeders with a warm body and a radar gun just like you can create websites with a text editor. But it's foolish to be willfully inefficient when more optimal means become available.

What about wire tapping? It's been around what, 40 years and that has wayyyyy more opportunity for abuse. But what happens if wiretaps are collected illegally? They get chucked as usable evidence and can even undermine a trial, I wouldn't be surprised if they same thing happens with drones. Correct me if I'm wrong John, you cite "privacy concerns" then speeders, but I think your concern is more the former than the latter. If cops start following people without a warrant waiting for bad shit to happen that evidence will probably get chucked just like bad wire taps.

From a perception standpoint cops, of which 95+% are just trying to do an honest job protecting us, are pretty much fucked either way. If they spend tax dollars on new tech then they get tagged as a burgeoning gestapo wasting tax payer dollars. But if they don't use the best tools available when bad shit goes down people start yelling: "why aren't they doing their jobs, what are my tax dollars being used for?!"
 
Illegal immigrants and terrorists are about as responsible for ruining the economy as Jewish people were in Germany after WWI.
















Godwin's law is in effect.
 
You don't "need" an unmanned drone to catch speeders just you don't "need" wordpress to create a website; you can catch speeders with a warm body and a radar gun just like you can create websites with a text editor. But it's foolish to be willfully inefficient when more optimal means become available.

What about wire tapping? It's been around what, 40 years and that has wayyyyy more opportunity for abuse. But what happens if wiretaps are collected illegally? They get chucked as usable evidence and can even undermine a trial, I wouldn't be surprised if they same thing happens with drones. Correct me if I'm wrong John, you cite "privacy concerns" then speeders, but I think your concern is more the former than the latter. If cops start following people without a warrant waiting for bad shit to happen that evidence will probably get chucked just like bad wire taps.

From a perception standpoint cops, of which 95+% are just trying to do an honest job protecting us, are pretty much fucked either way. If they spend tax dollars on new tech then they get tagged as a burgeoning gestapo wasting tax payer dollars. But if they don't use the best tools available when bad shit goes down people start yelling: "why aren't they doing their jobs, what are my tax dollars being used for?!"

How is buying a million dollar drone, hiring an operator, and paying for fuel a better option than putting a cop out? Not only that, but that 5% you say, which I think is closer to 30%, will abuse this technology and fuck with us. Give an inch and they take a mile. No thanks.