"It is not enough to know that there is a shadow government pulling the strings of the visible government- we must also act to expose it, and defeat it!"-Mark Matheny
With the number of drone failures rising domestically and the likelihood of an exponential rise in drone strikes in Iraq imminent; the US federal court has decided now is the time to release the redacted memo justifying the use of unmanned drone strikes on US citizens. ...also recognized that "the realities of combat" render certain uses of force "necessary and appropriate," including against U.S. citizens who have become part of enemy forces-and that "due process analysis need not blink at those realities."
Accident investigation documents show that 47 military drones crashed in the United States between 2001 and 2013 in what the military categorized as Class A accidents — the most severe category.
The Pentagon is planning to expand drone operations to at least 110 bases in 39 states by 2017.
The number of accidents has jumped as the military has brought back drones from overseas and operated them more frequently in airspace shared with civilian planes. The military has almost tripled the number of hours its drones have flown annually in shared U.S. airspace since 2011, according to federal data.
The US federal court releases the excuses for droning Us citizens...
Although in the "circumstances of war," as the Hamdi plurality observed, "the risk of erroneous deprivation of a citizen's liberty in the absence of sufficient process ... is very real,"
...also recognized that "the realities of combat" render certain uses of force "necessary and appropriate," including against U.S. citizens who have become part of enemy forces-and that "due process analysis need not blink at those realities."
Full modestly redacted 'excuse for drone use' memo below:
A new drone, armed with a taser, is gaining a lot of interest from military and law enforcement agencies. It is called the ‘Cupid Drone’ and was developed at Chaotic Moon Studios. The newly developed Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone can shoot 80-thousand volts of electricity into a subject. "If you imagine a S.W.A.T. raid and people running - why send officers, with gun blazing, down an alley way where they can shoot and harm an innocent person or whatever, when you could just have the drone follow them," said Chaotic Moon co-founder, William "Whurley" Hurley.
Moscow (AFP) - A United States surveillance drone has been intercepted above the Ukranian region of Crimea, a Russian state arms and technology group said Friday.
"The drone was flying at about 4,000 metres (12,000 feet) and was virtually invisible from the ground. It was possible to break the link with US operators with complex radio-electronic" technology, said Rostec in a statement.
The drone fell "almost intact into the hands of self-defence forces" added Rostec, which said it had manufactured the equipment used to down the aircraft, but did not specify who was operating it.
"Judging by its identification number, UAV MQ-5B belonged to the 66th American Reconnaissance Brigade, based in Bavaria," Rostec said on its website, which also carried a picture of what it said was the captured drone.
The photograph appeared to show an apparently armed drone in flight, rather than debris.
The Crimean port of Sevastopol is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which is believed to be equipped with detection equipment.
Crimea, where pro-Kremlin forces have control, is to hold a referendum on Sunday on the peninsula joining Russia, in what Moscow says is a fair expression of self identity but the West views as an illegal annexation of sovereign territory.
Reuters December 12, 2013 Matheny's Note: Remember these words of Obama whenever you hear of Drone Strikes by this administration:
The president’s specific words: I’m “really good at killing people,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann write in “Double Down: Game Change 2012,” The Daily Mail reported. They get their claim from a Washington Post report that buries the statement as a brief anecdote in an article, in which the president is described as speaking to aides about the drone program and then making the claim. -Washington Times
The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a drone.
"An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy, ten people were killed immediately and another five who were injured died after being admitted to the hospital," one security official said.
Five more people were injured, the officials said.
The United States has stepped up drone strikes as part of a campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), regarded by Washington as the most active wing of the militant network.
Yemen, AQAP's main stronghold, is among a handful of countries where the United States acknowledges using drones, although it does not comment on the practice.
Human Rights Watch said in a detailed report in August that U.S. missile strikes, including armed drone attacks, have killed dozens of civilians in Yemen.
Stabilizing the country, which is also struggling with southern separatists and northern rebels, is an international priority due to fears of disorder in a state that flanks top oil producer Saudi Arabia and major shipping lanes.
On Monday, missiles fired from a U.S. drone killed at least three people travelling in a car in eastern Yemen.
(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
Infowars has obtained a photograph of an unmarked gray helicopter drone manufactured by Northrop Grumman which could be used to spy on Americans domestically.
The image was sent to us by someone high up within Northrop Grumman, who told us that the drone is small enough to transported on the back of a large truck or towed in a trailer behind a pickup and can be fitted with all manner of surveillance technology.
It appears to be a smaller version of the company’s MQ-8C Fire Scout helicopter drone, which was tested for the first time earlier this month by the U.S. Navy. Unlike the MQ-8C Fire Scout, the drone seen in the image above has no markings.
The MQ-8C Fire Scout, described as a “next generation” drone, has “three times the payload capacity of the current model in the military arsenal,” and can remain airborne for twice as long.
Earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration released a road map that set the stage for 7,500 surveillance drones to be flying in U.S. skies within the next two years. The FAA’s chief concern is not the privacy implications of such devices, but the threat of them colliding with other aircraft.
The FAA has forecast that 30,000 surveillance drones will be in U.S. skies by the end of the decade.
At least 80 law enforcement agencies already have agreements with the FAA to fly drones for surveillance purposes. Some police departments want to use such drones to watch for “suspicious activity” in high crime areas.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon began testing to deploy two high-tech surveillance blimps over Washington DC that can remain at 10,000 feet for a month without the need for refueling. The blimps provide an “elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system” and carry “powerful radars that can look deep into enemy territory.”
The U.S. Army also recently tested a football field-sized blimp over the city of New Jersey. The blimp can fly for a period of 21 hours and “is equipped with high-tech sensors that can monitor insurgents from above.”
This past August, the DHS assumed control of surveillance blimps used to monitor the US-Mexico border, a perturbing development for privacy advocates given that the federal agency considers all areas 100 miles inland of the border to be ‘constitution-free zones’ within which the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
(AP) Europeans form 'drone club,' want to compete BRUSSELS France, Germany and other European countries on Tuesday formed a "drone users club" to pool information on the use of pilotless aircraft and develop a rival to the U.S. and Israeli machines that dominate the field.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the European Defense Agency has been tasked with drawing up a list of military requirements, with the goal being creation of a "European generation" of drones within 10 years.
Some Europeans fear they are falling behind in an area that may determine military aviation's future. Three major European defense contractors in June called for a concerted European effort.
What Le Drian called a "club" is open to European Union nations operating drones or that intend to within five years. Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Spain also joined.
If the ubiquitous voice of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in the metro (or Walmart, etc) demanding that you say something if you see something wasn’t frightening enough, if TSA’s cancer rays and gropings were not outrageous enough, if Homeland Security military vehicles on US soil were not disgusting enough, Obama has a real treat in store for you.
His pick to lead the currently headless DHS is called Jeh Johnson. He was, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon’s top lawyer. In that capacity he and a team of Pentagon experts concluded that the president did indeed have the right to use drones to kill American citizens without charge or trial. Thanks to Johnson’s determination, at least three American citizens have been killed without trial by their government.
Now he will be in charge of the “homeland.”
Chew on that next time you ponder “opting out” at the airport!
Matheny's Note: " Look! Up in the Sky! It's Bird! - It's a plane! - No - it's just the NSA Snooping on us again.......... oh well" My Fox DC.com June 21, 20013
Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a robot bird whose wings can flap independently of each other. Called the "Robo Raven," the breakthrough engineering technology allows the robot to achieve any desired motion and to perform aerobatic maneuvers. Developed by University of Maryland Professors S.K. Gupta and Hugh Bruck and their students, the robot birds could one day be used for reconnaissance and surveillance. The final design enables a tiny video camera, can be launched from the ground, and can fly in winds up to 10 mph. The micro air bird even fooled a local hawk, which attacked the robot in mid-flight on more than one occasion.
FBI Director Robert Mueller (Reuters / Yuri Gripas)
The FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance purposes, the head of the agency told Congress early Wednesday.
Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed to lawmakers that the FBI owns several unmanned aerial vehicles, but has not adopted any strict policies or guidelines yet to govern the use of the controversial aircraft. “Does the FBI use drones for surveillance on US soil?” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Mr Mueller during an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Yes,” Mueller responded bluntly, adding that the FBI’s operation of drones is “very seldom.”
Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) to elaborate, Mueller added, “It’s very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident where you need the capability.” Earlier in the morning, however, Mueller said that the agency was only now working to establish set rules for the drone program.
Mueller began answering questions just after 10 a.m. EDT. He briefly touched on the recently exposed NSA surveillance program that has marred the reputation of the United States intelligence community. Mueller said 22 agents have access to a vast surveillance database, including 20 analysts and two overseers.
When Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) asked Mueller later in the morning if he’d consider being more open about the FBI’s surveillance methods, the director expressed reluctance to be more transparent. Mueller said the FBI has and will continue to weigh the possibility of publishing more information about its spy habits, but warned that doing so would be to the advantage of America’s enemies.
“There is a price to be paid for that transparency,” Mueller said. “I certainly think it would be educating our adversaries as to what our capabilities are.”
A new precedent has been set. Despite extensive denial that drone strikes would endanger Americans, Attorney General Eric Holder has now openly admitted that four US citizens were killed through overseas drone strikes since 2009.
While not on United States soil, the deaths of the US citizens in nations like Yemen and Pakistan highlight the new precedent being set by US government heads who wish to use drones as a form of lethal enforcement on US soil. With Holder admitting that Americans have already died via drone strikes following his statements that Obama can already initiate drone strikes on US soil, we are now seeing the way paved to go ahead and announce armed drones to fight terrorism here in the US.
We all remember the initial rhetoric that drones were ‘no real threat’, and that they were simply unarmed scouting machines used to save lives overseas.
Then, we saw them rapidly enter the nation, and we heard the same tired reassurances. We saw them killing innocents overseas with the high powered weaponry being attached to these ‘scouting’ drones, and we see them still doing so today. But, once again, we’re told not to worry. Political talking heads like Eric Holder assure us that domestic drones, for which over 1,400permits have been issued, are not meant to be used as weapons. Well, that is unless Obama decides to use the drones as a weapon of war on US soil.
ARMED DOMESTIC DRONES IN THE NEAR FUTURE
Despite the message of assurance regarding the promise that domestic drones would never turn into government-controlled war machines, Eric Holder decided to go ahead and announce that it would actually be entirely ‘legal’ for Obama to issue a drone strike on a US citizen on domestic soil. In fact, CNN reports that Holder does not ‘rule out’ the possibility of domestic drone strikes, and that a scenario could occur in the future. And to strike someone with a drone, of course, you would need weaponry. You would need an armed drone.
In other words, Holder is going against the major promise by the FAA official who ‘promised’ that no armed drones will be flying on domestic soil. But don’t worry, Holder says the government has ‘no intention’ right now of issuing drone strikes on US soil. Just like the government never targeted Constitution and conservative-based groups through the IRS and would never use domestic drones to spy on you. Quite simply, if any power is given to these individuals in government, be sure of one thing: they will use it.
And knowing the track record of drone strikes overseas and how they greatly affect the innocent, drone strikes on US soil against citizens is an even more serious threat. The 3,000 plus deaths from drone strikes overseas in Pakistan alone, which vastly affect the innocent and non-threatening, have even prompted Google employees and big firms alike to develop charts and interactive maps to detail the deaths in a manner that portrays the reality of the situation. One design firm known as Pitch recently went and created an interactive chart that, along with detailing how less than 2% of strike victims are high priority targets, documents the drone strike deaths throughout recent years.
We continue to hear these major announcements from Holder regarding drone strikes, and each time it pushes the precedent further. Each time, he warps the ‘law’ to justify what is being done with drone attacks, and each time we come closer to the announcement that we ‘need’ to use armed drones against domestic terrorists. Just wait for the next terrorist hunt in the US for a high profile crime case to hear more from Holder and the gang on why we need armed domestic drones to keep us safe. It already happened with Dorner and others.
Even as Americans grieve over the Boston Marathon bombings, they should know that US assassination drone strikes worldwide kill many more people weekly and continue unpunished, an analyst says.
“While we mourn the horrific events in Boston, we must remember that our government perpetrates a Boston bombing weekly in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan,” political commentator Sean McElwee says.
He adds that although the White House administration alleges that it prefers trials for the rule of law, the true reason for its targeted killing program across the globe is that: it’s cleaner, simpler and less embarrassing to just off the suspected terrorists. The government uses mafia logic - why waste time and energy risking the rule of law when you can just swoop in and launch a smart bomb?
On April 15, the twin bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured more than 170.
At least five people were killed and seven others injured on April 17 in an attack by a US terror drone in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal region. The drone strike took place in South Waziristan’s Babar Ghar area.
Local officials said the US drones fired two missiles at a house in South Waziristan, and that the house was completely destroyed in the attack.
On April 14, four people were killed by a US terror drone in the Datta Khel area, located some 35 kilometers (22 miles) west of Miranshah, in North Waziristan. Read the entire article
In the wake of the Boston bombings, the president of the largest Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) organization wasted no time in pushing for drones - as some predicted those in the industry would.
Michael Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said UASs could have provided critical situational awareness for first responders and law enforcement in Boston.
"UAS could be an important tool in the tool kit for first responders in the event of an emergency," he assured US News and World Report. "Whether it is in response to a natural disaster or a tragedy like we saw in Boston, UAS can be quickly deployed to provide first responders with critical situational awareness in areas too dangerous or difficult for manned aircraft to reach. Our industry is working to develop technologies to provide first responders with the best tools possible to do their jobs safely as they work to protect our communities."
This came as no surprise to those worried about the loss of civil liberties and privacy concerns with the use of drones.
Shahid Buttar, the Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, predicted this type of action immediately following the bombing. He told Wisconsin Reporter it was only a matter of time before someone used the event to call for drones to help in these types of situations.
Attorney General Eric Holder can imagine a scenario in which it would be constitutional to carry out a drone strike against an American on American soil, he wrote in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
Paul condemned the idea. “The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,” he said in a statement.
Holder noted that Paul’s question was “entirely hypothetical [and] unlikely to occur,” but cited the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as the type of incidents that might provoke such a response.
“Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of his authority,” he concluded.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, an attorney and Judiciary Committee member, told The Washington Examiner last month that the drone policy so far outlined by the administration is too vague.
“That has the potential to swallow the rule,” Lee said after the drone program white paper was leaked. “If you’re going to regard somebody as presenting an imminent threat of an attack on the U.S. simply because you have concluded that they are an ‘operational leader’ or they are involved in planning an attack in one way or another, you find yourself giving way to much discretion to the government.”
Lee said that the White House should release the formal legal analysis underpinning the drone program. “We know that in some instances where the government has released its legal analysis, it gets it wrong,” he said.
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! Mark Matheny March 4, 2013 Louis Farrakhan, leader of the "Nation of Islam" stated in an address, that the current Oligarchy in power is leading America into Fascism. He stated that the year of 2013 will bring the "number 6" and with it "dissatisfation and the number of the beast", bringing possible revolution by the masses here in the U.S.
Farrakhan named The U.S., England, Germany, and Italy as fours beasts that are currently causing wars and misery around the world. He stated also that the Obama administration is helping to push an "Israeli war" against Iran. (However, America is protecting Iran, not going against it.)
Farrakhan also claims that the evil being pushed by these "beasts" will certainly backfire against them, and that America does not have the stomach to fight a war against Muslims for decades on in.
Farrakhan accused America of also murdering Thousands in the current drone program of the United States.
In a rare admission, Robert Gibbs, the former White House Press Secretary under Obama, told reporters Sunday that he was ordered to act as if there was no such thing as an active US drone program.
“When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was, you’re not even to acknowledge the drone program,” Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes” this past weekend.
Gibbs said that he was told “You’re not even to discuss that it exists.”
Noting that the notion was “inherently crazy”, Gibbs said “You’re being asked a question based on reporting of a program that exists.”
“So you’re the official government spokesperson acting as if the entire program—pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Gibbs, who was Press Secretary between 2009 and 2011, said.
Gibbs stated that he expects the drone program to remain secret for the most part, despite moves in Congress to force more transparency.
“I have not talked to him about this, so I want to be careful,” Gibbs said, “but I think what the president has seen is, our denial of the existence of the program when it’s obviously happening undermines people’s confidence overall in the decisions that their government makes.”
While the program itself remains classified, it is no secret that Obama has vastly expanded the US drone war since entering office in 2009. Daily drone strikes are raining down on Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as Somalia.
A recent report released by Washington based think tank, The New America Foundation revealed that the number of secret US drone strikes in Yemen almost tripled in 2012, compared to 2011.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, has found that at least 171 civilians, including 35 children, have been slaughtered in Yemen by secret US drone strikes over the past ten years.
Communications released by WikiLeaks in 2010 revealed that the US and Yemen have repeatedly attempted to cover up the use of US warplanes to bombard Yemen.
Last week it was announced that despite the fact that drone strikes have killed thousands of innocent civilians in Yemen and Pakistan, the Pentagon is to reward drone operators with medals.
The DoD is creating a new ribbon, called the Distinguished Warfare Medal that will be awarded for “extra achievement” related to a military operation. This will encompass sitting at a computer console and pressing a button to release Hellfire missiles from Predator drones hundreds and thousands of miles away.
The medal will become the fourth-highest ranking combat decoration, placing above the Bronze Star.
Despite the official secrecy, the president has referred to the drone program several times in public, as have officials such as counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan.
Last year, the New York Times ran a major piece on the program revealing that the White House has asserted the right to carry out state-sponsored assassination anywhere in the world without having to provide any evidence or go through any legal process.
The administration merely has to state that the target is a terrorist and it doesn’t matter whether they are an American citizen or not, as we saw in the case of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, who were both killed last year.
In December of last year, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination, claiming that “U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets” and do not have the right to any legal protection against being marked for summary execution.
During a CBS 60 Minutes interview in January, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta revealed that Obama himself personally approves the policy to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without trial on a case by case basis.
Perhaps the real reason that the administration wants the details of the programme kept under wraps is that, as reported by Propublica recently, the programme is potentially much bigger in scope than anyone had previously thought.
The administration’s figures do not add up, they are chock full of contradictions and discrepancies, and there can be little doubt that there have been many many more civilian deaths as a result of drone attacks than have been publicly acknowledged.
Akram, who noted that US drone strikes had killed more than 1,000 civilians in Pakistan, also said “We find the use of drones to be totally counterproductive in terms of succeeding in the ‘war against terror’. It leads to greater levels of terror rather than reducing them.
Many also contend that the attacks infringe the national sovereignty of Pakistan and constitute an act of war.
In 2010, a report by Washington think tank The New America Foundation found that 32% of the more than 1,200 people killed since 2004 in Pakistan, or around 1 in 3, were innocent bystanders rather than dangerous terrorists.
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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
The Department of Homeland Security is advancing its plan to use surveillance drones for “public safety” applications, announcing last week that it had received a deluge of “excellent” responses from potential vendors and was set to carry out more tests of the technology.
New testing of spy drones for “public safety” applications has been rubber stamped by the DHS. Image: YouTube
As we first reported in July last year, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told a House Committee on Homeland Security that the federal agency was “looking at drones that could be utilized to give us situational awareness in a large public safety [matter] or disaster,” despite the fact that the agency had previously indicated it was reticent to use spy drones to keep tabs on the public.
This was followed by a “market research” announcement in September that confirmed the DHS was exploring a “Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety” (RAPS) project, and was asking small unmanned aerial systems (SUAS) vendors to take part.
In an update posted on the FedBizOpps website last week (PDF), the federal agency announced that, “Vendor response to our Request for Information (RFI), Number: DHS 13-01, on small unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS) was excellent and included the submission of over 70 white papers.”
The announcement added that a small number of the submissions would now be participating in the “first phase of assessments” for the technology in 2013 and 2014. The DHS refuses to specify which proposals were accepted and for what reasons.
Initial testing of robotic spy drones for “public safety” applications was conducted by the DHS’ Science and Technology directorate at Fort Sill, Oklahoma last year.
As Wired Magazine reported, the DHS is pursuing lightweight spy drones that can fly for two hours at a time, but it is also interested in military-style drones fitted with cameras that can spy on up to four square miles at a time.
As we reported last week, the ARGUS-IS surveillance camera system, developed by BAE Systems in conjunction with DARPA, has the capability to track every moving object across an area of 15 square miles, or a medium-sized city – and could be fitted to unmanned drones that can stay airborne for years at a time.
The DHS is already using another type of airborne drone surveillance, also utilized to track insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, for the purposes of “emergency and non-emergency incidents” within the United States.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
A state of the art spy system that is housed in a drone and can record every moving object across an entire city from an altitude of 20,000 feet represents the next level of Big Brother surveillance.
The 1.8 billion pixel ARGUS-IS surveillance camera, otherwise known as the Area Persistent Stare, has been developed by BAE Systems as part of a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Using 368 five megapixel cell phone cameras, the system can be fitted to an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and is eventually planned to be incorporated into the developmental solar eagle drone that will be able to stay airborne for years at a time.
The clip above features the creator of ARGUS, BAE Systems’ Yiannis Antoniades, describing how the system is equivalent to, “having up to 100 predators look at an area the size of a medium sized city at once,” and how it can track every moving object across an area of 15 square miles, right down to people walking down the street and even birds flying in the sky and objects as small as six inches on the ground.
“Everything that is a moving object is being automatically tracked… You can see individuals crossing the street. You can see individuals walking in parking lots. There’s actually enough resolution to be able to see people waving their arms or what kind of clothes they wear,” said Antoniades.
The system can store one million terabytes of video per day, 5,000 hours of HD footage, while broadcasting live streaming footage to a ground station. ARGUS can “zoom in and see tremendous detail.”
Details of the project, which was initiated in 2007, have only recently been released thanks to a government gag order being lifted, but the sensor itself is still classified and cannot be shown on camera.
Antoniades refused to discuss whether the system had been deployed in the field but stated, “I’m not at liberty to discuss plans of the government, but if we had our choice, we would like ARGUS to be over the same area 24 hours day, 7 days a week,” adding that drones would be a “perfect platform” for the sensor.
“We’re moving towards an increasingly electronic society where our movements are going to be tracked,” said Mary Cummings of the MIT Humans and Automation Lab.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
Lawmakers in at least 11 states are proposing various restrictions on the use of drones over their skies amid concerns the unmanned aerial vehicles could be exploited by local authorities to spy on Americans.
Concerns mounted after the Federal Aviation Administration began establishing safety standards for civilian drones, which are becoming increasingly affordable and small in size.
Some police agencies have said the drones could be used for surveillance of suspects, search and rescue operations, and gathering details on damage caused by natural disasters.
Virginia lawmakers on Tuesday approved a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by police and government agencies.
Proponents of the legislation say the unfettered use of drones could infringe on Virginians' privacy rights. The legislation was supported by the ACLU, the Tea Party Federation and agriculture groups, while several law enforcement organizations opposed the moratorium.
"Our founders had no conception of things that would fly over them at night and peer into their backyards and send signals back to a home base," said Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico and sponsor of the Senate bill.
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects abroad, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
The secrecy surrounding such strikes is fast emerging as a central issue in this week’s hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, to be CIA director. Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.” In a separate talk at the Northwestern University Law School in March, Attorney General Eric Holder specifically endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans, saying they could be justified if government officials determine the target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack.”
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