Anti-war activist and author David Swanson has been tracking this phenomenon too, telling me, "members of Congress have created a caucus for drones, where they openly promote the use and sale of drones at home and abroad. They have now authorized the flight of up to 30,000 drones in US skies for whatever purpose--this is in contrast to the lack of any caucus for senior citizens, for children, for health coverage, for green energy, for human beings--there's a caucus for robots."
Soon we will have an arms race in drones of all kinds. The crash of a US drone in Iran has allowed that country to reverse-engineer one, probably leading to Iran soon making their own.
The Russians and Chinese, even the North Koreans, can't be far behind.
More worrying to Americans
should be a report saying that there are already 63 drone bases inside the
United States.
The Washington Post reports, "Big things can happen in Congress -- as long as no one is watching.
"Lobbying records
released last week show that there wasn't much opposition this winter when
Congress quietly opened up U.S. airspace to aerial drones, which some advocates
for civil liberties say raise a host of concerns about privacy.
Drone technology, advanced by the military for surveillance and elimination of terrorists in war zones, is set to come back to the home front in a big way in coming years, with possible uses for law enforcement, first responders, and agriculture and environmental monitoring.
Select companies and ask local governments around the country already for permission to test drones , which can sometimes stay aloft for days at a time at a fraction of the cost of helicopters and airplane
What assisted all of this drone fever?
Remember the
NDAA bill passed last year that was signed quietly into law on New Year's Eve
by President Obama? The
Administration assured one and all that it would not apply to military
operations on U.S. soil or against American citizens.
It now turns
out that the NDAA is being interpreted as authorization to deploy military
drones (unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs) into domestic airspace. A major overhaul of the Federal
Aviation Administration's control system is permitting the deployment of drones
Recently, Alexander
Higgins.com reported:
"A lawsuit has forced
the FAA to reveal the location of 63 Secret Drone bases located inside the
United States some of which will be the starting point for more drone warfare.
While the information
released shows an alarming number of bases being used for military and local
law enforcement drones, perhaps the most startling revelation is that the
United States is allowing Canadian Border Patrol Drones to operate across the
Canadian border.
Odds are that the are
many more drone bases inside the United States whose locations have been kept
secret for various national security reasons and the lawsuit only forced the
government to release the names and locations of permmitted US drone operators.
That means that the type
of drones -- be they for targeted killing, guiding missiles, or general
surveillance -- and the number of drones at each location still remains a secret
although the FAA says they plan on releasing such information at a later date."
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