by Jan Morgan
The U.S. military and the government aren’t supposed to conduct surveillance of Americans on U.S. soil without a warrant or their consent.
Yet, Obama and our lawmakers cleared the way for 30 thousand drones to be used in American airspace.
WHY?
HR 658, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act, passed both the House and the Senate. It authorizes the use of 30,000 spy drones over America? Like the un-Constitutional NDAA legislation that passed in November, this bill was not widely reported by the mainstream media. The media for the most part, was once again complicit and failed miserably in its responsibility to share this information with the American people.
Try to imagine, 30-THOUSAND drones flying overhead surveilling the US. If you divide that by 50 states, that is 600 drones per state!
The biggest names in the Conservative movement, from Charles Krauthammer to Drudge are speaking out against this move, calling on the government to not only place restrictions, but BAN the use of drones in our airspace.
Krauthammer said on Fox News, “I don’t want restrictions, I want a ban on this. Drones are instruments of war. The Founders had a great aversion to any instruments of war, the use of the military inside even the United States. It didn’t like standing armies, it has all kinds of statutes of using the army in the country.”
“A drone is a high-tech version of an old army and a musket. It ought to be used in Somalia to hunt bad guys but not in America. I don’t want to see it hovering over anybody’s home. Yes, you can say we have satellites, we’ve got Google Street View and London has a camera on every street corner but that’s not an excuse to cave in on everything else and accept a society where you’re always under — being watched by the government.” ( Krauthammer on Fox News)
How are you going to feel if you happen to glance up and see one hovering over your home?
Better yet, what about the safety concerns. What are the chances of these crashing in public places and killing people? Then there is the issue of drones being used to carry out acts of terrorism.
Let’s examine the safety issue. We know a Navy drone crashed in Maryland. Then there was the first police drone in the country that crashed on its own police officers. The Montgomery County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office was the first department in the country with its own aerial drone ($300,000!) That drone crashed into a SWAT team. Fortunately the SWAT boys were safe in their Bearcat.
This is exactly why we should be asking Congress what they were thinking when they voted to allow all these drones to fly in our airspace. If one of them crashes in a populated urban area, it could be bad.. Not all of us are driving around in Bearcats
If the purpose of these drones is national security, then why does the government have the right, when these drones capture you on video, to hold on to that video for surveillance purposes for 90 days..
Where in the Constitution does it say any government agency has that right?
I can see where these eyes in the sky might be beneficial tools for the department of Homeland Security and law enforcement, however, I do not trust the Obama Administration with this power, nor do I want private companies and individuals to have this type of surveillance capability…
Police, firefighters and other civilian first-response agencies can now fly UAVs weighing no more than 4.4 pounds, provided they have an operator on the ground within line-of-sight of the drone and flying it at least 400 feet above ground.
Currently, UAVs can only fly in restricted airspace zones controlled by the U.S. military, however by May 2013, the next class of drones, those weighing less than 55 pounds, can fly the nation’s skies, according to provisions of the FAA bill passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama.
The deadline for full integration of drones into U.S. airspace is Sept. 30, 2015.
The rules about who can operate these drones, where and when they can fly are still in the development stage.
According to Nasa, there is also a number of technical hurdles that have to do with bandwidth for secure UAV radio communications and working out collision avoidance systems.
While I have nothing to hide, I have everything to lose when it comes to handing over LIBERTY to an abusive federal government headed by a leader that I believe is a hater of liberty and our Constitutional Republic…
Therefore, I am against the use of drones in our air space as well.
Ben Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty in exchange for temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
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