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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Thursday, December 13, 2012

The "Gorgon Stare" Spy Drone is Watching You


The Gorgon Stare
The award for best — and creepiest — military name of the week?
No contest, that’s "Gorgon Stare," the Air Force’s $150 million project to outfit its
latest spy drones with super high-powered cameras.  By next year, 10 Reaper
unmanned aircraft should have a Gorgon Stare sensor, which will film an area,
two-and-a-half miles around, from 12 different angles.


The military is operating drones in civilian airspace
  • What was a slow and steady march to an unconstitutional American Police State is turning into a rapid 100 yard dash.
  • Democrats and Republicans eagerly wotk together to fully fund Big Brother spy systems for both domestic and foreign use.


Thousands of pages of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents released under the Freedom Of Information Act highlight that the military is extensively flying surveillance drones in non-restricted skies throughout the country.

The records, released by The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), reveal that three branches of the military are operating drones within civilian airspace. Those branches are the Air Force, the Marine Corps, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).


Infowars News reports that according to EFF, the documents show that the Air Force is testing all manner of UAVs, from small hand launched drones all the way up to the Predator and Reaper drones, the kind that routinely conduct missile strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

EFF notes that the use of drones capable of extensive surveillance in public airspace is concerning, especially since recent reports have revealed that Air Force drone operators have been conducting practice spying missions by tracking civilian cars along highways adjacent to military bases.


Dronology: US flying eye spies on people at home
Washington's key spying weapon in overseas operations is becoming a common tool for U.S. police, stirring up privacy concerns among more and more Americans.



Alex Jones: Military Industrial Complex has declared war on the US
In the past decade the Pentagon's unmanned predator drones went from 50 to 7,000. Many fear the use of these drones on Americans are infringing on their civil liberties. 




In addition, a recently uncovered Air Force document also raised alarms over military use of spy drones in US skies. The document outlines how to circumvent privacy laws, and clears the way for the Pentagon to use drones to monitor the activities of Americans.

EFF notes that the latest FAA documents indicate that the Marine Corps is also flying drones in US skies, but that “it chose to redact so much of the text from its records that we still don’t know much about its programs.”

Perhaps most disturbingly, DARPA, according to the documents, is flying full sized Reaper drones in areas of Nevada, California and Utah that are able to use technology that can capture motion imagery of entire cities. The technology, known as “Gorgon Stare” uses an array of nine to twelve cameras attached to the drone to take concurrent footage from multiple different angles.

Feeds from those drones can be fed into artificial-intelligence software developed by DARPA known as the “Mind’s Eye project”, which can analyze all the data at once, meaning that essentially a machine can keep watch over everything happening in an entire city.

Once again, this is being used INSIDE the US, by the military, in public airspace.

More advanced programs are being built by DARPA that could soon incorporate hundreds of cameras on a drone.


For the full article go to Infowars News.




Homeland Security loaning drones to local police
  • Fears of militarization of local law enforcement, privacy intrusions


The Washington Guardian has confirmed, DHS and its Customs and Border Protection agency have deployed drones -- originally bought to guard America’s borders -- to assist local law enforcement and other federal agencies on several occasions.

The practice is raising questions inside and outside government about whether federal officials may be creating an ad-hoc, loan-a-drone program without formal rules for engagement, privacy protection or taxpayer reimbursements. The drones used by CPB can cost between $15 million and $34 million each to buy, and have hourly operational costs as well.


In addition, DHS recently began distributing $4 million in grants to help local law enforcement buy its own, smaller versions of drones, opening a new market for politically connected drone makers as the wars overseas shrink..

The double-barreled lending and purchasing have some concerned that federal taxpayers may be subsidizing the militarization of local police forces and creating new threats to average Americans’ privacy.

Far from the battlefields of Afghanistan, a Predator drone was summoned into action last year without a warrant to spy on a North Dakota farmer who allegedly refused to return a half dozen of his neighbor’s cows that had strayed onto his pastures.

The farmer had become engaged in a standoff with the Grand Forks police SWAT team and the sheriff’s department. So the local authorities decided to call on their friends at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deploy a multimillion dollar, unarmed drone to surveil the farmer and his family.

For the full article go to Washington Guardian.


Government Insect Spy Drones.
The military is creating drones that are the size of mosquitoes. They will be able to fly into any space, undetected and take pictures.  We have now entered a Brave New World.


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