Alabama police look to drones to monitor college campus

From:  RT 

COMMENT -Let's as a question as we consider the article reposted from RT about using drones on campuses which throughout America are now struggling to survive financially.  

As cited, Alabama is passing legislation which would make the use of drones, as envisioned by the representative from Huntsville, illegal.  The technology is expensive.  Far cheaper to issue guns to students or faculty if concern over a mass killing event is real.  

The rhetoric used by the representative, Gary Maddux, the lead research director of Systems Management and Productions Center,sounds like he spent some quality time talking to a sales rep from a drone contractor, perhaps someone like Jack Douglas, a Senior Vice President of Green Hills Software, or even Craig Franklin or David Chandler.  

It is all about sales for them when other considerations should be paramount.  We were once people who understood our personal, individual obligation to do no harm.  

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International  has an About Us page, which I helpfully reproduced, in toto, below.  Reading it through takes only a moment.  

Do you notice anything here about ensuring the technology is not being used in ways which violates people's rights?  As they so eagerly, actually like rabbits stuck in breeding mode, roll their lower cost tools for fascist control out into the world, do they exhibit even a smidgin of concern about how their stock and trade is being used already?  

No, you don't.  An eerie silence fills that moral void.  There is also no mechanism for policing themselves because they see no point to any such consideration.  Empowered by the idea they, and their members, are invulnerable because of their so very corporate bulwarks and officious 'association,' they are filled with a sense of, how shall we say this?  Invulnerability, as if the specious concept of 'state sovereignty' also covered their sorry asses. So 'not true' it should send shivers up their kilts. 

If they took time to reference the original Nuremberg Trials, they would know  this.  

They clearly intend to provide the tools to survey us and police every part of our lives, while retaining the ability to blow inconvenient individuals, and those standing near them, to smithereens in the belief they are too, too, impervious to be touched. 

For them, more places to use drones is better because it burnishes their bottom line.  No other consideration matters.  Caught up in the oblivion of greed, they simply continue to feed. 

They live in a world where the assumption was people do not have to be told it is wrong to blow other people up.  We are learning this is not the case, in some part through understanding the neurobiology of the disordered. 

At the same time, their handy, dandy technology is now cojoined as an enforcement tool with the interest group with has proven, over and over again, their numbers include highly psychopathic individuals who think blowing up  innocent civilians is a good idea, as long as the money keeps flowing.  

Retribution can be slow, but it is none the less, sure. 

From the website of The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International

About Us

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International is the world's largest non-profit organization devoted exclusively to advancing the unmanned systems and robotics community. Serving more than 7,500 members from government organizations, industry and academia, AUVSI is committed to fostering, developing, and promoting unmanned systems and robotic technologies. AUVSI members support defense, civil and commercial sectors. 
Mission Statement
Advancing the unmanned systems and robotics community through education, advocacy and leadership.
Vision Statement
To improve humanity by enabling the global use of robotic technology in everyday lives.

AUVSI's Strategic Goals

1. Inclusive Community – AUVSI will be an inclusive and accessible global organization encompassing the robotics/unmanned systems community.
2. Global Focus – AUVSI will be the essential partner in the growth and reach of the global robotics/unmanned systems community.
3. Education and Outreach - AUVSI will facilitate the expansion of robotics/unmanned systems knowledge and will promote educational opportunities.
4. Knowledge Source – AUVSI will be the preferred robotics/unmanned systems knowledge source.
5. Advocacy and Influence – There will be recognition of AUVSI by governments, industry and academia as a powerful advocate for robotics/unmanned systems.
6. Member Services – AUVSI will provide value-added services to its current and potential membership.

as⋅so⋅ci⋅a⋅tion [uh-soh-see-ey-shuhn]
–noun

1.	an organization of people with a common purpose and having a formal structure.

2.	the act of associating or state of being associated.

3.	friendship; companionship.

4.	connection or combination.

And, finally,  our Article

 

Officials at an Alabama university have divulged a new plan to use unmanned aerial devices to help police monitor, and supposedly protect, students on campus.

Law enforcement officials unveiled the plan Wednesday at a press conference at the University of Alabama Huntsville, telling the Huntsville Times the aircraft would provide an “eye in the sky” that could help stop a mass shooting on campus. 

Gary Maddux, the lead research director of Systems Management and Productions Center, said that because the remote-controlled surveillance devices fly at a lower altitude than drones, they are totally unlike the controversial military aircraft. 

“We just want to be able to make a difference and we want to make a difference quickly and come up with something to help law enforcement,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about – improving our response times so maybe we could mitigate the next tragedy that could occur.”

Maddux did not specify how the surveillance technology will prevent criminal activity or improve campus police response time. He did add, however, that the drones will “be incredibly useful and offer a wide range of possible applications.” 

The UAVs used over the University of Alabama Huntsville will be capable of using small spotlights or infrared cameras, along with video cameras. But being fitted with the extra technological perks doesn’t mean the police will use them, Maddux claimed. 

“Obviously, we’re going to be very cognizant of any privacy issues for students,” he continued. “You can’t be flying your drone and look inside a dorm window. But you couldn’t do that if you were stationary or over in this building and had a line of sight to look in a dorm window. It’s the same basic rules.” 

He bristled when pressed on how the technology employed by the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) differs from the military drones that regularly complete secret bombing missions around the world. 

“Obviously, the military has UAVs that fly longer, higher and farther,” he said. “Since we are research and the military has set of rules. If you are domestic and falling under what Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, you have to stay under 400 feet. As far as drone technology versus what we’re doing, I think it’s more syntax than anything.”

The plan seems to be in direct violation of a bill steadily making its way through the Alabama state legislature. The bill, proposed by a Huntsville lawmaker, would make it necessary for law enforcement to obtain a warrant in order to use a drone in order to prevent, in the words of one state senator, “unmanned drones just flying around looking for stuff.”

When Homeland Security Theater Goes Off-Script & COMMENT

From:  lewrockwell.com

 COMMENT -  Now, what is the State not permitted to do?  They have asserted the right to kill Americans, on American soil without warning or trial on the arbitrary decision of the President, the drone industry is clearly panting for more avenues for profit.  The release came out with lightning strike speed,

Drone Industry Invokes Boston Bombings in PR Pitch

So, why was Jack there in his kilt?   

What was really going on in Boston? 

by Will Grigg

Also see - Rebooting Libertarianism and American Vision Magazine

While police in Watertown, Massachusetts closed in on the boat in which 19-year-old terrorist suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had concealed himself, FBI investigators in Chicago were snapping handcuffs on 18-year-old Abdella Ahmed Tounisi as he attempted to board an airplane bound for Istanbul. He intended to travel to Syria to fight on behalf an Islamic rebel group that seeks to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

There is reason to believe that the FBI had advance knowledge of the Boston Marathon bombing plot. On the other hand, we know that Tounisi was a pure product of the FBI's terrorist factory: He was the latest in a long procession of socially alienated teenage Muslim males who have been lured into an FBI-orchestrated plot by the Bureau's roving troupe of "terrorism facilitators." 

What makes the terrorism charges against Tounisi more remarkable is the fact that he is accused of seeking to enlist in the service of a terrorist group that is presently receiving material aid from Washington.

Tounisi had been targeted by the FBI last fall after a friend named Abdel Daoud was snared in one of the Bureau's prefabricated terror plots.

The indictment against Daoud claims that he had "attempted, without lawful authority, to use a weapon of mass destruction" – in this case, a car bomb – in a terrorist attack against a Chicago-area nightclub. In familiar fashion, the Bureau's informant/provocateurs sketched out the plot and provided the targeted patsy with all of the material necessities – including the dummy bomb. 

Daoud playedhis scripted role to perfection – that is, he expressed entirely justifiable outrage over the U.S. Government's relentless campaign to kill Muslims overseas, while allowing himself to be seduced by agents of that same malevolent government into committing a proseuctable act.

The affidavit filed by the FBI claimed that in a conversation with an informant Doud said he wanted the bombing to "send the message that the United States should `stop abusing people overseas.'" Like millions of Americans who see Muslims as an undifferentiated mass of hostility, Daoud reportedly saw Americans as anti-Muslim automatons, rather than as "regular people."

"They're like – more like robots, even the decent, nice people, most people in this country," Daoud reportedly told the FBI provocateur. From Daoud's perspective, this applied even to those who "hate the president" (who, let it not be forgotten, is killing Muslim civilians through drone strikes practically every day) and who opposed "the two wars." This is because most Americans are still "for the war on terrorism," insisted Daoud.

As the FBI carefully reeled in Daoud, it made a play for Tounisi as well, but he was savvy enough to suspect that the operation was a law enforcement sting. Rather than using what influence it had to encourage this wayward young man onto the path of probity, the Bureau redoubled its effort to entice him into a prosecutable act: It set up a website intended to recruit fighters for the Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusrah (JAN), which used to be called al Qaeda in Iraq.

After finding the website, Tounisi made contact with a purported recruiter for the group, who was yet another of the FBI’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of terrorism facilitators. It was the FBI’s asset who made arrangements for Tounisi to travel to Syria, by way of Turkey, to join the U.S.-supported terrorist group. 

The FBI, whose chief occupation since 2002 has been the manufacture of ersatz terrorism plots, induced Tounisi into an act described as providing "material aid" to a foreign terrorist group. If he is convicted, he will be found guilty of carrying out the Obama administration's official policy without official permission. He is not the only American presently facing the prospect of imprisonment on this charge. The administration has filed felony charges against a US Army Veteran from Arizona named Eric Harroun, who traveled to Syria to join the fight against Assad. 

Harroun, who used his Facebook page to describe his role in the conflict, is charged with using a weapon of mass destruction – namely, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher – while fighting on behalf of JAN. 

JAN is the dominant element of the rebel "coalition" being supported by the US and NATO in its insurgency against the admittedly loathsome regime of Bashar al-Assad. JAN has demonstrated its worthiness as a recipient of taxpayer-extracted material support by carrying out undisguised acts of terrorism against civilians. Of particular interest in light of the Boston bombing is the growing role played by Chechen jihadists in the U.S.-backed JAN. Chechen Jidhadists were accused of carrying out the recent abduction of two Syrian Orthodox Bishops earlier this week.

As with Tousnisi, Harroun is accused of giving "material support" to a foreign terrorist group; as in the case of Daoud, he is charged with using a "weapon of mass destruction" – a rocket-propelled grenade launcher – "without legal authority." 

The relevant section of Title 18 of the US Code specifies that the term "weapon of mass destruction" applies to the following "destructive devices": "[A]ny incendiary, explosive, or poison gas -- bomb, grenade, rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, mine, or ... any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Attorney General finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter...."

 John Mueller, who holds the Woody Hayes Chair on National Security Studies at Ohio State University, points out that under federal statutes dealing with WMDs "not only is a hand grenade a weapon of mass destruction ... so is a maliciously designed child's rocket even if it doesn't have a warhead. On the other hand, although a missile-propelled firecracker would be considered a weapon of mass destruction if its designers had wanted to think of it as a weapon, it would not be so considered if it had previously been designed for use as a weapon and then redesigned for pyrotechnic use or if it was surplus and had been sold, loaned, or given to you (under certain circumstances) by the Secretary of the Army." 

The WMD designation would likewise apply to "all artillery, and virtually every muzzle-loading military long arm for that matter," continues Schneider. 

For the Regime and its acolytes, "terrorism" is committed when private individuals, singly or in groups, emulate the criminal violence of the State without receiving official permission. That principle was explained – with admirable candor – by Bill Clinton during an interview published in the December 2009 issue of Foreign Policy magazine. Clinton defined terrorism as "killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority and go beyond national borders." (Emphasis added.)

By reverse-engineering this definition we learn that "killing and robbery and coercion" carried out with "state authority" isn't terrorism; it's public policy. We can also infer that the "war on terror" is not meant to bring an end to such violence, but rather intended to eliminate challenges to the State’s monopoly on criminal violence.

Accordingly, an act of politically motivated armed violence carried out by "non-state actors" can be described as an act of WMD-involved terrorism if it is carried out without what the Regime calls "legal authority." On the other hand, exactly the same acts can be consecrated as "official policy" when they are committed by "non-state actors" who operated on behalf of the Regime. 

Three days before the Boston Marathon Bombing, the foreign policy establishment celebrated the opening of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance in Iran. This is the political front group for the so-called People’s Mujahadeen (or MeK), a Washington-backed Islamo-terrorist group that has carried out bombings and assassinations in Iran during the past decade. During the 1970s, the group staged several terrorist attacks that left U.S. citizens wounded or dead. It was part of the revolutionary coalition that brought Khomeni to power in 1979, but was forced to flee to Iraq following a purge. During the ten-year Iran-Iraq war, the MeK carried out attacks against Iran on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s regime. 

Created in 1965 as part of a Soviet-sponsored international terrorist network that waged wars of "national liberation" throughout the developing world, the MeK was listed as a terrorist organization from 1997 until last September, when it was removed from the State Department’s terrorism roster following a high-pressure campaign that included scores of prominent elected officials and veterans of the National Security "community."

Several members of Congress, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), received significant cash donations from MeK’s supporters as part of the de-listing campaign. Other paid supporters of the MeK included Newt Gingrich, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey (who supervised prosecution of federal "material support" cases on much flimsier evidence), retired General Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired General James Jones, former National Security Adviser to Barack Obama. 

Every U.S. official who lobbied on behalf of the MeK committed the federal offense of providing "material support" to a listed terrorist group. Under the Anwar al-Awlaki precedent, each of them was liable to summary execution by drone strike. Indeed, under the Abdel al-Awlaki codicil to that precedent, each of their children was likewise a fair target for a drone strike because of what White House mouthpiece Robert Gibbs would describe as the lethal irresponsibility of their parents.

As with the JAN in Syria, the Iranian MeK is considered a valuable asset in Washington’s program to foment warfare throughout the Middle East – by providing luridly unreliable but politically useful "intelligence" about the Iranian nuclear program, and carrying out assassinations and other acts of officially sanctioned terrorism within the country. One measure of the MeK’s value to the Regime is found in the fact that the office for the group’s political front group is located less than one hundred yards from the White House.

According to press accounts, Dzhokar Tsarnaev (communicating through a dense haze of painkillers and other pharmaceuticals) admitted to planting the Boston Marathon bombs and told investigators that he and his brother -- like Tounisi, Daoud, and dozens of other young men their age who had been shepherded into FBI-orchestrated false flag operations – were aggrieved over the U.S. government’s unremitting state terrorism against Muslim populations abroad.

The fact that the FBI had previous contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as well as "multiple" warnings about his potential involvement in terrorism, would suggest culpable incompetence on the part of the Bureau – if it weren’t for the fact that the bombing so perfectly fits the template from which scores of FBI-directed plots have been struck. This, when coupled with the fact that authorities were conducting a bombing "drill" on the day of the marathon, suggests that something other than official incompetence is involved.

If the Boston Marathon bombing plot was a case of "lone wolf" terrorism rather than an episode of Homeland Security Theater that went off-script, it would be an anomaly – albeit a fortunate one for those who presume to rule us, given that they profit from the bloody misfortune of the population they supposedly protect.

April 26, 2013

William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

Copyright © 2013 William Norman Grigg

Drone Industry Invokes Boston Bombings in PR Pitch

From:  CNS News

April 22, 2013 

COMMENT -  The drone industry, representing its 2,500 plus member, Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International,  has decided on the appropriate 'spin' and is working to exploit this opportunity to extend profits. 

There is nothing wrong with honest profits, but when so many of your members as highly disordered, or display these characteristics, people with conscience would consider what they are really doing.  

Perhaps they should police themselves and examine how their technologies are being used instead of just inviting everyone in to profit. 

What do you think is happening at GHS at  this moment? 

 The guy at Green Hills celebrate the spin that enriches as they chant, "More terror, more terror."  And Americans are scared.  Read this article if you doubt, "Americans 'snapping' by the millions."

And whose fault is this?  See above, and their fellow Greedvillians. 

L - R:  Dan (Drone Boy) O'Dowd, Craig Franklin's newest girl friend, Craig (Incest Porn) Franklin, David Kleidermacher, and Dave Chandler, formerly of Jamestown, New York. 

---

By Joe Schoffstall

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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.

"I do fear the events in Boston, that someone will say, 'If we would have had a drone over the finish line we would be able to track back the footage and see who it was. It will not surprise me when it happens," Buttar said hours after the tragedy.  MORE