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.
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.
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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.”
