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DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

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DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law - CNET News
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders, but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.

Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.

On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do. Determining whether or not someone is armed with a long gun seems perfectly reasonable. However I don't particularly like the signal interception and tracking portions. What do you think?
 
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law - CNET News


On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do. Determining whether or not someone is armed with a long gun seems perfectly reasonable. However I don't particularly like the signal interception and tracking portions. What do you think?

You can go to any electronics store and buy stuff to listen in on cell phone conversations. GPS tracking has been available for years. OnStar does it, Police, Fire etc can do it. This is nothing new.
 
You can go to any electronics store and buy stuff to listen in on cell phone conversations. GPS tracking has been available for years. OnStar does it, Police, Fire etc can do it. This is nothing new.

I understand that very well. I even said "On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do"

I just have reservations about it being deployed in domestic drones.
 
You can go to any electronics store and buy stuff to listen in on cell phone conversations. GPS tracking has been available for years. OnStar does it, Police, Fire etc can do it. This is nothing new.

Your statement about buying stuff to listen in on cell phone conversations is inaccurate and untrue. Since the late 80s early 90s, americans are prohibited from owning such equipment, and it is not sold here.

It can be purchased in other countries including Canada, but not in the US. Only government agents can possess and operate such equipment.

With today's all digital format, even if one had such a receiver, there is nothing to hear but white noise, because it's all digital.

Big Brother can listen and watch, but you may not.
 
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law - CNET News

On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do. Determining whether or not someone is armed with a long gun seems perfectly reasonable. However I don't particularly like the signal interception and tracking portions. What do you think?
Why don't they park one of these drones outside an airport and not make everyone take there shoes off, then?

Fire 99% of the TSA and just have a few drones fly about.

Oh, but we can't do that, because personal searches are about conditioning us to letting the government invade our privacy, not actually making anyone safe.
 
Why don't they park one of these drones outside an airport and not make everyone take there shoes off, then?

Fire 99% of the TSA and just have a few drones fly about.

Oh, but we can't do that, because personal searches are about conditioning us to letting the government invade our privacy, not actually making anyone safe.

TSA flying drones in close proximity to passenger aircraft, now that's a scary thought.
 
I think it is better to have and not need it most of the time, than it is to need something and not have it.

Drones doing surveillance is nothing more than what police helicopters do when they track a suspect. If they use drones for this it will make it possible for law enforcement to track more bad guys because a drone is more flexible because it does not need a pilot.

For people on the ground tracking criminals using a drone should help with the noise pollution a helicopter causes.
 
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law - CNET News


On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do. Determining whether or not someone is armed with a long gun seems perfectly reasonable. However I don't particularly like the signal interception and tracking portions. What do you think?

I think it would be perfect for search and rescue. Border Patrol is another task they would be well suited for. It's a cheaper alternative to the cost and time required to train pilots for even more expensive helicopters, so there's that to consider as well, especially for police departments with small budgets. I don't really understand why people are so opposed to UAV's, honestly. It's not the Terminator, it's not some big scary monster that fuels its battery cells with the blood of puppies and children, it's just a big R/C airplane with a camera on it. The only difference between a UAV and a conventional aircraft is that the pilot isn't in the UAV during flight.
 
I just have reservations about it being deployed in domestic drones.
Why? There is no moral difference between such equipment being on a manned aircraft or on a drone. Are your reservations based on anything more than an irrational objection to "drones" as a concept due to their bad press in a military context?
 
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law - CNET News


On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do. Determining whether or not someone is armed with a long gun seems perfectly reasonable. However I don't particularly like the signal interception and tracking portions. What do you think?

The real problem is that any one given thing doesn't seem too bad, right? Oh they’re tracking you through your cell phone, and so many other agencies already do that. Well, maybe not the worst thing ever, yes? They can listen in on your conversations. Well that one even by itself isn’t good; the government needs warrant. But you’re not going to get all bent out of shape for the spying and the tracking.

Now they’re just adding to it, why would you be upset? Lots of State Pleasers and Knee Benders will say such. Why are you upset? The issue is the level to which the State, the government, is aggregating their tracking, spying, and databasing of its own people. It’s not “oh it’s only tracking us through our cell phones” or “well it’s not bad, they only listen into our conversations”. They do both, they track our e-mail, they look up and keep tabs on you. And they’re just adding to it. Now they have the drones, drones will be cheaper, more effective than Helicopters to use.

Oh…but you’re ok with helicopters, aren’t you? Why are you upset at drone planes, says the Servants of State. Well first off, they already have helicopters, so they don’t need the drones. The helicopters seem a bit more reasonable to people. They don’t fly all the time, they aren’t used for routine surveillance. They’re called in for certain and specific situations to provide aerial surveillance for a current police chase. Not so with the drones, the drones BUILD on what you can do with helicopters, it TAKES IT FARTHER. Slowly but surely the fire under our little pot is being turned up. Drones can maintain constant surveillance, and do it cheaper, easier, stealthier, and more sustainably than helicopters. Their adaptability is crazy. People talk about weapons, but I say you’d better be more scared of optics. There’s plenty of packages they can add to these things that will let them see through walls essentially, to look anywhere they want, whenever they want, and piss off if you don’t like it. Drones are a threat, like it or not, and their abilities will not stop with the simple surveillance the government is positioning itself for now.

Why should you fight? Why should you resist? Why is there that nagging thought in the back of your head telling you something is wrong? Surely you aren’t upset at the myriad of things the government already can do to spy on you, to pretend that 4th amendment just doesn’t exist. It’s because the aggregation on their power and their ability to bypass the Constitution has grown to such level, it’s finally starting to sink in to a lot of people, it’s becoming so obvious the government cannot hide it much longer. They have aggregated too much power. While we could let any one of these things slide individually, collectively they are TOO MUCH. The government was not meant to have this much freedom, this level of unchecked and unrestrained movement. The drones are just another in the long string of events that turn our water from a warm swim hole to a boiling pot of soup.
 
Probably for joint use with the BATF to watch for poor people buying a gun so they can sniper them from the air by remote control.
 
You can go to any electronics store and buy stuff to listen in on cell phone conversations. GPS tracking has been available for years. OnStar does it, Police, Fire etc can do it. This is nothing new.

Sure, you can go buy that stuff off the rack. But if the police want to do it, they have to get this thing called a warrant. The military has the capability to listen to... all sorts of things, and there are very strict laws about doing that listening over American soil, on American citizens. If the police ping the gps on your phone to track it, they have to have a documented "life or limb" scenario, and by documented, I mean they have to fill out documents toward that end that end up in the case file (they cannot simply ping any phone they want for any reason they want).

Having this stuff on a drone is one thing; having this stuff on a drone that flies exclusively over American airspace is quite another. Additionally, there are hard-and-fast rules (otherwise knows as laws) on the books governing the military and the police how they use technology like this. As far as I know, no such laws are in place to govern other government agencies, and with the Patriot Act in place... I'm not sure if any regulations would even matter.

No sir, I don't like it one bit.
 
TSA flying drones in close proximity to passenger aircraft, now that's a scary thought.

May very well be closer to the truth than you think.

"The FAA is investigating a report... he saw a small, unmanned or remote-controlled aircraft while on final approach to Runway 31 Right," according a statement sent to CNN by FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown. "The sighting was approximately four to five miles west of the airport at an altitude of approximately 1,500 feet," she said.

That description puts the aircraft somewhere over Brooklyn and on the other side of the airport from where the plane was coming in for a landing.

Pilot reports spotting 'drone' over Brooklyn - CNN.com
 
Of course if were revealed that there was a terror group on the run up to an imminent attack in the US or that there was possibly a loose nuke believed somewhere in the lower 48, people would be screaming, "We spend trillions of dollars on defense. Why do we not have the capability to deal with these threats?"
 
I'm not okay with the tracking and interception equipment in helicopters. However I am not aware of it being used domestically in any law enforcement or government aircraft. To the best of my knowledge, this would be the first time it is used domestically.
 
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law - CNET News


On one hand this seems to be another means to accomplish things they already can do. Determining whether or not someone is armed with a long gun seems perfectly reasonable. However I don't particularly like the signal interception and tracking portions. What do you think?

I am missing something that the article implies happened, but i see no evidence of it. the article seems to imply that the drones are specially built for requirements stated by DHS, but a list of the specifications on the drones does not make it a request by the DHS to have these things. The specification list is just a list of what the drones have on them. I understand the concern on that, but the article implies something far more sinister, where the evidence just shows the DHS has a bunch of drones with these specifications.

I would have to imagine that drones made for our military fighting terrorism on foreign soil would have the ability to spot armed people, and have the ability to listen in on 2 way and cellular broadcasts. Saying those things were specially added for DHS seems like a bold faced lie unless someone can show us that military drones cannot do these things. If it is the case that DHS just got a bunch of standard military drones that actually makes sense, and is far less sinister than the article makes it sound. The article does not do it's job of proving DHS gets drones with special abilities most drones do not have.

As for the government needing drones to listen in on your cell phone calls, that is really stupid. Seriously, they are broadcast signals. unless your cell phone is without connection to the provider, which would make it useless, they could monitor you with an old pinto equipped with the equipment that they already have. These are not devices running over wired systems they would need physical access to, they broadcast signals through the air. Even if they are having trouble in the US, I cannot imagine how that would be, they could simply go to the provider.

in legal terms you have little to no legitimate expectation of privacy on broadcast signals. Even the claims that it is illegal to own cell phone monitoring equipment by private citizens would not give you an expectation of privacy. You may think your cell phone conversations and wireless broadcasts are private, but the law doesn't. You have to remember it is like using a huge megaphone to send those signals, and that is not private. If you really are concerned about privacy from the government you should probably do some actual study regarding what you do and what they do, along with the laws and judicial interpretations of privacy. The beliefs many people have bout their privacy are best equated with the king's clothes analogy. In other words, you are probably exposed and have no idea.
 
Sure, you can go buy that stuff off the rack. But if the police want to do it, they have to get this thing called a warrant. The military has the capability to listen to... all sorts of things, and there are very strict laws about doing that listening over American soil, on American citizens. If the police ping the gps on your phone to track it, they have to have a documented "life or limb" scenario, and by documented, I mean they have to fill out documents toward that end that end up in the case file (they cannot simply ping any phone they want for any reason they want).

Having this stuff on a drone is one thing; having this stuff on a drone that flies exclusively over American airspace is quite another. Additionally, there are hard-and-fast rules (otherwise knows as laws) on the books governing the military and the police how they use technology like this. As far as I know, no such laws are in place to govern other government agencies, and with the Patriot Act in place... I'm not sure if any regulations would even matter.

No sir, I don't like it one bit.

If that scares you, then you really don't want to open your eyes. They don't have to go through all that effort if you turn on broadcasts. They do not have to ping anything if you are broadcasting. All they really have to do is wait for you to want to call someone and then you are broadcasting for them. They do not need to send your phone a request to send a signal when you do it for them. Some people even turn on their GPS trackers for their friends and family to see where they are. If you are using your GPS system to plot your course, you are sending the signals yourself.

It is not hard to track someone when you give them toys they want to use that let you track them. If you really do not want the government tracking your movements you need to toss the cell phone registered to your name, and screw having a car that in onstar capable or has it's own GPS. They are fun toys people don't like living without, but that is how they can easily get around laws and privacy concerns if they want to track you. in the end if you are not doing much these things are creepy but not terribly dangerous to you.
 
Sure, you can go buy that stuff off the rack. But if the police want to do it, they have to get this thing called a warrant. The military has the capability to listen to... all sorts of things, and there are very strict laws about doing that listening over American soil, on American citizens. If the police ping the gps on your phone to track it, they have to have a documented "life or limb" scenario, and by documented, I mean they have to fill out documents toward that end that end up in the case file (they cannot simply ping any phone they want for any reason they want).

Having this stuff on a drone is one thing; having this stuff on a drone that flies exclusively over American airspace is quite another. Additionally, there are hard-and-fast rules (otherwise knows as laws) on the books governing the military and the police how they use technology like this. As far as I know, no such laws are in place to govern other government agencies, and with the Patriot Act in place... I'm not sure if any regulations would even matter.

No sir, I don't like it one bit.

Exactly what I was trying to say, only articulated much better.
 
You can go to any electronics store and buy stuff to listen in on cell phone conversations. GPS tracking has been available for years. OnStar does it, Police, Fire etc can do it. This is nothing new.

Clubbing people in the head has been around since the caveman days. That doesnt mean we should right it into law. Stuff like OP is enabling through wordsmithing (the topic not the OP himself). Its "not spying" if the info is "easily and readily available info". So to insert the "spying" aspect "legal" through law they just make all the spying easily and readily available.
 
On the surface I also like the idea of police having access to this tool. I also think the faster ones could be useful in high speed chases. Instead of the police chasing after a fleeing suspect, thus endangering the public, they could hang back and let the drone follow. The suspect likely wouldn’t even know he was being followed.

But I also am very concerned for potential abuses. Maybe if Internal Affairs gets to have them as well to follow the cops around. :)
 
Oh…but you’re ok with helicopters, aren’t you? Why are you upset at drone planes, says the Servants of State. Well first off, they already have helicopters, so they don’t need the drones.

Helicopters require a great deal more maintenance than a UAV. UAV's are more cost effect, both short and long term, so they make more sense.
 
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Helicopters require a great deal more maintenance than a UAV. UAV's are more cost effect, both short and long term, so they make more sense.

Actually, I'd say it's quite the opposite. UAV's are more cost effective in both short and long therm, so they do not make sense to allow local government access to them. Something that simple and easy to use, they will surely abuse. At least with Helicopters there's some amount of performance which makes them not want to use them for general surveillance.
 
Actually, I'd say it's quite the opposite. UAV's are more cost effective in both short and long therm, so they do not make sense to allow local government access to them. Something that simple and easy to use, they will surely abuse. At least with Helicopters there's some amount of performance which makes them not want to use them for general surveillance.

So, waste tax payer money in the hopes that they won't use the equipment and personnel they spend millions to train and maintain? That's just dumb. If they have the equipment, they're going to use it as frequently as possible to justify the purchase. Cost isn't going to stop them from using the equipment they already have, and for jobs like Border Patrol, you want eyes in the sky as long as they can stay up.
 
So, waste tax payer money in the hopes that they won't use the equipment and personnel they spend millions to train and maintain? That's just dumb. If they have the equipment, they're going to use it as frequently as possible to justify the purchase. Cost isn't going to stop them from using the equipment they already have, and for jobs like Border Patrol, you want eyes in the sky as long as they can stay up.

Make government less efficient, less proactive; yes. That is how we originally designed the system, and I do not believe the founders to be dumb.
 
Make government less efficient, less proactive; yes. That is how we originally designed the system, and I do not believe the founders to be dumb.

That's convenient. Make it to where anyone who disagrees with you hates America.
 
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