Drones 101 – The remote controlled killing machines reign fire from the sky…
Incase you are new to the world of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) here’s an excellent three and a half minute introduction from Truthloader
Basically, the US and UK have had remote piloted aircraft and have been using them in the middle east and Pakistan to kill hundreds of innocent children. There are also unarmed variants used solely for surveillance.
Domestic Use
I must admit, I got this one wrong. When news of drone attacks first started to surface, you had the usual “crackpot” cries that within a year or two domestic skies will be full of drones surveying us and eventually firing on us. I didn’t think there was anything in it, it’d never happen. Drones were purely a military aid, to be used in warfare and warfare alone. I was dead wrong.
There ARE, at this very moment, surveillance drones flying over US soil. Nobody knows how many, but we do know that they’re being flown without warrants (here) and that Obama signed an order to get 30,000 of the fuckers in the air by 2020 (here).
Last week, we had the first conviction aided by surveillance captured by a drone. You might be thinking that it was some sort of armed siege or prevented terrorist attack…. No. It was a man prosecuted because cattle from a neighbouring farm had wandered on to his land and he wouldn’t give them back.
Rodney Brossart ‘Drone Cattle Hustler’
Brossart was convicted in November of terrorizing two law enforcement officers who arrested him June 23, 2011, over a neighbor’s three cows and their calves that strayed on to his farm. It’s a felony with a top sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Also Tuesday, Brossart’s three sons — Thomas, Alex and Jacob, all in their 20s — pleaded guilty each to a misdemeanor charge of menacing law enforcement officers, reduced from the felony terrorizing charge, in an agreement with prosecutors.
After Brossart was arrested, an armed standoff ensued between his three sons and a SWAT team. His sons were located by a border-surveillance Predator borrowed from Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), which enabled local police to safely apprehend them
Amazon
Slave-labour powerhouse Amazon are also working on delivery drones, to automatically fly your parcels to you (here).
We’re excited to share Prime Air — something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab.
The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.
Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.
Check out this footage from a recent test flight.
Jesse Ventura
All of this has been enough to spook ex-wrestler turned politician and truther Jesse Ventura (here).
Former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura (AFP Photo / Brendan Smialovsky)
Surveillance drones haven’t started hovering outside and above the homes of Americans en masse just yet, but former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura claims he’s left the United States just in case.
Ventura, a 62-year-old professional wrestler-turned-politician, says his new Ora TV program ‘Off the Grid’ is being filmed in secret somewhere in Mexico where the all-seeing eye of American unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, don’t have a chance of finding him.
Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday from an “undisclosed location” south of the border, Ventura said there was a reason he doesn’t reveal his each and every movement.
“I’m off the grid. I move about with my TV show so that the drones can’t find me and you won’t know exactly where I am,” Ventura said.
According to Ventura, his Ora TV program will continue to broadcast “as long as we have solar power and we can reach the satellite.”
“I view the United States, today, much like East Berlin. And I’m off the grid. I’ve tried for 20 years to warn the country about the Democrats and Republicans, and nobody’s listening,” he said
“I now view the United States from the outside, and I don’t like what I see,” added Ventura, who won Minnesota’s gubernatorial election back in 1998. “You know what the favorite T-shirt was off the grid down here a couple years ago? A picture of [former President] George Bush, and it said weapon of mass destruction. Is that the way we want the United States portrayed throughout the world? I don’t think so.”
Some pretty interesting developments. Which brings me to the core purpose of this article. It was bound to happen, and now its looking increasingly more likely. Drones over the UK.
Taranis: UK armed drone prototype
Information has now been released that this once top secret prototype took its maiden voyage in August 2013, and lasted 15 minutes. It is the next-gen armed drone and up to now, development cost a hefty £185m. RAF Air Vice-Marshal Sue Gray said:
Taranis is the most technically advanced RPAS (Remotely Piloted Air System) we’ve ever developed with our partners.
It marks an extremely important part in the road map to the future.
A bilateral deal was announced between the UK and French governments last week that will see the two nations work together on a two-year project to develop a new drone, and the Taranis prototype will be the cornerstone on which the project is based.
Now I know what you’re thinking, its just a military drone program. But, a couple of spanners and a little time can disarm this drone, such as happened with the military Predator Drone in the US. This, will be the drone patrolling the skies of Europe and surveilling every day Euro citizens within the next 5 years.
SilvaRizla 