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.
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.
Why don't they park one of these drones outside an airport and not make everyone take there shoes off, then?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.
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? 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?I just have reservations about it being deployed in domestic drones.
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.
TSA flying drones in close proximity to passenger aircraft, now that's a scary thought.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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