Our country spends billions of dollars on the purchase of weapons and hi tech security devices under the premise of national defense and the protection and safety of the home land. Retired generals leave our arm forces to peddle their services to defense contractors in the weapons industry. America not only arms itself but our nation is also the number one arms dealer and weapons supplier in the world. We have more weapons of mass destruction than any other nation on the globe. America is indeed a profitable merchant in the market of warfare products.
Last week this escalation in military purchases and devices have now come to the our homeland not to protect us from our external foes but to assist and augment the armory of our local police departments. The Federal Aviation Administration loosened the restrictions on local police departments usage of surveillance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles also commonly know as DRONES. Our nation’s high court the Supreme Court has even ruled that warrantless surveillance by manned aircraft is not unconstitutional nor violates the 4th Amendment of our federal constitution.
In far to many powerful public and private circles there are focused advocates of introducing the military into our urban cities and venues. We now face the specter of entire cities being profiled by the usage of military designed DRONES. Local municipalities already burden by fiscal deficits and lousy revenues are actually spending hugh outlays of their budgets in the purchase of these hi tech anti- freedom profile driven devices. Yet where is the outrage from our public officials, activist groups and even police unions over these invasive surveillance and anti privacy domestic military machines in our nation’s urban airspace??
One of the real dark potentials of these DRONES is not only it’s ugly invasion and violation of privacy rights but these DRONES also have the capacity to be lethal and deadly. The applications and operational features of DRONES are truly unimaginable. The growing militarization of our local law enforcement departments is not to be embraced by fictional claims of terrorism and excessive urban crimes . We must reject and defeat the myths about crime and anarchy in our urban cities. We must defuse and deflate the notions that our urban cities are cesspools of violence and crime.
The proliferation of the myth of crime and the profiling of entire bandwidths of people based upon their hue and types of clothing is dangerous. Such a public policy creates a fertile soil for the introduction of military devices like DRONES into our domestic venues. DRONES are part of the arsenal of gadgets and devices which destroy the freedoms of all Americans. We must reject all kinds of devices and gadgets which at the end of the day are WMD’s on American Soil.
Gregory Thrasher is a blogger and the director of Plane Ideas. You can reach him at planeidea@msn.com.
The very idea of a ghetto makes this nothing new.At first it was street light cameras in your neighborhood and now drones takes it a step closer to that wire fence (we’ve already got the check points). Assuming this gets sold to the ignorant as a safety measure, I can only imagine how long it will be before someone gets brutalized or killed by the weaponized versions already buzzing about in Texas and Miami.
The virtual, permanent prison is on its way. The “laws” and justifications are already in place. All that remains is for the cost of the technology to come down. Will a drone be moved by protest, peaceful or otherwise? Will a weaponized drone or its operator, or those in command who green lighted it, and gave the kill order, be held anymore accountable for its actions than a living human cop currently is? I find that to be extremely unlikely.
Interesting commentary…Could this really happen???
Part II
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/11/12169157-navy-drone-crashes-off-maryland-no-injuries?lite&ocid=ansmsnbc11
Obama is waging manifest destiny on his people in full obedience to his handlers.
Remember barry,obama comes for two groups of people. so who is “his people”
we know who the handlers are.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/suicidal-drone-6-miles-away/