Drones Over America

When most Americans think of surveillance drones, it conjures up an image of a Predator drone in a far-off land unleashing a missile against a terrorist suspect. The last thing they think of is a flying surveillance vehicle over their own city. But an increasing number of federal, state, county and municipal police departments are purchasing drone surveillance vehicles of one sort or another to watch Americans. And a few have even discussed arming the drones.
Drones are an increasing fixture on the science fiction horizon, conjuring up images of the human-hating Skynet empowered with nuclear weapons in the Terminator movies. Interestingly, some industry leaders have already theorized about nuclear powered drones. For example, Lockheed-Martin's Sandia National Laboratories carefully suggested in a study that they pursue nuclear powered drones. As the Canadian-based Ottowa Citizen summarized, “The project summary, which refers to 'propulsion and power technologies that [go] well beyond existing hydrocarbon technologies,' does not actually use the word 'nuclear.'  But with unmistakable references to 'safeguards,' 'decommissioning and disposal,' and those unfavorable 'political conditions,' there is little doubt about the topic under discussion.”  [Watch related video at bottom of page.]
Interestingly, as the cost of drones has decreased from tens of millions of dollars to tens of thousands, more and more police departments are making the purchase. And FAA regulations are the key inhibitor to their proliferation at this time, instead of the limits in the U.S. Constitution. Drones are already a multi-billion dollar industry , and a professional association of manufacturers has emerged which is pressuring the FAA to loosen up domestic drone flight restrictions.
A report by the ACLU noted that at the federal level, several agencies are known to have used drones against Americans. FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration have used drones inside the United States. The Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) currently operates seven Predator B drones, and hopes to expand that number to 24 by 2016. The Los Angeles Times reported in December 2011 that CBP has been making its Predator drones available for domestic law enforcement operations by local police departments.

• The ACLU report also noted that a number of police use of drones to spy on U.S. citizens, including:
• The Miami-Dade County police department, which has purchased an end-table-sized drone for about $40,000
• Mesa County, Colorado won FAA permission to operate its Draganflyer drones anywhere in the county

Texas is also a hot spot for drone use, and not just near the Mexican border. Drones are used by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Montgomery County and the cities of Houston and Arlington. But it's not just Texas, drones are used by Seattle, Ogden, Utah, Hawaii, National Guard units in New York and around the country.
Of the lot, the drones in the Montgomery County, Texas Sheriff's office is probably most controversial because of the model they purchased. The police department's ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter was made by Vanguard Defense Industries and the department has discussed weaponizing the drone.
Drones over America will eventually be armed, possibly at first with non-lethal weapons such as tear gas, Tazers, sound cannons, or an EMP pulse weapon to stop a car. The list is only limited by the designers' imagination. The Montgomery County, Texas, sheriff's office recently purchased a ShadowHawk helicopter. Vanguard Defense Industries CEO Michael Buscher admitted his company's drones are designed to carry weapons for local law enforcement. "The aircraft has the capability to have a number of different systems on board. Mostly, for law enforcement, we focus on what we call less lethal systems," Buscher told a local Houston television station, including Tazers and a bean bag gun known as a “stun baton.”
The use of armed drones — not yet a reality, but inevitable without strong legislation — always comes with promises by law enforcement not to abuse the tools. "We're not going to use it to be invading somebody's privacy. It'll be used for situations we have with criminals," Montgomery County Sheriff Tommy Gage told his local television station.
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