I think I’m going to call tomorrow and see what happened to this project: http://www.opensourcesensing.org. I really liked what they’re saying. I just hope it can be implemented before it’s too late.
k
Ok im not for the idea but im not going to blow it out of proportion like some. Those drones are pretty safe and the dozens of deaths (hundreds) are not by the drones per say. They are done by the missiles those things carry. The ones here are pretty much an infrared camera to replace helicopters.
Ok. Say they get the ok to fly these things sans missles… What’s to stop them from actually arming them? All it takes is one fucked up incident, one protest gone bad, or fundamentalist/redneck/crazed group to do something stupid. Next thing you know, they’re arming the things for “the safety of the people” and we’ve got flying death buzzing about.
I’m usually not one for slippery slope, or conspiracy theories, but as technology advances, humanity will have some difficult questions to tackle. Things are advancing farther faster than I imagined, but I would never trust any government that feels it needs to send electronic drones over the populace. The whole thing reeks of Big Brother.
Distrust breeds contempt. Our elected officials have demonstrated this contempt time and time again. They are scared of the people. Now why would you fear your own people unless you’ve done something to irk them?
Just quoting because it’s the same thing I was thinking, but didn’t write down. Let’s face it, they will be armed sooner or later. Get used to living underground…for as long as THAT will work…
-Starhammer-
This useful “idea” isn’t a “let’s make a data base of fingerprints on people we book for possible later use”. Drones are a method for spying on people that there is no probable cause for spying on. We might catch some people doing something bad with drones yes. We could also catch people if we had police go door to door doing shakedowns in local neighborhoods. This doesn’t make it right. It’s the “warrantless” aspect of it that has people pissed about it, rightly so IMO. This issue isn’t about painting broadstrokes of political rhetoric but an issue of privacy for the American people.
The article already listed wildfire fighting, search and rescue, and field research as examples–good ones–of legitimate applications, wherein manpower and even the safety of civilians would not have to be risked on a job that an unmanned device could do just as well.
What’s to stop them from being armed or from spying on people? I don’t know. What’s to stop the army from flying a Chinook helicopter over to your house and conducting surveillance on you, or bombing your house to smithereens, or rappelling down and bashing down your door with a battering ram?
If the guarantee that drone’s would be used for those specific purposes only, then why not? I don’t see a problem with having drone’s fly and survey acre’s of federal land for problem’s. But that won’t be the case, which is why so many people are skeptical. It doesn’t help that companies firstly marketed these machines to law enforcement agencies for domestic surveillance.
Where do I sign up to be a pilot?
just shoot them in the middle its easy
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/6664/262999-00055385_super.jpg
I just see this as another way for the government to fuck with the almost gone freedom of americans.
“But, it can be used to save people!” So can common sense but we tend to avoid using it.
Thinking is hard, and it doesn’t even taste good. I’ll let the gov’ment do that for me
How is the est. of the OG US govt a sacrifice of liberty per se? A standing army was not a part of OG US govt; but how is that an affront to personal liberty? Cops are so bad in my hometown, people were calling for martial law, and it looked like the mayor was down for a minute.
Since when is it legal to use the military against US citizens?
Oh wait; …on US soil (thanks 2012 US govt)
people need to stop acting like we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
kc*f this feature creep
Thanks to stupid lag compensation I always feel like I need to be saved by Tom Selleck.
I didn’t say “OG US govt”.
I said “government”. No definite article, no other qualifiers.
In the spectrum between total liberty and total authority, the appointment of authority of any sort necessarily moves away from the “liberty” end of the spectrum, even if by only a tiny portion.
This is what people fail to appreciate when they bring up the “SACRIFICIN’ LIBERTAH FER SECURITAH DERBA DEH!!!” argument. There are plenty of ways in which people happily enjoy the benefits of government-provided security without so much as a question, even as they parrot TV punditry to the contrary.
I didn’t call anything “an affront to personal liberty”.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that we don’t already sacrifice a bit of freedom here or there for security and structure. The real question is “How much liberty are you willing to give for your security?” There’s a line of just how many personal freedoms a people will sacrifice for the illusion of order and safety. The US government has been pushing towards that line steadily for the last 40 or so years and at this point, they are moonwalking past it while pissing in the faces of its people.
They have testing the waters to see how much they can get away with now that Americans are fatter, lazier, and dumber than they have ever been. If people would wake up to what’s going on and stop letting the people that are supposed to answer to them tell us how its gonna be, this would even be an issue.
I can’t believe we’ve reached the point where something like this is even up for debate. The moment something like this hit the news, people would have been up in arms and taking to the streets. Hell, our officials would have never even let something like this be an option. I don’t know where the world is going, but the path sure seems grim as all hell.
I have a love-hate relationship with most of the things you say. This post for instance makes me laugh but pisses me off because that is the sad mentality many do carry.
you said ‘necessarily’.
So I gave a specific example to argue against your blanket.
Is there still a problem?
Is anarchy perfect liberty? Can people conduct honest business in anarchy? anarchy = freedom? I have been enlightened?
As pundits go, most people arent pure ideologues. They draw a line at a certain point. I also think that they realize that, but maybe im giving too much credit. But to say that ‘unless they call for anarchy they arent being honest’ is disingenuous itself.
Of course people enjoy govt provided protection; Have you ever talked to people that lived under a western european dictatorship? Chances are they are old school and wistful for its return and lament the relative freedom they live in now, which has given them increased crime rates, dangerous night times, dirty streets, etc… That the thing about totalitarian rule; unless you are on bad terms with the wrong people (or more like if youare on good terms with the right people), life is great (potentially), the bad elements of society are locked down hard. This is in direct opposition to a free society. Where the onus to protect yourself is on you. There is a certain amount of stress involved in not being a lap dog or a toddler, which is healthy for development (net). The US govt was modeled to be in sync with this natural survival instinct (governed by said stress) in all manners of life, allowing society to operate organically. This restraint in everything but protecting natural rights (ensuring freedom for all) is what makes the authority of the OG US govt special. The alternative is anarchy. Although there may be a spectrum of govt authority from anarchy to totalitarianism, to assume that personal liberty conforms to this spectrum and is inversly proportional to govt influence at all scales is a mistake. This is why ‘God’ is important to this country. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with human nature and the inherent urge for freedom.
hahaa
I can understand that 
I swear I don’t mean most of what I say, though
Those are periodic occurrence uses. Those are uses that are filled by people in helicopters for now. No one will object to using them like that.
People just don’t want scores of them flying ‘round the city looking for shit. People would object to guys in helicopters hangin’ around en masse so the unmanned equivalent should be just as objectionable. I don’t think they would be armed any time in the near future but who knows? I just know I don’t want a surveillance police state. Patriot Act and other things the government does (at any level) already are bad enough.
The only thing really stopping Chinooks and such is the constitution and possible armed revolt. Let’s hope we don’t get that far.