Police set to arm drones with "non lethal weapons" on civilian populations

US prison system, military and now police are fantastic places to make money.

Vanguard stock is bit on the expensive side trading at $62 bucks but might be worth a look again in future if they receive more contracts for drones, hopefully the drones will be so badly made, the government will just keep buying more.

The other good news is that despite the financial turmoil and austerity taking place in Europe and US, the NATO have signed a $1.4 bln dollar deal with Northrop Grumman for drones.

As some of you know, Northrop G. are my favorite defense stock after Alliant Techsystems that supply the military all their ammo.

NATO's value for money deal pushed NG stock up 1%

You can take comfort knowing that even in times of recession, you can still make money from defense stocks.

The dangers of allowing drones to be operated domestically are the same as allowing a massive standing army to reside within a country (which is a danger the US founders had in mind and specifically prohibited); they can be turned against the populous at any time, and in the next couple of decades there will be an enormously increasing number of drones, as manufacturing gets cheaper.

All you have to do is look at the unbelievable stuff going on with drone strikes in Pakistan/Yemen etc., civilians being routinely killed with zero accountability, and the US isn't even officially at war in half of the countries it deploys drones in; same government, same technology, different people.

I keep reasonably well read on topics surrounding US foreign policy and their increasing civil-liberties-encroaching domestic policies, and the way the US is heading is nothing short of alarming; there is a continuing trend of erosion of civil liberties and basic rights, pushes to gain the ability to practically remove all of a persons rights (NDAA), increasing persecution of minorities (muslims), no accountability for corruption (entire finance industry), crackdown on corruption-exposing activities (whistleblowing), various attempts at gaining increased control over freedom of speech/expression (SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, TPP; the start of a slippery slope to come), and more.

There are plenty more things I can think of off the top of my head, but the list could get rather big; the country is getting more extreme year by year, and it seems like that's accelerating by quite a large margin.
Reading about this in the last half year or so, has me increasingly wondering where it will all stop, and what the endgame is; things only look to get worse as time goes on.

Manic Moran wrote: »

As opposed to being oppressed by taser-firing officers in person?

Yes, they are more accountable; a person with a badge number, traceable to a precinct/station/commander, allows people to hold that officer, the commander and the connected politicians accountable for that persons actions, and can demand punishment.

A drone in the sky, probably without any identifiable markings to know precisely who owns it (is it the police? what station? is it the FBI? who?), allows far more room for denial and blame shifting, and can remove the ability for any accountability so long as the ownership and operator are kept secret, or useful identifying data deliberately destroyed/'lost' (such as video logs).

What are the ones on tracks? (aside from bomb disposal) Ones on tracks, for starters, are limited to slow movements on the ground, not able to surveil and shoot at a large group of people from above.

Even if these drones start off well-identified, there is a large degree of room for blame shifting and hiding who was operating the drone, and the drones will likely be shared between agencies as well, potentially even private contractors for operating them.

None of this is as accountable as a person with a face, particularly since a drone will typically shoot at people from a considerable distance rather than up close like an policeman would have to (and don't doubt that these drones will be equipped with fully lethal weapons over time).


In the coming decades there will be a hugely increased number of these drones, and they will effectively grow into a massive standing army within the US unless limitations are placed on their usage.

As their numbers grow, this will carry with it all the threats posed by a real standing army, as they can be turned against the populous at any time.

How are they in any way comparable? They aren't deployed wide-scale like the drones will be, and if any of these robots are deployed unassisted, people can walk up to it, pick it up, and throw it into a bin if they like; can't exactly disable a drone so easily.

Pretty different, much more special-purpose, and far less ubiquitous in roles than drones are; it's easy to see drones being deployed wide-scale, whereas these tracked robots seem to just have very limited roles and can only be deployed on a limited basis.

As they become cheaper to produce and run, why would they not be deployed wide-scale?

Fleets of drones able to perform near-limitless surveillance, and even able to attack/disable people as desired, all from the comforts of a computer terminal at the police station, far cheaper to run and mobile than helicopters, which typically try to provide this kind of surveillance.

Once the precedent is set allowing their use, and these become cheap enough, they will definitely be used wide-scale, unless restrictions are placed upon them.