[Open Manufacturing] Raw Story B; Despite FAA ban, US spy drone patrols northern border

[Paul D. Fernhout]

From:
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/23/despite-faa-ban-us-spy-aircraft-patrols-northern-border/
"Even though the Federal Aviation Administration has banned the use of 
unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), the Department of Homeland Security 
currently has a US spy aircraft patrolling the northern border of New York 
for the month of June. ... While unmanned aircraft systems can be armed, the 
one flying over upstate New York has no weapons, according to John Stanton, 
director of CPBbs Office of Air and Marine."

OK, so killer robots are now being deployed in the state I live in (NY) but 
they are "unarmed". So, I should not mind? It's not like the military ever 
makes mistakes about this sort of stuff, right?
   "B-52 carried nuclear missiles over US by mistake: military"
   http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gmqA7P-MPnRJzQ5v9Xi6M5zdr9IA
"The US military said on Wednesday it was investigating an alarming security 
lapse when a B-52 bomber flew the length of the country last week loaded 
with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles."

Well, just be safe, I had better avoid funerals:
   "U.S. Drone Strike Said to Kill 60 in Pakistan (at funeral)"
   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/asia/24pstan.html
"An airstrike believed to have been carried out by a United States drone 
killed at least 60 people at a funeral for a Taliban fighter in South 
Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said. 
Details of the attack, which occurred in Makeen, remained unclear, but the 
reported death toll was exceptionally high. If the reports are indeed 
accurate and if the attack was carried out by a drone, the strike could be 
the deadliest since the United States began using the aircraft to fire 
remotely guided missiles at members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the 
tribal areas of Pakistan. The United States carried out 22 previous drone 
strikes this year, as the Obama administration has intensified a policy 
inherited from the Bush administration."

At least there is no mention of children being killed that time in the 
supposedly just about half civilian casualties, so likely just some kids are 
left without parents, which presumably is better? Nothing there to breed a 
lifelong hatred of everyone in the USA, right? Of course, maybe breeding 
terrorists is what it is really all about? Every great country needs a great 
enemy to give meaning to its society, right? And if you can't find one, you 
need to make one right? Where would Castro have been without the USA to rail 
against?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Force_That_Gives_Us_Meaning
"War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a 2002 nonfiction book by Chris 
Hedges. In the book, Hedges draws on classical literature and his 
experiences as a war correspondent to argue that war seduces entire 
societies, creating fictions that the public believes and relies on to 
continue to support conflicts. He also describes how those who experience 
war may find it exhilarating and addicting. The book was a finalist for the 
National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and a Los Angeles Times 
Best Book of the Year, as well as a national bestseller."

Still, if there are strikes for the each of the supposed not-civilians' 
funerals, and then strikes at the funerals of those people, one can at least 
see the potential for an exponential growth of funerals. Until the US 
government runs out of suspected terrorists to blow up, of course. Some 
numbers on that, you can presumably subtract one from the other:
   http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Just another example of post-scarcity technology being used by those 
obsessed with conflicts over scarcity -- but now deployed as a "test" in my 
state, within about a hundred miles of my home. Don't want those socialist 
Canadians sneaking over the border for some of our health care, right?
   "Inside HAARM: Late Night Brainstorming Session"
   http://haarm.org/
Or bringing all that Canadian weed with them?
"How the war on drugs doesnbt work" 
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/06/17/how-the-war-on-drugs-doesnt-work/
""Webve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs," Norm 
Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. "What do we have to show 
for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels 
of potency. Itbs a dismal failure.""

I feel much safer already, knowing that "unarmed" drones are keeping those 
evil socialist drug abusers in their place.

And, hey, the military already uses a nearby large building as a landmark 
for low altitude maneuvers (or so we suppose from the regular flights in the 
past), so what's some automated stuff flying around in the state too? Just 
because it is unmanned, why should I be more worried?

After all, there's presumably some teenager somewhere on the planet giving 
the thing orders.
   http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/6/wired_for_war_the_robotics_revolution
"He was actually a high school dropout who wanted to join the military to 
make his father proud. He wanted to be a helicopter mechanic. And they said, 
bWell, you failed your high school English course, so youbre not qualified 
to be a mechanic. But would you like to be a drone pilot?b And he said, 
bSure.b And it turned out, because of playing on video games, he was already 
good at it. He was naturally trained up. And he turned out to be so good 
that they brought him back from Iraq and made him an instructor in the 
training academy, even though hebs an enlisted man and hebs stillbhe was 
nineteen."

Sorry, just venting. I don't know what to do about this beyond what I am 
doing. There is already a border checkpoint not too far from my home which 
is 75 miles south of the border, where any car can be stopped and search, 
any laptop computer search or confiscated, and so on. And that one has 
already caused multiple deaths and is still there:
   http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/nyregion/23crashes.html?oref=login&th
"But on Interstate 87 north of here there have been two major crashes on the 
southbound approach to one of those checkpoints, including a pileup on Sept. 
19, which killed four people as drivers failed to slow down for the lines of 
stopped cars."

But they say it has been successful in catching some people with Canadian 
weed. So, we're all that much safer, right?
   "Remove Marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act"
   http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3191-4049

Such an issue for so long... But it justifies anything...
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse

It is indeed a race towards Utopia or Oblivion, as Bucky Fuller said, 
depending on how these post-scarcity technologies are shaped.

--Paul Fernhout

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