Weaponized Drones, and Foreign Planes on American Soil?

It seems as though the OP's mention of drones with 40 mm grenade launchers is being overlooked so far in this thread.
Everybody okay with those?

reply to post by butcherguy


The original plan would have armed then with non-lethal weapons, and has been scrapped.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by butcherguy

 

The original plan would have armed then with non-lethal weapons, and has been scrapped.

Okay.
The NSA doesn't intercept and store all of our domestic communications either.
Please forgive me for not trusting our own government.

reply to post by butcherguy


There are issues with the plan other than people finding out. Range being one of them. The 40mm would have to get close for the non-lethal weapons that are currently in use, which means the delivery system is in danger of being downed before they can deliver the weapons. Not to mention limited ammunition per UAV, etc.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by butcherguy

 

There are issues with the plan other than people finding out. Range being one of them. The 40mm would have to get close for the non-lethal weapons that are currently in use, which means the delivery system is in danger of being downed before they can deliver the weapons. Not to mention limited ammunition per UAV, etc.

Full sized helicopters have been modified to fly as drones now. So the payload capability issue may already be a non issue.
Just the fact that they had a plan to mount grenade launchers on pilotless a/c to be flown in the US is disturbing to me.

reply to post by butcherguy


So which is it? Larger weaponized helicopter UAVs, or 40mm grenade launchers?

There is zero evidence that the CBP has any plans to acquire unmanned helicopters (which by the way have barely begun being tested by the military [the unmanned Blackhawk has made two or three flights])

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by butcherguy

 

So which is it? Larger weaponized helicopter UAVs, or 40mm grenade launchers?

There is zero evidence that the CBP has any plans to acquire unmanned helicopters (which by the way have barely begun being tested by the military [the unmanned Blackhawk has made two or three flights])

You tell me which it is. My point is that we don't know what they have or what they may be thinking of deploying.
How much evidence did you have of the F-117's existence before we used them in Panama? President Carter left it slip that we had them, but do you remember what the stealth fighters were supposed to look like before anyone outside of the military actually saw one? Not one sketch or model put out predicted the faceted design.

reply to post by butcherguy


The F-117 was known prior to Panama. It was officially unveiled a year prior to Panama, and those that were paying attention had the first grainy pictures of it prior to that.

You can say that we don't know what they have, but an aircraft that hasn't even gotten to military service and has barely begun testing isn't going to be given to the CBP, no matter how much they try to justify it. The military is going to keep the best, and the newest for themselves (rightly so).

reply to post by Zaphod58

I think that it completely within the realm of possibility that weaponized drones exist..... see Pakistan.
It has already been released that the CPB has the Predator..... without weapons.
I don't trust the government enough to believe that they will not weaponize the ones they are already using here.

In regard to the F-117, the plane flew for years before the grainy photos were available, and none of the artists conceptions were even close to predicting what it looked like. There are some secrets, don't you agree?

Originally posted by butcherguy
It seems as though the OP's mention of drones with 40 mm grenade launchers is being overlooked so far in this thread.
Everybody okay with those?

The OP didn't mention drones with 40mm grenade launchers. It mentioned a drone in Texas to which 40mm grenade launchers "could be" attached. So far, there is no evidence that the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office has attached or will attach 40mm grenade launchers to their unmanned system. If you follow the links and read the original story, you will see they explicitly deny that they have any plans to do so. I'm okay with that.

And a 40mm grenade launcher is very small, you can attach one to a bicycle or a horse, or carry it with one hand, or wear it on your shoulder or your head like a cyborg. So we could say every police department in the country could be equipped with 40mm grenade launchers. That statement is just as true and meaningful as the original claim.

reply to post by butcherguy


Of course they exist, and of course secrets exist. But do you really think that the military is going to give up a top of the line, or high tech system that they don't even have, to a civilian agency? The MQ-1 Predator that they fly has the same name as the military version, but it's the same aircraft that the Air Force flies.

I'm in Ohio and live about 35 miles away from Rickebacker. I had to go to Columbus for a doctors appointment and on my way there I seen my first drone. At first I thought it was the "Eye in the sky"....state highway patrol. They do that a lot on that strip of US 70. But it was shaped like no Cessna like they usually use.

I lost sight of it for a moment because of hills and trees. But then I clearly seen that it was a drone. As a US citizen it kinda freaked me out. I went to my doctors appointment and on my travel back home I seen it again only this time it was too close to where I live for comfort.

It was definitely disturbing!

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Rosinitiate

 

That is one of the larger ones, that operates mostly autonomously. It could, if it was going to be used in the role they are planning, but then if they fly it autonomously, it would be much harder to hack.

Harder then hacking a Mercedes Benz computer system I hope!

reply to post by Rosinitiate


The ones that were "hacked" weren't actually hacked. They were transmitting and receiving signals from the ground station, that allowed them to have those signals blocked, so they didn't know where they were. They went into a "safe" mode, and crashed.

The X-47B, and newer systems are semi-autonomous. They can fly the mission without any input from a pilot, except on take off and landing. That means there are no signals going in and out to be blocked, except on take off and landing, when the ground station an simply overpower a jammer.

Originally posted by butcherguy
It seems as though the OP's mention of drones with 40 mm grenade launchers is being overlooked so far in this thread.
Everybody okay with those?

Trust me, some people are too naïve, or who knows what else, and will dismiss this no matter what evidence is provided.

The capability of arming these "civilian surveillance drones" is there for a simple reason, to eventually use such armaments sometime in the future, not to "look scary" as some would obviously like you to think...

Originally posted by WormwoodSquirm
Electric, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Zaphod is correct. There will never be a day when some Russian military dude tells me to stop my car in Indiana with a gun in his hand. You are paranoid and out of touch with the real intention of this agreement which is to help civilian disasters on a global scale END OF STORY

Of course, and all you can do is dismiss the evidence provided and use ad-hominem attacks against me and then proclaim "end of story"?...

Anyway...

Originally posted by Zaphod58

The US military has been used repeatedly in disasters on the US, without foreign aid for years, and will continue to do do. But don't you think it'd be nice to have a coordinated response the next time a tsunami hits somewhere?

And the U.S. government had also been doing experiments on Americans without their permission for a long time, among other things which are UnConstitutional... Just because they did it doesn't mean "it is alright"...

Just because the U.S. government has used the military in the past, despite posse comitatus and other similar laws which specifically state this SHOULDN'T happen, it doesn't mean it is alright to militarize even more our law enforcement agencies or that more and more military presence should be allowed in U.S. streets...

You might agree with McCain and others in power that claim "the entire U.S. is now a war zone" but this is simply WRONG... Not to mention that it is NOT TRUE...

BTW, it is also a known fact that mostly the National Guards were used in some emergencies as long as the governor of the state agreed to it, but now other branches of the military are being used for civilian "emergencies" and to "enforce the law" which is Unconstitutional.

Originally posted by FurvusRexCaeli
The OP didn't mention drones with 40mm grenade launchers. It mentioned a drone in Texas to which 40mm grenade launchers "could be" attached. So far, there is no evidence that the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office has attached or will attach 40mm grenade launchers to their unmanned system. If you follow the links and read the original story, you will see they explicitly deny that they have any plans to do so. I'm okay with that.

And a 40mm grenade launcher is very small, you can attach one to a bicycle or a horse, or carry it with one hand, or wear it on your shoulder or your head like a cyborg. So we could say every police department in the country could be equipped with 40mm grenade launchers. That statement is just as true and meaningful as the original claim.

Oh right... they have no intention of arming these drones for use in U.S. soil...

Do tell us please, why in the world has Obama been seeking "authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans in U.S. soil"?...

Barack Obama 'has authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans on US soil'
President Barack Obama has the authority to use an unmanned drone strike to kill US citizens on American soil, his attorney general has said.

Eric Holder argued that using lethal military force against an American in his home country would be legal and justified in an "extraordinary circumstance" comparable to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"The president could conceivably have no choice but to authorise the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland," Mr Holder said.

His statement was described as "more than frightening" by Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, who had demanded to know the Obama administration's position on the subject.
...

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Oh wait, they are never going to arm them... After they are armed the next excuse these people will give is that "oh wait, they are never going to use them"... Then after they are used what are you going to claim?... "ooops an American child was killed but it is just collateral damage"?...

And sure, they have been claiming "they will only be used in extraordinaire circumstances", but then again this is the same U.S. President who had admitted, and finally got the power, to detain American citizens without a right for a lawyer, without a day in court, and without proof of having committed a crime... But hey, it's all good... So claim a few people alongside the government...

Originally posted by Zaphod58

You left out the part where the US is also monitoring Russian bases. So are the Canadians, and 32 other countries (who are also being monitored by the Russians). This has been going on for years. It was first proposed in the 1950s, or 1960s, but didn't officially start until more recently. I can remember seeing a C-135 come in, several times, painted white and grey, with a light blue "OPEN SKIES" across the tail, in place of a base name.
...

And you left out the part that this is the same Russian government that fed to Saddam's regime U.S. troop movement and other intelligence during the war...

Russia Denies It Told Saddam About US Invasion Moves

by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) Mar 27, 2006

Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service Saturday denied a Pentagon report that Moscow gave Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein intelligence from inside the US military command on US troop movements after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"It is not the first time that such unfounded accusations have been made against Russian intelligence," SVR spokesman Boris Labussov told AFP.

"We don't believe it is necessary to comment on such wild imaginings."

The Pentagon report, published Friday and citing Iraqi documents, said the Russians collected information from sources in the US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, which it then delivered to Saddam.
...

www.spacewar.com...

But hey, it's all good. You gave us your scout's honor that nothing bad will happen because of this right?...

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
But hey, it's all good. You gave us your scout's honor that nothing bad will happen because of this right?...

edit on 10-7-2013 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

And why do you think that Open Skies came about in the first place? To KEEP something bad from happening. We came so close in the Cold War from misunderstandings, and outright lies (the missile and bomber gap lies), that the best way to prevent it from happening again was simply to allow monitoring of bases in question. But you're right, let's keep them from knowing what we're doing, and we won't know what they're doing, and go back to living in terror that someone is going to make a mistake and fire off a missile or six.