The Coming Drone Attack on America
22 December 12
Drones on domestic surveillance duties are already deployed by police and corporations. In time, they will likely be weaponised
eople often ask me, in
terms of my argument about "ten steps" that mark the descent to a police state
or closed society, at what stage we are. I am sorry to say that with the
importation of what will be tens of thousands of drones, by both US military and
by commercial interests, into US airspace, with a specific mandate to engage in
surveillance and with the capacity for weaponization - which is due to begin in
earnest at the start of the new year - it means that the police state is now
officially here.
In February of this year, Congress passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, with its
provision to deploy fleets of drones domestically. Jennifer Lynch, an attorney
at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that this followed a major lobbying
effort, "a huge push by […] the defense sector" to promote the use of drones in
American skies: 30,000 of them are expected to be in use by 2020, some as small
as hummingbirds - meaning that you won't necessarily see them, tracking your
meeting with your fellow-activists, with your accountant or your congressman, or
filming your cruising the bars or your assignation with your lover, as its
video-gathering whirs.
Others will be as big as passenger planes. Business-friendly media stress their planned abundant use by corporations: police in Seattle have already deployed them.
An unclassified US air force document reported by CBS (pdf) news
expands on this unprecedented and unconstitutional step - one that formally
brings the military into the role of controlling domestic populations on US
soil, which is the bright line that separates a democracy from a military
oligarchy. (The US constitution allows for the deployment of National Guard
units by governors, who are answerable to the people; but this system is
intended, as is posse comitatus, to prevent the military from taking action
aimed at US citizens domestically.)
The air force document explains that the air force will be
overseeing the deployment of its own military surveillance drones within the
borders of the US; that it may keep video and other data it collects with these
drones for 90 days without a warrant - and will then, retroactively, determine
if the material can be retained - which does away for good with the fourth
amendment in these cases. While the drones are not supposed to specifically
"conduct non-consensual surveillance on on specifically identified US persons",
according to the document, the wording allows for domestic military surveillance
of non-"specifically identified" people (that is, a group of activists or
protesters) and it comes with the important caveat, also seemingly wholly
unconstitutional, that it may not target individuals "unless expressly approved
by the secretary of Defense".
In other words, the Pentagon can now send a domestic drone to
hover outside your apartment window, collecting footage of you and your family,
if the secretary of Defense approves it. Or it may track you and your friends
and pick up audio of your conversations, on your way, say, to protest or vote or
talk to your representative, if you are not "specifically identified", a
determination that is so vague as to be meaningless.
What happens to those images, that audio? "Distribution of
domestic imagery" can go to various other government agencies without your
consent, and that imagery can, in that case, be distributed to various
government agencies; it may also include your most private moments and most
personal activities. The authorized "collected information may incidentally
include US persons or private property without consent". Jennifer Lynch of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation told CBS:
"In some records that were released by the air force recently … under their rules, they are allowed to fly drones in public areas and record information on domestic situations."
This document accompanies a major federal push for drone
deployment this year in the United States, accompanied by federal policies to
encourage law enforcement agencies to obtain and use them locally, as well as by
federal support for their commercial deployment. That is to say: now HSBC,
Chase, Halliburton etc can have their very own fleets of domestic surveillance
drones. The FAA recently established a more efficient process for local police
departments to get permits for their own squadrons of drones.
Given the Department of Homeland Security militarization of
police departments, once the circle is completed with San Francisco or New York
or Chicago local cops having their own drone fleet - and with Chase, HSBC and
other banks having hired local police, as I reported here last week - the meshing of military,
domestic law enforcement, and commercial interests is absolute. You don't need a
messy, distressing declaration of martial law.
And drone fleets owned by private corporations means that a
first amendment right of assembly is now over: if Occupy is massing outside of a
bank, send the drone fleet to surveil, track and harass them. If citizens rally
outside the local Capitol? Same thing. As one of my readers put it, the scary
thing about this new arrangement is deniability: bad things done to citizens by
drones can be denied by private interests - "Oh, that must have been an LAPD
drone" - and LAPD can insist that it must have been a private industry drone.
For where, of course, will be the accountability from citizens buzzed or worse
by these things?
Domestic drone use is here, and the meshing has begun: local cops in Grand Forks, North Dakota called in a DHS Predator
drone - the same make that has caused hundreds of civilian casualties in
Pakistan - over a dispute involving a herd of cattle. The military rollout in
process and planned, within the US, is massive: the Christian Science Monitor reports that a total of 110 military
sites for drone activity are either built or will be built, in 39 states. That
covers America.
We don't need a military takeover: with these capabilities on US
soil and this air force white paper authorization for data collection, the
military will be effectively in control of the private lives of American
citizens. And these drones are not yet weaponized.
"I don't think it's crazy to worry about weaponized drones.
There is a real consensus that has emerged against allowing weaponized drones
domestically. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has recommended
against it," warns Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU, noting that
there is already political pressure in favor of weaponization:
"At the same time, it is inevitable that we will see [increased] pressure to allow weaponized drones. The way that it will unfold is probably this: somebody will want to put a relatively 'soft' nonlethal weapon on a drone for crowd control. And then things will ratchet up from there."
And the risk of that? The New America Foundation's report on drone use in Pakistan noted
that the Guardian had confirmed 193 children's deaths from drone attacks in
seven years. It noted that for the deaths of ten militants, 1,400 civilians with
no involvement in terrorism also died. Not surprisingly, everyone in that region
is traumatized: children scream when they hear drones. An NYU and Stanford Law
School report notes that drones "terrorize citizens 24 hours a day".
If US drones may first be weaponized with crowd-control
features, not lethal force features, but with no risk to military or to police
departments or DHS, the playing field for freedom of assembly is changed
forever. So is our private life, as the ACLU's Stanley explains:
"Our biggest concerns about the deployment of drones domestically is that they will be used to create pervasive surveillance networks. The danger would be that an ordinary individual once they step out of their house will be monitored by a drone everywhere they walk or drive. They may not be aware of it. They might monitored or tracked by some silent invisible drone everywhere they walk or drive."
"So what? Why should they worry?" I asked.
"Your comings and goings can be very revealing of who you are and what you are doing and reveal very intrusive things about you - what houses of worship you are going to, political meetings, particular doctors, your friends' and lovers' houses."
I mentioned the air force white paper. "Isn't the military not
supposed to be spying on Americans?" I asked.
"Yes, the posse comitatus act passed in the 19th century forbids a military role in law enforcement among Americans."
What can we do if we want to oppose this? I wondered. According
to Stanley, many states are passing legislation banning domestic drone use. Once
again, in the fight to keep America a republic, grassroots activism is pitched
in an unequal contest against a militarized federal
government.
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