
Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally - ph0rque
http://rt.com/usa/news/us-domestic-drones-armed-090/
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tjic
There's no such thing as a non-lethal weapon: there are only less lethal
weapons.

Even a fist can be lethal, either by design or bad luck.

When you start using weapons, you start risking deaths.

That's not to say that all use of weapons is always morally, wrong, but it IS
designed to deflate the idea that force can be used without risk.

A few years back Boston cops use a "non lethal" pepper ball, shot a student
straight in the eye, penetrated her brain, and dropped her in a fraction of a
second, stone dead.

[http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/1...](http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/10/22/postgame_police_projectile_kills_an_emerson_student/?page=full)

Police also kill people all the time using "non lethal" tasers. The firm
manufacturing them and the police have a vested and shared interest in denying
that any of these deaths were actually caused by the weapons; it is -
apparently - sheerest coincidence that people die of heart attacks at the same
time that they're hit with 50,000 volts.

~~~
tikhonj
That's a very broad definition. With enough effort and (bad) luck, almost
_anything_ can be lethal. It then become convenient to differentiate things
which are designed to kill (lethal weapons), things which are designed to
incapacitate without killing (non-lethal weapons) and things not designed to
do either (not weapons).

Your definition would place almost everything into one category: lethal
weapons. And that isn't very useful.

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legutierr
Do there need to be shades of grey when we're talking about weaponizing
drones? This just shouldn't happen. What's not useful is creating rhetorical
space in which the acceptability of this technology is debatable.

The fact is, we need to scale down the militarization of police across the
board, not debate how quickly or in what form advanced military technology
should be given to the police.

~~~
marshallp
Humans in the heat of the moment do stupid violent things. I would bet
weaponized drones would cause less fatalities than in person officers. Make
the decisions completely autonomously by computer and you will probably see
even less mistakes. Plus, there is a huge class of crime, the inner city,
where police do practically nothing currently. Drones might well stop gang
violence.

The possibilities really become clear though internationally. If foreign
governments, such as mexico, recruit drones, they might well solve their
violence problems pretty quick.

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zoul
This is a joke, right? Weaponized drones controlled by a fully automatic
computer? Jesus, just try to make a computer that decides when it's safe to
cross the street.

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nu23
In twenty years or so, this could easily be widely available, just like
machine guns today. Even if there was an explicit ban on the endproduct
itself, the basic technology could be understood well enough to allow
underground manufacturing. If true, this would allow anonymous murders and a
complete breakdown of law and order. The more advanced miniature variants with
face recognition software, might elude detection and jamming technologies.
Popular officials might find it too dangerous just to go outside. This would
provoke even more intrusive surveillance systems.

There seems to be a broader trend where our offensive technologies are moving
much faster than our protective systems. At a state level, this has been
handled by deterrence. Fortunately, for nuclear weapons, the necessary
materials were rare enough for regulation to be possible. But deterrence wont
work when these technologies become popularly available. Hopefully, there is
some non-brutal solution that we can find for this problem.

~~~
Retric
I think you vastly over estimate the 'criminal underworld'. The DOD might be
able to make miniature lethal drones using facial recognition software in 20
years. But, probably not. The idea that criminals will start mass producing
such things cheaply is silly in your lifetime is just shy if ridiculous.
Talking about building stuff is easy, but actually building stuff is _hard_.

PS: Problem #1 people don't look up that often. Problem #2 there are a lot of
people walking around out there. And it just get's worse from there.

~~~
nu23
Well, I'd love to be wrong about this and hope that you are right. What
worries me is that key parts of the technology, like the processor, sensors
and software might be available cheaply due to their civilian uses.
Manufacturing ability could well be scarce, but these weapons could pass
through illicit distribution networks which today distribute machine guns and
rocket launchers. I didn't fully understand your postscript, but regarding
visibilty, I admit I dont know much here - for instance, how small of drone
would be realistically possible for a non-state producer. But I dont see a
clear knockdown argument, given that drones are used effectively today. Again,
I hope you are right and that there are more technical obstacles out there.

~~~
Drbble
The US will just ban PCs like it banned chemistry sets.

~~~
billybob
Cory Doctorow's talk "The coming war on general computation" is a very
interesting take on that: <http://craphound.com/?p=3817>

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SoftwareMaven
Just make sure you have your properly registered tracking chip charged and
programmed with your destination (and route thereto, approved 24 hours in
advance) and you will be fine. For your convenience, we will embed it for you.

Don't worry, we would never make you travel with papers. That's for a fascist
state.

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zoul
The biggest gripe I have with weaponized drones is the disconnection between
people and responsibility. When a policeman shoots somebody, the ultimate
responsibility for the shot is clearly attached to him and there’s little
space for denial. When a drone harms somebody, the responsibility for the act
is no longer obvious. The government can talk about security logs and similar
precautions all night long, but there’s always a way around that. Whenever
something can harm humans on purpose, there should be another human directly
attached to it.

~~~
m_for_monkey
These machines are remote controlled by humans, in this sense they are not
different from conventional weapons.

~~~
zoul
"According to our security logs the machine was not under our operator's
control at the incident time. An investigation is currently running to find
the attacker who took control of the drone. We will make sure such thing won't
happen again."

~~~
m_for_monkey
You are right. These hooligan hackers nowadays...

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droithomme
Predictable. And a few months ago when they said they were going to fly drones
those who brought up weaponization were called insane conspiracy loons.

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billybob
Our reactions to the thought of armed drones firing on American citizens on
American soil should not be very different from our reactions to using these
against our enemies.

American politicians often said, after 911, that the attacks were "cowardly."
I suppose that's because they were against unarmed citizens. But still, the
attackers did it knowing they would die. Evil, yes. Cowardly? I don't see
that.

On the other hand, I bet Al Qaeda gets lots of propaganda value out of our
drone attacks. "Those cowardly Americans kill us without even risking their
lives." And if a drone strike kills innocent people, that's quadruple
propaganda points. If it even IS propaganda anymore...

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Dn_Ab
What happens when* private citizens can have access to this? In _Marrooned in
Real Time_ , written 25 years ago, Vernor Vinge posits it would lead to the
collapse of government and the rise of sovereignty of the individual. Is this
likely? Vinge is a foremost visionary but does seem to have a libertarian
bias.

Regardless, like biotech, I hope we do not stifle open development of tech
that puts a lot of power for creating the dangerous in the hands of the
individual even if though they have a great potential for good. It turns the
use of such things into black magic. And if there is anything I have learned
from Harry Potter and other fantasy, the kind of people who use Black magic
have no scruples. Better would be to turn the same tech to architecting better
defenses.

* When because with the ever increasing ease of hardware hacking, reprogrammable hardware and 3D printers; DIY versions of these are only a matter of time.

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mc32
>She explained that an officer operating an armed drone from afar would simply
not have the same understanding of a situation that an officer on location
would have.

Remoteness is double edged. You might have less immediate insight (if it could
not pick up audio signals, for example and only relied on video) or did not
have coordination with confederates on the ground, on the other hand, if the
situation were to break out, there is less immediate threat and the "officer"
would also feel less immediate threat to cause defensive or offensive reaction
or action.

In other words, remoteness might allow the "officer" to maintain a cooler head
in the "midst" of a melee and respond less impulsively (or reactively).

~~~
waterlesscloud
If the legal system works like it should, the officer behind the drone will be
_required_ to maintain a cooler head since they are under no direct personal
threat to their safety.

If the legal system works like it should.

~~~
Drbble
"I only had grainy black and white footage, how could I have known that it was
a candy bar not a grenade?"

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waqf
May I be the first to say, what could possibly go wrong?

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jfoster
If you ask people whether they want weaponized drones patrolling their country
they'll say "of course not." If you ask the same people whether they want
themselves and their families most effectively protected from violent
criminals or terrorists, they'll say "of course!" I'm not saying either
reaction is unreasonable.

I think this could be made tolerable but I have little confidence that it will
be done in such a way.

It's currently very difficult to have full transparency when police engage a
subject, but because a drone is very computerized, that changes. Imagine if
every time a drone engaged a suspect any details surrounding the situation
were automatically put on a public website, available to be scrutinized. It
could actually increase both transparency and public safety.

Is that something police/govt would actually buy into? Probably not.

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laughterman
Amazing...

All these people still think the technology doesn't exist...

This technology tree went:

DIY Garage Hackers>government>military>private sector>DIY Garage Hackers...

Its still a vicious circle.

They already have palm-sized(even smaller) quad-rotor drones that have
offensive(lethal) capabilities.

All the people thinking this technology will be used for Right, and
Wrong....Are completely correct.

It will be a game changer for sure.

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TeMPOraL
It's time for DIY anti-drone flak gun project on Kickstarter.

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zdw
Eh, DICE supposedly nerfed this in the last patch.

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bobowzki
1984 here we come!

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batista
> _Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally_

Yep, that would be great for the next time the general population thinks the
government/big corps pair gets too self-complacent and dictatorship like.

The next "Chicago '68" style event (or any of the blood soaked
demonstrations/strikes/etc in the past) could be met with these things.

Essentially nulling this "right to bear arms" thing, which was supposed to
mean the right for the people to be able to overthrow a government they
thought illegitimate (and not the right to shoot some burglar).

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georgieporgie
This entire article appears to be based off of the ramblings of one sheriff's
deputy in Texas.

I've read that RT is not a trustworthy news source. This would appear to back
that conclusion.

