Breaking: Obama DHS Soups Up Drone Fleet to Include Domestic Surveillance Capabilities | The Gateway Pundit

Breaking: Obama DHS Soups Up Drone Fleet to Include Domestic Surveillance Capabilities | The Gateway Pundit

Breaking: Obama DHS Soups Up Drone Fleet to Include Domestic Surveillance Capabilities

Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 8:06 AM

 

 

Let’s see…
According to one estimate, since last year the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. DHS also reportedly purchased 2,700 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) to go with their bullet stockpile.

Now this…
DHS has customized its drone fleet to include domestic surveillance capabilities that would help government identify civilians carrying guns and track their cell phones.

Homeland Security required that this Predator drone, built by General Atomics, be capable of detecting whether a standing human at night is “armed or not.” (CNet – U.S. Department of Homeland Security)

DHS customizes drone fleet to include domestic surveillance capabilities.
CNET reported:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones,originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department’s unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States’ northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.

Homeland Security’s specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,” meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify “signals interception” technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and “direction finding” technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

Concern about domestic use of drones is growing, with federal legislationintroduced last month that would establish legal safeguards, in addition to parallel efforts underway from state and local lawmakers. The Federal Aviation Administrationrecently said that it will “address privacy-related data collection” by drones.

The prospect of identifying armed Americans concerns Second Amendment advocates, who say that technology billed as securing the United States’ land and maritime borders should not be used domestically. Michael Kostelnik, the Homeland Security official who created the program, told Congress that the drone fleet would be available to “respond to emergency missions across the country,” and a Predator drone was dispatched to the tiny town of Lakota, N.D., to aid local police in a dispute that began with reimbursement for feeding six cows. The defendant, arrested with the help of Predator surveillance, lost a preliminary bid to dismiss the charges.