GAO: DHS Flew Drones For 1726 Hours Over Interior Of U.S.

Weasel Zippers

Pictures for the yearbook?

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Homeland Security flew drones equipped with video cameras over the United States–away from border and coastal areas–for 1,726 hours from fiscal 2011 through this April, according to the Government Accountability Office.

At times, the drones–or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)–were being used for purposes other than border or immigration enforcement. But the GAO does not have a full accounting of when and where the drones were flown, or what they were used for during the flight hours spent in “other airspace.”

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TX Sheriff’s MSCO Drone Takes Dive – Is Lost in Lake Conroe

Gateway Pundit

Coming soon to a police force near you.

Drones, MRAPs and military-style grass camouflage.

Divers spent Friday afternoon searching for a half-million dollar drone that crashed into Lake Conroe in Texas. The drone was almost entirely funded by Homeland Security Grants which were designated for the purchase of drones.
Via Montgomery County Police Reporter:

Friday morning, during training exercises with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Drone, something went wrong and it crashed into Lake Conroe. Divers from the Montgomery County Precinct 1 Dive Team spent much of the day searching the bottom of Lake Conroe for the almost $300,000 drone helicopter.

The drone which was purchased by Montgomery County in 2011 was almost entirely funded by Homeland Security Grants which were specifically designated for the purchase of drones.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office selected the 29 pound 7 foot helicopter from Vanguard Industries of Spring, Texas.

Since its purchase, the drone has been used very little due to new FAA rules that stated drones must not weigh more than 25 pounds. The Shadow Hawk was 29.

When it was first unveiled in 2011 Congressman Brady was present.

Brady commended Sheriff Gage for his “aggressive enforcement of public safety in Montgomery County,” and said the Shadow Hawk was more evidence of that. The Congressman further pointed out that Montgomery County is one of the 25 fastest growing in the United States and is mostly unincorporated, giving Sheriff Gage responsibility for a huge area.

Brady said he saw a demonstration of the Shadow Hawk by Vanguard months ago and was impressed with its flexibility and cost effectiveness. According to Brady, the device costs about $40 per hour to operate, versus $500 per hour for a manned helicopter.

It was purchased to assist SWAT Teams in their operations.

 

Flashback: NYT Report Says Obama Personally Approved Assassination Of 17-Year-Old American Citizen…

Weasel Zippers

According to the administration the reason he was assassinated was because “He should have had a better father,” not because he was a member of al-Qaeda.

WASHINGTON (May 29, 2012) — This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years.

President Obama, overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment to study the faces. It was Jan. 19, 2010, the end of a first year in office punctuated by terrorist plots and culminating in a brush with catastrophe over Detroit on Christmas Day, a reminder that a successful attack could derail his presidency. Yet he faced adversaries without uniforms, often indistinguishable from the civilians around them.

“How old are these people?” he asked, according to two officials present. “If they are starting to use children,” he said of Al Qaeda, “we are moving into a whole different phase.”

It was not a theoretical question: Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

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The drones are coming

Human Events

For years, the United States has used drones to track foreign terrorists overseas and catch outlaws along the border. But now, thousands of drones are heading to the homeland. Drones are already used for certain purposes here in the United States, but the FAA will soon dramatically expand the use of drones to operate nationwide by the year 2015. It is estimated, by 2020, 30,000 of them will be flying in American skies. Who and what will all of these new eyes in the sky be looking at? No one really knows.  But whether we like it or not, the drones are coming.

Judge Napolitano : First American to shoot down a Drone will be an American Hero

Obama Hires his Personal Murder Czar and Dems continue to Threaten SCOTUS

CFP

When any country’s leader reaches comprehensive dictator status, he begins either incarcerating or killing off his opponents (aka enemies).  One need only look at the rich and murderous histories of Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and other tyrannical rulers to know that this is a fait accompli in all totalitarian regimes.  In one way or another, each of these tyrants conducted their own personal genocide(s).