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By 2015 it is expected that universities and colleges will take over military-authorized jobs flying drones, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).Degrees in piloting unmanned aircraft are included in select colleges as well as offering education as trained remote pilots. The FAA states that 358 public institutions (and 14 universities and colleges) have permits from their agency to conduct drone flights. The Air Force participates in this educational program with a focus on civilians being trained in using drones. The applications are that livestock, oil pipelines, animal poachers and tracking criminals will be the function of these drone missions.
Local police departments (LPDs) in Florida want to retain the right to use drones for “crowd control”. Senator Joe Negron, sponsor of SB 92 said he would vote against it if this exception were included. Negron stated: “The exception would have allowed King George to use drones against the Boston Tea Party if the unmanned aircraft had existed in the 18th century.”
The bill restricts the use of drones for LPDs with 3 exceptions; such as terrorism.
State Senate Representative Lance Gooden in Texas has introduced a bill to outlaw the use of drones by citizens of the state; as well as state and federal law enforcement.
Gooden wants to prohibit LPDs from spying on random citizens. Those who are victimized by LPDs use of drones would have legal recourse to sue that individual or department for monetary damages.
Exceptions to this bill allow drones to be flown over the Rio Grande for drug and illegal immigrant interdiction programs, to be used by law enforcement agents with a valid search or arrest warrant or the catch all supposition that with “probable cause to believe that a person has committed a felony.”
Gooden stated: “Do we want out local police departments laying off officers and simply parking drones over our homes to keep an eye on all of us? These drones are going to get so cheap that soon you’ll be able to buy your own drone at Best Buy,” Gooden said. “You could park it a foot above the ground in your neighbor’s back yard and film into their house. If someone wanted to film your children out playing by the pool and put that video on the Internet, as creepy as that sounds.”
After succumbing to pressure from the Obama administration to keep the use of drones in American skies out of mainstream media (MSM), outlets like the Washington Post (WP) and the New York Times (NYT) have come forth to publish articles about Obama’s new program for targeted assassinations against American citizens with the use of drones.
MSM claim that for the sake of national security they have withheld this information from the public. Dr. Jack Lule, professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University, explains: “The decision not to publish is a shameful one. The national security standard has to be very high, perhaps imminent danger. The fact that we are even having a conversation about whether it was a national security issue should have sent alarm bells off to the editors. I think the real reason was that the administration did not want to embarrass the Saudis – and for the US news media to be complicit in that is craven.”
The NYT, for the sake of saving face, stated that they are in the process of obtaining a copy of the memo wherein the Obama administration discussed their assassination program that resulted in the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen in a foreign country. Knowledge of the location of the base used by the federal government with regard to drone missions was also omitted by the NYT.
Lule claimed: “We have two partners’ participation in the secrecy of the drone program, the government and the news media. If we are looking to open it up to scrutiny, where do we go? It happened at the top ranks of the media, too. We look to digital media, but they do not have the contacts and the resources to look at this. They should have been leading the pack in calling for less secrecy. For them to give up that post is terrible.”
The WP has a long history of collaboration with the federal government on dissemination of information to the public. When given approval by the US government to discuss issues in public, WP will do so only at the expressed discretion that the information they bring forth has been properly monitored by federal agencies.
Use of claiming national security to keep information from the public is a cover to disassociate the fact that the MSM outlet cover-up for the Obama administration and this is the antithesis of the purpose of the new media.
In 2012, an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act sponsored by House Representatives Mac Thomberry and Adam Smith called the “The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012″ stated that this would “[modify] a Cold War-era law that hampers diplomatic, defense, and other agencies’ ability to communicate in the 21st century.
Thomberry went on to say: “We continue to face a multitude of threats and we need to be able to counter them in a multitude of ways. Communication is among the most important,” Rep. Thornberry said in a statement. “This outdated law ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible and transparent way. Congress has a responsibility to fix the situation.”
Smith confirmed that the original Act was formulated to combat communism in the 1940s yet with a new revival it would be an “effective strategic communication and public diplomacy should be front-and-center as we work to roll back al-Qaeda’s and other violent extremists’ influence among disaffected populations. An essential part of our efforts must be a coordinated, comprehensive, adequately resourced plan to counter their radical messages and undermine their recruitment abilities. To do this, Smith-Mundt must be updated to bolster our strategic communications and public diplomacy capacity on all fronts and mediums – especially online.”
The Obama administration, through the Department of Justice(DoJ) are attempting to create a legal explanation for their targeted assassinations of US citizens without proof of terroristic activities.
Armed with a secret kill-list and several US citizens already murdered by the US government. Al-Awlaki, it was shown, had been detained by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and released between 2006 – 2007; as well as the FBI admitting that they detained him and released him in 2002. Al-Awlaki was good enough to have dinner at the Pentagon, yet called a dangerous terrorist that necessitated assassination by drone attacks.
Pakistan Cyber Force
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