Let’s Try To Get This Straight
By Mitch Berg
In 2008, waterboarding people who had been captured in action against American and allied forces, or caught acting as terrorists around the world, was the absolute nadir of evil; terror suspects deserved the full protection of American due process.
In 2013, many of those same people are on board with killing Americans, on American soil, using drones.
Can we get a final ruling, here?
March 8th, 2013 at 6:48 am
Drones were developed to go after people where our military can’t get at them. I cannot conceive of a situation inside the U.S. where normal law enforcement would be so hampered that they could not locate & attack a criminal by usual police methods. In the unimaginable event (to me at least) that such occurred, I see no difference between using a drone, & other usual lethal means legally available to the police.
Police departments are experimenting with small commercially-available drones for surveillance, but the idea of using one of those big tank-destroying, building-leveling drones the DoD & CIA use inside the U.S., is ludicrous.for any purpose, except perhaps for quelling an insurrection.
The Senator was baying at the moon; a way to get his name in the media, nothing else. Of course, if the Senator has some kind of long-range plans for insurrection, I can see his point.
March 8th, 2013 at 9:15 am
With the way the left has been acting the last few months, simply saying you disagree with them causes them to act like it’s an insurrection.
March 8th, 2013 at 9:15 am
A useful idiot speaks with a comforting “It’ll never happen here”. You see, Emery, that the police and other Federal departments are now experimenting with drones. But what you don’t seem to understand is the militarization that has gone on in law enforcement in the last 30 years.
There was a time when I was a child, that no cop carried anything bigger than a shotgun and where no knock raids were virtually unheard of. These days we’ve got cops playing commando with SWAT teams, armored personnel carriers, and the Pentagon’s 1033 program distributing half a billion dollars of military gear to the cops every year. And that doesn’t even begin to count the DHS’s grants and the militarization of the weapons various Federal departs like the Forest Service.
Personally, I’d like to get this issue settled earlier than later. In that sense, What RP did was a good thing and called to account a president and party who’s far too satisfied with their own “innate goodness and ethics” to understand the dangerous path we’re on.
March 8th, 2013 at 10:42 am
I think that what Nerdbert is describing is what I believe is law enforcement’s transition from an art to a science. It’s now more about tools and less about technique. Of course, that’s true with most professions; even the psychological field is considering on-line therapy and other uses for technology with tasks that were traditionally performed by humans.
The use of drones would be useful in search and rescue situations and use in dangerous settings like the recent rogue cop in CA. A drone could cover a lot of territory in a quicker safer manner, using less resources than a search party, posse, or tactical team.
Stupidly, I never thought that the civilian (police) use for drones would be as a use-of-force tool. I suppose that there will be people who will want to explore that possibility. I find that unacceptable. However, the lost flower-sniffer in the BWCA could be found a lot quicker and less expensively with a tool like that. Ever more efficiently that a helicopter.
Completely denying local law enforcement use of such technology follows the same logic used by the ant-assault weapon faction; they’re too powerful for civilian applications and will only be misused. I would hate to throw the baby out with the bathwater because “there is no legitimate use for it.”
Humble opinion …
March 8th, 2013 at 1:51 pm
“In the unimaginable event (to me at least) that such occurred, I see no difference between using a drone, & other usual lethal means legally available to the police. ”
Good point, Boy-Google. Hard to believe that a government in the US would target its own people…Ruby Ridge, Kent State, Tuskegee syphilis experiment… (but I digress). Of course while Sen. Rand was “baying at the moon” he was asking the question that perhaps the folks at Google or Wikipedia failed to include in the sentence or two you read about the event: “Does the Executive have the right to kill (regardless whether it is via drone launched hellfire missile or via the old CIA exploding cigar trick or via a double tap to the head using a gov’t issued Glock or whatever they have at hand) US citizens on US soil without giving them due process of law unless they are considered enemy combatants involved in an imminent attack against the US?
For nearly a month, Sen. Rand asked this question and never received a clear answer – nothing but stonewalling and yuks from the Executive. So Sen Rand stages an old fashioned filibuster, exposing the anti-war left’s stunning hypocrisy on this issue and forcing the Administration to answer his question. Aren’t you glad he asked the question?
March 8th, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Drudge is currently running a story by CBS/ St. Louis in which the ACLU is also upset with the so-called militarization of local police departments.
They cite an incident where a flashbang grenade was used in a home and the entering police shot a child on a couch. Not sure how this ties into the military as flashbangs have been a staple of tactical teams for years and a wrongful death is a tragedy no matter who causes it.
Other more relevent examples are cited, too.
None the less, they share the same concerns. Strange bedfellows …
March 8th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
The only use of drones in American airspace I approve of is Predator overflights to facilitate pin-point drops of shit bombs into wide-open, flapping lefty pie holes.
You were saying, Emery?
March 8th, 2013 at 5:04 pm
Actually, Emery’s premiss is wrong. Drones were not developed primarily, and definitely not solely, to go where soldiers could not. They were developed as a way to bring air reconnaissance and weapons deployment into a theater without risking the lives of pilots and the expense of full-fledged air power.
And the police using them? Well, the typical rules of engagement are that the police are not allowed to shoot until there is a lethal threat. Therefore, a police-owned drone, not being human and subject to no lethal threats, can never fire upon a civilian–even if he’s guilty as Hell–without violating the 5th Amendment. The military are restrained from action by posse commitatus, I believe.
And the fact that our so-called “constitutional law professor” took this long to figure this out is a flat out embarassment.
March 8th, 2013 at 9:11 pm
The following is subdivision 2 of Minnesota State Statute 609.066 (Authorized Use Of Deadly Force By Peace Officers).
Note that (1) and (2) allow the use of deadly force without the direct threat to the officer being present. Basically they allow the use of deadly force to effect the arrest or capture of someone who has already illegally used deadly force, or who would use it if allowed to escape.
In the case of an armed drone, it would likely be considered a weapon, like a firearm, used by the officer operating it. Activating the death ray (or whatever these things use) would be the use of deadly force authorized by MSS 606.066.
That’s assuming such devices were legal for police to use and that the agencies were able to get the OK from their city council (or whatever governing body) for their jurisdiction to use them.
While AR15-type carbines are common in law enforcement now, they were initially a tough sell. Many agencies wanting a long arm other than a shotgun used the Marlin Camp Carbine, basically a gun that looked liked your dad’s .22 rifle but fired 9mm or .45acp. The ARs and Mini-14’s looked too “military” for many mayors and governing boards back then.
Subd. 2.Use of deadly force.
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 609.06 or 609.065, the use of deadly force by a peace officer in the line of duty is justified only when necessary:
(1) to protect the peace officer or another from apparent death or great bodily harm;
(2) to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the peace officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony involving the use or threatened use of deadly force; or
(3) to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony if the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or great bodily harm if the person’s apprehension is delayed.
March 8th, 2013 at 9:45 pm
Correction: Make that (2) and (3) in paragraph two.
Sorry …
March 9th, 2013 at 6:03 pm
@ Swift
Military technology is coming home from the war.
Here is one enterprising individual’s solution: “Stealth Wear”
/The ‘Anti-Drone’ garments are designed with a metalized fabric that protects against thermal imaging surveillance, a technology used widely by UAVs/drones. The enhanced garments are lightweight, breathable, and safe to wear. They work by using highly metalized fibers to reflect heat, thereby masking the wearer’s thermal signature./
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/01/anti-drone-camouflage-apparel/
Here’s the problem with anything ‘anti-thermal’: there is no such thing as thermally invisible. You need to be thermally matched to your background.
The only successes I’ve seen in anti-thermals are static positions that have the same exposure to the sun and other factors as their immediately surrounding environment. I’ve never seen anything dynamic escape military grade thermal optics.
March 9th, 2013 at 6:44 pm
@ bubbasan
Split hairs much?
They are deployed predominantly for military applications, but also used in a growing number of civil applications.
March 10th, 2013 at 11:05 am
Wait. Emery is now an expert on military hardware and tactics??
Tell us pinhead, does a SEAL team commander happen to be your neighbor?
Bwaaaahahahaha!