actually I think the article says it has the ability to detect at night whether a human is armed - thats quite different that has a weapon in concealment.
My dad used to work on satellite reconnaissance imaging - believe me spotting a human from a satellite - and what their holding is totally possible (he was on a team that read license plates from satellite images)- with a bit of recognition software to detect if they are holding a gun - its actually pretty easy technology.
With some advanced magnometers to detect large pieces of iron on your person, yeah, then detecting concealed weapons could become very easy - I dont think they have the yet - I suspect the magnet or the current applied would have to be very large - but then again I dunno they develop new technology every day.
it really is a journey, and you just cant farm out the battle wounds
I think it is a very slippery slope if they allow law enforcement unrestrained use of these UAV's.
Especially arming them.
If they don't get some laws and regulations in effect, this could really turn into a police state, more than it already is.
Imagine for a moment the following scenario.
A escaping felon is being pursued.
He is traveling at dangerously high speeds in an effort to elude LEO's.
They call off the police pursuit due to the risk of innocent motorists.
In comes the Predator UAV armed with a mini-gun and/ or Hellfire missiles.
The decision is made to use the missile since they want to end this quickly.
Missile is fired and the suspect vehicle is destroyed with little to no collateral damage.
The problem is, they fired on the the wrong car due to human error.
The car they destroyed was occupied by a mother and three children........
Or suppose they don't allow arming of the UAV's.
Proponents argue that an unarmed UAV is no different than a police helicopter.
I disagree.
They could have hundreds of these things in the air all the time.
Opponents say that it attacks the principle of expected privacy in public.
Not sure what the solution is but I would oppose the use of them, or at least stringent guidelines for their use.
Structo wrote: ............ Not sure what the solution is but I would oppose the use of them, or at least stringent guidelines for their use.
The current administration (or any administration for that matter*) can NOT be trusted with such power. They don't respect the Constitution, but they're going to respect "guidelines" for drone attacks? I don't think so.
*Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Tom i think that already happened when they were recently after that cop they claimed killed another cop they blew up a car with a predator well it was a mother and child. I THINK not sure on this. But then they found him they claim hiding in a cabin belonging to someone unrelated to the case and burn the house down to get him yet they had no idea if it was him in the house.
And im going political at all our corporation that is the gov. is completely unconstitutional. BO is pres of a corporation called usa but not president of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. If you think this is bs start doing some research.
Using drones is way over the top. The good thing is they are expensive, so most local law enforcement won't have access. My local PD was given several helicopters quite a while ago. Totally obnoxious. They have been forced to ground them for most of the time because they can't afford to maintain and fly them.
This is getting really scary along with the gun grabbers.
Unless the weapon had just been fired, it wouldn't be any warmer than either body temp or ambient air temp.
If a drone can detect a weapon, it's some other technology than infrared. What could that be? Radar? If so, how can it differentiate between a Glock and a can of shaving creme in a grocery bag?
I'm curious if this is really possible, or just part of a psychological tactic to induce paranoia in the general populace?
Exactly Nick, it does not mention anything about the discrete ability of detecting weapons. SAIC developed tehnology in the late 90's to detect the origin of gunfire to within meters though.
During the height of the Irag War; billions was being spent on IED detection technology development, surely no one was so nieve to think that this military technology would not trickle down to cilvilian use. Drones have been used overhead for several years, the Bush administration(authors of the Patriot Act) gave away DHS grant money like candy, which opened the doors to LE obtaining various types of equipment like this.
Turn off the talking heads and read The Patriot Act and it's revisions.
Dude, there's like 4 guns for every man women and child out there - it's gone way beyond their ability to ever control. Family in WWII here were partisans, they had wine barrels buried under the floors and in the yard filled with guns, food, clothes, occasionally people - Germans searched all the time and never found anything. They'll never gather up 1.2 trillion guns, or even try. Other things to worry about like sun bathing nude on the roof.
