Unmanned spy planes to police Britain

[Robbien]

Source: The Independent UK

The Government is drawing up plans to use unmanned "drone" aircraft currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter terrorism and aid police operations in Britain.

The MoD is carrying out research and development to enable the spy planes, which are equipped with highly sophisticated monitoring equipment that allows them to secretly track and photograph suspects without their knowledge, to be deployed within three years.

The plans have been backed by the House of Commons Defence Committee but have attracted criticism from civil liberties campaigners concerned about the implications of covert surveillance of civilians.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can obtain clear images while flying at up to 50,000ft. If ministers give the scheme the go-ahead the UK will be among the first countries to use UAVs to monitor its own citizens.

. . .

UAVs are currently restricted to military installations in Salisbury Plain because of regulations banning them from using the same airspace as civil aircraft. However, a commercial consortium led by BAE Systems will provide the safety measures necessary for the planes to fly over the UK within three years.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/unmanned-spy-planes-to-police-britain-886083.html

[Indenturedebtor]

1. Welcome to a Brave New World! WOOOOHOOOO

I have a fun idea! Well nevermind I better not say that on teh internets :hide:

[kestrel91316]

2. My dad, who worked for several years in the USAF developing

and testing aerial reconnaisance drones, would be turning in his grave to see them used to spy on the citizenry, if he had a grave (he was cremated, lol).

He wasn't your average military guy. I get my liberal streak from him more than my mom.

[Indenturedebtor]

3. There are an awful lot of Dems in the military n/t

[BearSquirrel2]

16. You can't "spy" on someone in public ...

Here's the rule. If a cop on the street could have seen it ... it's fair game.

[951-Riverside]

4. They've been thinking about doing the same here in California

I can't find an article but I remember they claimed these drones could be used to help fight wildfires and search for missing children. bul*cough*hit.

[Selatius]

5. The UK already has one of the largest CCTV surveillance system in the industrialized world.

There are about 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK, one for every 14 people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6108496.stm

George Orwell was a prophet.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. I'm pretty sure Orwell had the cameras inside peoples' houses.

I've never understood the objection to cameras in public places. How is this any different than a police officer being in the area?

[Selatius]

29. If there is already a camera per 14 people, wouldn't adding aerial drones be a waste of money?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

30. No argument there.

But there's a difference between it being an invasion of privacy and a waste of money.

[Henny Penny]

32. The old...

"if you're not doing anything wrong you've nothing to fear..." argument.

I have never understood people making that case.

Surely the question to be asked is "Do you trust the people you are empowering to do this to refrain from abusing your trust?"

[Hannah Bell]

34. then you won't mind if i follow you around & film you.

[Megahurtz]

6. And it won't be long for them to hit the U.S.

unless they're already here.

:yoiks:

[madrchsod]

7. orwell was a few years off .........

[aggiesal]

8. I worked on the Globalhawk, ...

Can fly for 36+ hours at a time.

Can image land, the size of Illinois in one flight.

How much bigger is the UK to Illinois?

[MicaelS]

12. Great Britain vs. Illinois

Great Britain = 80,823 sq mi (209,331 km²)]
Illinois = 57,918 sq mi (140,998 km²)

Great Britain is 1.4 x that of Illinois
Illinois is .71 x that of Great Britain

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. The manufacturers gave evidence to the Commons committee

and pointed out that England and Wales, together, are about the same size as Illinois. Or you could cover central Scotland, leave out the sparsely populated part of north Wales, or Cornwall, and cover perhaps 90% of the British population in one flight.

[Trajan]

9. People are not waking up to the dangers of UAV's in the 'wrong hands'

Imagine Hitler with UAV's capable of surveillance and weapons delivery .... Targetting individuals on the ground, wherever they are, wherever they go, and kill them at will ...

Imagine ANY authoritarian combining a penchant for political murder and the latest UAV technology ....

Yeah .... It is not good news ....

[KoKo]

11. Good Point! I hear they are manned by folks who have good "video gaming skills" in

those games I wouldn't want my kids to be involved with...:scared: Some "Yee HAW! DROP THE BOMB KID" who get's a "video license" to sit in his basement and fly this damned thing under a Repug Administration.

George the II was born to early. He would have loved this...and sadly since he was "born before this" he got to be P-Resident...so he could take out all his agression on us and innocent Iraqi people and others. He woulda been better sitting in his p-j's in Texas at Poppy and Babs with a "control" doing what he was born to do...killing on a "drone level" rather than as Commander-in-Chief of the Big Planes and Heavy Armaments.

[aggiesal]

13. Actually, to fly the Globalhawk you'll need ...

a pilots license.

The problem is that governments don't want UAV's to
fly over population centers.

You can fly them in rural areas, so if they crash
they don't take out a city block of houses or people.

I guess the UK feels that these aircraft are mature
enough to fly over population centers.

[Truth4Justice]

19. Sure it is. Right up there with the heat beam device they are deploying ,for our safety of course.

[KoKo]

10. Geeze! And, I thought Blair getting "the boot" signaled a new era in GB!

Seems Brown is just following the Blair/Bush Script. What's with this alliance?

[dgauss]

14. Say hello to an older cousin of your future best friend . . .

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/predator/

[JBoy]

15. Headline should be "Unmanned police planes to spy on Britons".

[unkachuck]

17. what a fine....

....paranoid police-state Britain is becoming....

"The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can obtain clear images while flying at up to 50,000ft."

....Nicolae Ceausescu would have been so pleased....he could have only dreamed of such a wonderful surveillance device....

[dipsydoodle]

18. can obtain clear images ?

Don't you need clear sky for that ?:shrug:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. Maybe for normal photographs...

...but possibly not for infrared. I don't know for certain.

[dipsydoodle]

22. I only mentioned it

because as you are aware it's frequently cloudy here like today for example.

The whole issue sounds a bit fishy to me and I have no concept of it actually achieving anything positive.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

23. I would be willing to bet...

...that the primary use for this system will be trying to find indoor marijuana growers using infrared photography. Just last week the police raided this woman's house somewhere around Cambridge (can't recall exactly where) due to seeing a big IR signature coming from the place. Turns out the house was just very poorly insulated. Even more entertaining, the woman was a police officer and knew the officers who came to her door. Idjits.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. Or it flies below the clouds

which would make it more obvious we're under surveillance, but they may not worry about that.

[dipsydoodle]

26. I'd picked up on the reference

to up to 50,000 feet which I must confess seemed a bit high to me. Maybe they meant 5,000 feet :rofl:

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. It's 'up to' - and there's this quote:

The UAVs will give law enforcement agencies huge scope for surveillance. Robert Emerson, a security analyst who specialises in deciphering aerial images, said: "Satellite images can be affected by clouds and lack of light, with UAVs you can avoid that by choosing the height at which you fly. There is now also Google Earth, but these are often old images out of date. There is tremendous potential in material gathered by UAVs."

50,000 feet is right - these aren't model planes, they're full size:

Wingspan:
116.2 ft (35.4 m)
Length:
44.4 ft (13.5 m)
Height:
14.6 ft (4.2 m)
Gross Takeoff Weight:
26,700 lbs (12,110.9 kg)
Maximum Altitude:
65,000 ft (19.8 km)
Payload:
2,000 lbs (907.2 kg)

http://www.is.northropgrumman.com/systems/ghrq4a.html

[LynnTheDem]

27. Can they attack within 45 minutes???!!11

Now we'll have to invade the UK!

[Redstone]

31. It's amazing how much of that kind of crap the Brits put up with. Did you know that you

can buy a $100,000 Aston Martin, and have it equipped with a "Don't Exceed This Speed" control, making the car stop accelerating beyond the posted limit, because there are SO many speed-tracking cameras in England?

Big Brother is alive, well, and indeed thriving in the UK.

Redstone

[Endangered Specie]

33. Why do I have a sudden urge to watch the Matrix and the Terminator?

[Tindalos]

35. Does this explain all those UFO sightings lately?

Maybe they've been test-driving some UAVs.