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The Pentagon Deployed More Drones Domestically Last Year Than the Previous Five Years Combined

posted by martyb on Monday January 28 2019, @02:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the In-USA-UAVs-watch-YOU! dept.

JoeMerchant writes:

The Pentagon deployed drones 11 times throughout the 2018 fiscal year. That's the same number they deployed from 2011 to 2017 combined. The drones varied from civilian drones to military strike aircraft, and they were used for disaster relief, reconnaissance and everything in-between.

New data published by the Pentagon has revealed when drones were used, what they were used for and how long their missions lasted. Over half of the missions fell under the "Defense Support of Civil Authorities," which only became viable this year after the Secretary of Defense removed oversight requirements.

[...] In total, there were three year-long missions and eight short-term missions which lasted an average of three months each.

Hellfires helping homefires between disaster relief and reconnaissance?

Don't forget to register and license those homebrew hoverers, hmmm?

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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:41PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:41PM (#793034)

    That was also whored out on Slashdot earlier by the same poster as here.

    This story is a non-issue, because the use of drones in question are simple replacements of piloted flights with no increase in flight length or frequency. This just allowed them to avoid risking the manpower in the air in high risk fire overflys, and a few other situations that would have been legal either way.

    Getting into domestic surveillance flights by contractors and spy satellite overflies/real time feeds is far more worthy of scrutiny at the moment, although drone situations should be kept an eye on for when they DO finally start using them for privacy violating overflies of american's housing.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 28 2019, @06:16PM (2 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday January 28 2019, @06:16PM (#793140) Journal

    Of course, a Republican is in office so drones have been restored to their status as just a fancy RC plane and not the civilization ending threat that Obama failed to stop on day 1.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:51PM (#793164)

      Cognitive dissonance at work. I was horrified by Obama's usage (voted for him) and I'm still horrified now. This is apparently beyond the comprehension of many users here.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 28 2019, @10:00PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 28 2019, @10:00PM (#793245)

      Do please at least glance at the article summary: 11 domestic uses in 12 months, including DJI Phantom deployments? To me that's a fantastically small number of nationwide deployments for a 12 month timespan.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]

  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday January 28 2019, @07:14PM

    by zocalo (302) on Monday January 28 2019, @07:14PM (#793175)
    Article is a little misleading, it says they were deployed 11 times, but they all have a duration spanning anything from a three days to the entire year so it seems likely there were actually a lot more than 11 individual missions flown. Of those deployments:
    • Five were used for civil incident support; four for California wildfires and one for Hurricane Florence flood response. Probably pure recon.
    • Three were used for security within DoD airspace (one for an airshow). Again, probably recon, but possibly for armed one of the two "installation support" missions since it's a sub base (the other was flown with a DJI Phantom).
    • One for an exercise (Vigilent Guard in New York). Since this was an exercise, most probably unarmed or dummy payload.
    • One was used for DEA support. Most likely overwatch of an op, but quite possibly armed.
    • One was used for border security, and was on call throught 2018. Almost certainly recon, unless Trump was planning on blasting one of the migrant caravans (he did mention an armed response at some point, IIRC)

    Assuming that's the complete list and there were no off the books missions I think that all sounds fairly reasonable, tbh, but definitely something that's worth keeping an eye on to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.

    --
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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 28 2019, @08:46PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 28 2019, @08:46PM (#793214)

    by the same poster as here.

    Doubtful, I haven't even navigated to slashdot.com in over a year, but I believe I still hold the JoeMerchant username there...

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]