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Customs and Border Protection Predator Drone Observes Minneapolis Protests

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday May 31 2020, @02:48AM   
from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

takyon writes:

Border Patrol flies anti-terrorism drone over Minneapolis protestors

Thousands of people took to the streets of Minneapolis on Friday to protest the death of George Floyd, a local black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest. All the while, a Customs and Border Patrol drone kept a careful eye on the unfolding unrest.

The drone, using the tracking signal CBP104, took off from Grand Forks Airforce Base at 9:08 am Central Daylight Time and shortly afterward headed directly to Minneapolis, this feed from live flight tracking service FlightAware showed. The drone then circled the city six times from about 10:45 until noon. The aircraft maintained an altitude of about 20,000 feet.

Grand Forks AFB is the home of the Air Force's 319th Reconnaissance Wing. It is also a site Customs and Border Patrol personnel use for takeoff and landing of the Predator B unmanned aircraft system. CBP uses the drone in anti-terrorism operations by helping to identify and intercept potential terrorists and illegal cross-border activity.

Also at The Drive and Business Insider.

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Original Submission

• Imaged and cataloged for future reference. Imaged and cataloged for future reference. (Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 31 2020, @02:56AM (4 children)

  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday May 31 2020, @02:56AM (#1001265)

  20,000 feet - what was the weather like from 10:45 until noon in the area? If it was clear enough, we can assume the side-looking cameras on the CBP drone got a pretty good facial image of most of the people on the street during their 6 loops around the area. J. Edgar Hoover's corpse just got a woody.

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• Re:Imaged and cataloged for future reference. Re:Imaged and cataloged for future reference. (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:39AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:39AM (#1001283)

  Seems unnecessary to me, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, BBC et all seem to have it covered pretty well. Even getting the "Proud Boys" tossing fireworks like they were bombs and pretending to be part of the black demonstration.

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  • Re:Imaged and cataloged for future reference. (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 31 2020, @11:53AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday May 31 2020, @11:53AM (#1001323)

    Seems unnecessary to me

    When has that ever stopped a vertically integrated domestic intelligence gathering operation?

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• Re:Imaged and cataloged for future reference. Re:Imaged and cataloged for future reference. (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:08PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:08PM (#1001336)

  When you are 20,000 ft up, what is a "side-looking" camera and how does it differ from a regular camera? Do they have upward-looking cameras on the drones too to get a good sneak up the skirts?

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  • Re:Imaged and cataloged for future reference. (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:37PM

    by khallow (3766) on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:37PM (#1001435) Journal

    It's a camera angled to the side rather than straight down. You can catch different details that way. I suppose, for example, that it'd somewhat more likely to catch an image of someone's clothes or face when they're wearing a large hat.

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