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In order to get law enforcement lobby support for a law requiring warrants to deploy drones for surveillance, North Dakota legislators decided to allow law enforcement to use "less-than-lethal" weaponized drones:
Legal experts are very concerned that a new North Dakota law which allows law enforcement drones to be armed with so-called less-than-lethal weapons—including stun guns and beanbag rounds—could be highly problematic. The law, however, explicitly forbids lethal weapons. Previous drafts of the bill specifically included prohibitions on non-lethal weapons, language that was later removed.
Among other reasons, such weapons have been shown that they can, in fact, kill people. According to research by The Guardian, 39 Americans have died this year alone at the hands of police wielding a Taser. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported Wednesday that more than 20 North American cities are pursuing large silicone-based projectiles as yet another alternative weapon.
North Dakota is believed to be the first state in the union to allow such weapons aboard state and local police drones.
[...] The law, known as House Bill 1328, which took effect earlier this month, imposes a significant pro-privacy victory: requiring that police and sheriff's deputies get a warrant when deploying a drone for surveillance. [...] However, in order to get the measure through the state's legislative body, the bill's author told Ars that he had to do a little horse trading with the state law enforcement lobby, the North Dakota Peace Officers' Association, which had strongly lobbied against it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 31 2015, @03:18AM
My first thought was -- what on earth does ND need drones for anyway? to chase farmers hauling hay across the Canadian border? (Lots of farms straddle the border. Including my great-granddad's.)
My second was -- when does the season open?
BTW if you like to eat, flat is good. Flat is productive. Flat is easy to cultivate, plant, irrigate, and harvest. The more lumps, the less productive for crops. Next time you're stuffing your face, give thanks to flat.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 31 2015, @11:03PM
North Dakota is not particularly productive. It's all strip farming because otherwise they'd have to let everything lie fallow every 3rd year to avoid completely depleting the soil. Flat also has little to do with productivity. Soil quality and growing season and fertilizer and technique do. Indonesia does quite well with productivity and much of their arable land is terraced hills. People in the amazon basin growing on terra preta can get *8* crops/year.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 31 2015, @11:38PM
ND is only the 2nd largest producer of winter wheat in the U.S....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_production_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
and is no slouch at various other crops:
http://americanagnetwork.com/2012/01/north-dakota-wheat-seedings-grain-stocks-crop-production-reports/ [americanagnetwork.com]
8 crops of what, tho? and can you store it against a bad year? You won't get 8 crops of any grain in a year regardless. (I've seen desert plots that make 8 or more cuttings of alfalfa per year, but that's not the end product that humans eat.)
And terraces don't farm hillsides per se; they're a way of making hillsides reasonably flat (albeit a little at a time) so they can be farmed efficiently.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.