UPDATE 10:30 PM To no great surprise Amherst Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to ban drones on a local level and to ask our federal representatives to file legislation to stop international "targeted killings."
Meanwhile, somewhere in the bowels of Hell, Osama Bin Laden smiled.
#####
Yes this is Amherst, where 30 years ago we became a "nuclear free zone."
Associated Press 5/18/1984
Soon to be a, "drone free zone."
Source: CriminalJusticeDegreeHub.com
You'll pry my toy helicopter controller from my cold dead hands. you effin' commies.
ReplyDeleteI think it's ok, but how are they going to enforce it? I've seen drones over the bike path in Amherst, and have heard stories from residents of drones over Rte 116 and Rte 9
ReplyDeleteTo bad they don't work this hard to make it a drug free zone.
ReplyDelete"To bad they don't work this hard to make it a drug free zone."
ReplyDeleteor a million other things
It's funny how the "how they are used now/in the future" chart, makes no mention of exterminating people; including US citizens. In fact, they are used more for that purpose than for surveillance. I don't buy into the idea of using drones for any domestic purpose.
ReplyDeleteI've had a pretty happy drone-free life. Let's keep it going.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Amherst will be issuing "Drone Hunting Permits" like some other communities have.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine a drone doing all that well after a .30-06 round went through it...
There are drones, and then there are the drones who drone on in Town Meeting.
ReplyDeleteWhich ones are we banning again?
Could we use drones to find the 70-80 Town Meeting members who are missing on any given meeting night?
ReplyDeleteDr Ed
ReplyDeleteIf Deer Trail, Colorado called Philip Steel a trouble-maker, just imagine what The Republic of Amherst might say! Too bad the majority said nay.
I am stupefied by these over-reaching motions that are born from these indignant Amherst pseudo-intellectuals. I think those who propose such irrelevant ideas, and those that support them, feel elevated by their bold and proactive approaches to the 'terroristic' US gov't. Fix your g-d potholes before drafting federal laws. I think that's in the Bible, somewhere.
ReplyDeleteLK, I disagree on the flag issue, but do think that this limited, and frankly cynical view on new technologies is contrapuntal to the advancement that so many Amherst residents laud themselves about. Crotchety Luddites, more like it. They should have put a Birkenstock on the new flag.
Does this ban cover all drones? Does this ban cover just flying in amherst airspace? What about ownership? If so, don't buy your kid a remote controlled airplane or helo or even one of those blow up sharks that you can fly indoors. And this fuckin' town can't even fix potholes. Town meeting is a fuckin' joke, if this is all they have to do.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the president decides someone in Amherst needs to be eliminated without due process? Like really, we cannot go against the president on this one.
ReplyDeleteSevere Drone Paranoia??? Probably from smoking to much pot!
ReplyDeleteOne less thing to worry about when getting the moring paper.
ReplyDeleteAnd love the Birkenstock idea.
Typical idiocy designed to make Amherst liberals feel brave. A law that will never be enforced (unless some critic of the Town Board gets caught operating a toy airplane).
ReplyDeleteWas there actually any debate or discussion about this? Did anyone actually consider the potential benefits and costs?
Or was their reasoning simply a matter of: "The CIA uses drones to track and kill jihadis overseas. War is bad. The CIA is bad. Therefore drones are bad. Banning drones means we are good people!"
Given that President Obama has expanded the drone strikes abroad, will Amherst ban him from entering the town?
I of course made a "motion to dismiss" and it was supported by a couple very long time members.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, there was some discussion.
But not enough to dispel the paranoia.
Shoot Larry, there was a big "to-do" on Triangle St this weekend and I heard over the scanner that the cops bagged a lady driving drunk with her kids in the car. The college kids are gone and you started SLACKING!!! I want the dirt Larry
ReplyDeleteJust now posted it.
ReplyDeleteWait a second...Amherst approved a resolution supporting the resettlement of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the area??? Maybe you folks are gonna need those drones after all.
ReplyDeleteSo if AFD wants to use a drone to search for some lost hiker... that's a no?
ReplyDeleteThat's what is sooooo stupid about the resolution, because it clearly states: "No agency of the town will operate drones in a manner that violates the constitutional rights of its residents."
ReplyDeleteAs though any town department would do ANYTHING to violate the constitutional rights of its residents.
So yes, AFD could use the drone for search and rescue.
But the likelihood of them ever buying a drone is about zero after last night's vote.
"What if the president decides someone in Amherst needs to be eliminated without due process?"
ReplyDeleteFolks, the President is not going to kill people with drones in this country -- this isn't what you need to worry about.
Think logically: Drones fire an AGM-114 "Hellfire" Missile -- a 100lb rocket
that was designed to destroy Soviet tanks.
An 18lb bomb that both explodes and sends razor-sharp metal out to slice & dice anyone nearby. There will be blood and body parts strewn everywhere, if a vehicle was involved, it will be on fire.
A fully-involved car fire is impressive, flames shooting 20-30 feet into the air and a pillar of black smoke on top of that -- visible for miles, it's the sort of thing that gets noticed. When, say, a Blue BMW almost instantly becomes a blazing funeral pyre, adjacent motorists will sorta notice it.
They'll take pictures of it, pictures which very quickly will go national. And all of this presumes that no one other than the intended victim is hurt.
Even if there isn't a vehicle involved, blood & body parts alone will get noticed -- and be noticed until someone else cleans up the mess, you can't do that from a drone.
This is done overseas because the President doesn't have the ability to simply arrest the person, the President must quite publicly kill the person because he can't kill the person in secret -- or even send him/her/it to GITMO. (The rationale for drone strikes is that killing the person is the only option, as arrest & detention aren't possible.)
If a President ever decided that "someone in Amherst needs to be eliminated without due process", the person would simply be arrested and disappear. Or die "resisting arrest" or perhaps from a mysterious heart attack.
The President already has the legal ability to "eliminate" people in this country, no drone is necessary for him to do this, and that is why you need to be worried about him being able to do this with impunity, without due process.
You need to be terrified of what Enku Gelaye and her Star Chamber are doing at UMass!!!!!
They meet once a week, in secret, and decide which students need to be "eliminated" from the university, and then proceed to do so without a scintilla of due process being accorded to those whom they have targeted for "elimination."
Worse, as this is done in secret, the decision already made before any of the official proceedings begin, what is defensible as due process in reality is nothing more than a "show trial."
While most of the students whom they decide to "eliminate" need to be "eliminated", there is the very real question of "who guards the guardians"?
They do make mistakes, sometimes making big mistakes involving incredible errors of judgment, and they do this with total impunity.
When everything you do is done in total secrecy, no one else ever knows when you screw up. As it is impossible for anyone (including those whom they have harmed) to ever really know exactly what they did -- let alone to prove it -- they make their mistakes with total impunity.
Lord Acton put it best: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
What you need to be terrified of is a President setting up something like Enku's ACT Group on a national scale. THAT is how a President could "eliminate" Americans with total impunity....
Larry, I might beg to differ on a town department never violating the Constitutional rights of residents.
ReplyDeleteThere wouldn't be a great deal of case law involving municipal police and Section 1983 suits if municipal police departments, nor no need of the FBI's "Color of Law" division if municipal police departments didn't do such things.
We can agree to disagree on some of the things that the Amherst Police are doing relative to UMass students, and there is an ongoing investigation I believe -- but one version of the facts in dispute would include Constitutional rights violations.
How many drug arrests have been thrown out (I know of one, I think the judge was wrong, but I am not a judge) -- that and all others are Constitutional rights violations. That is the basis for evidence suppression -- that the cops violated Constitutional rights in getting it.
Team Enku seems to be doing a pretty good job of this sort of thing, aren't they?
And I suspect we can agree to disagree but I consider AFD's Psych Transports to be a Constitutional rights violation -- as would have Thomas Jefferson and I suspect most of the other men who wrote the Constitution.
Remember that "Our lives, our liberty, and our property" have been given to us by God and can not be arbitrarily taken from us by any other person. That's what the Constitution was written to protect -- and, thus....
The ends do not justify the means...
It's not a drone, per se, that the AFD needs -- nor is the platform small enough yet, nor the technology good enough yet, but what the AFD really needs is a flyable heat-vision camera.
ReplyDeleteSomething that can fly into a burning building, navigate around obstructions (both existing and fire-created) and send back thermal images in real time. Something to look for victims (without endangering firefighter lives), something that can tell them the hottest part of the fire so they know what to aim their hoses at (and later, have valuable information in an attempt to determine cause).
It could even have some sort of transponder (similar to military IFF) so were it looking for a trapped firefighter, even one under something, there would be no question that was where the firefighter was. And it wouldn't take much to put in a gas analyzer and thermometer, which I believe would detect both "flashover" and "backdraft" environments, from the inside -- as when both CO and temperature are above a certain level, fresh air causes them -- isn't it the superheated carbon monoxide that does this?
And, in theory at least, it could attempt to find a path *to* a trapped firefighter, which would thus be a path out for the firefighter - I'm thinking Worcester Cold Storage fire where the guys got lost in a maze of rooms.
And something that would rather suck to loose, but that you don't have to have a funeral for...
Larry, what people don't realize is that the people using the tools and the values they have are a hell of a lot more important than the tools themselves.
My bad. Here is the link to the specs on the Hellfire:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2012armaments/Tuesday13985gogley.pdf
Paranoia may destroy ya
ReplyDeleteParanoia may destroy ya
ReplyDeleteSo too may dismissing "red flag" warnings as paranoia and failing to listen to what your subconscious is trying to tell you. I made that mistake and September 28, 2009 was the day that all which was good in me evaporated.
Ed, have you ever heard of narcissism?
ReplyDeleteAfraida drones?
ReplyDeleteLOL!
I mean we already know Ponziville men wear the panties in the house.
Oh-my-god
work it baby.
WOOOOOOOORK IT!
-Squeaky Squeals
Why don't you just grow up or take the pipe, will ya'...
ReplyDeleteNo, neither -- I intend to win.