Loss of Privacy

The Nelson County Sheriff’s department in North Dakota were tasked with finding six missing cows on a farm, but were chased off by three men with rifles. Sheriff Kelly Janke was afraid of a standoff with the three men, so he went for overkill in calling for help.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

This wasn’t the first time the police have used drones in the area either.

Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

These drones are setting a dangerous precedent in allowing military drones to cross the lines into civilian use.

The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite “interior law enforcement support” as part of their mission.

Though it hasn’t been widely publicized, the increased use of spy drones on US citizens should be a concern. There was no public debate on the use of drones and no one quite knows what legal authority they operate under.

In 2008 and 2010, Harman helped beat back efforts by Homeland Security officials to use imagery from military satellites to help domestic terrorism investigations. Congress blocked the proposal on grounds it would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the military from taking a police role on U.S. soil.

Given the fact that a spy drone could watch a single individual for up to twenty hours at a time should concern citizens.

“Any time you have a tool like that in the hands of law enforcement that makes it easier to do surveillance, they will do more of it,” said Ryan Calo, director for privacy and robotics at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.

Because law enforcement is keen to use spy drones without any public input or discussion, it is almost a given that it will be misused and overused.

The story of Sheriff Janke on the Brossart farm is a prime example of misuse.

The six adult Brossarts allegedly belonged to the Sovereign Citizen Movement, an anti-government group that the FBI considers extremist and violent. The family had repeated run-ins with local police, including the arrest of two family members earlier that day arising from their clash with a deputy over the cattle.

So, the sheriff automatically jumped the gun and said an armed standoff was currently occurring, which it was not. The drone then watched the Brossarts for four hours before the sheriff withdrew until daybreak. They returned the next morning.

Around 10 a.m., the video showed the three Brossart brothers riding all-terrain vehicles toward a decommissioned Minuteman ballistic missile site at the edge of their property. The sensor operator in Grand Forks switched to thermal mode, and the image indicated the three men were unarmed.

A SWAT team then moved in and arrested the unarmed men.

A search of the property turned up four rifles, two shotguns, assorted bows and arrows and a samurai sword, according to court records. Police also found the six missing cows, valued at $6,000.

Rodney Brossart, his daughter Abby and his three sons face a total of 11 felony charges, including bail jumping and terrorizing a sheriff, as well as a misdemeanor count against Rodney involving the stray cattle. All have been released on bail. Calls to Rodney Brossart were not returned Saturday. The family is believed to be living on the farm.

If one looks at this case objectively, many questions remain. Why did the sheriff not explain that someone else’s cows had strayed onto the Brossart property? It is likely that, given that it is rumored the Brossarts belong to Sovereign Citizens Movement, they’ve had run-ins with the law before. This probably makes them automatically hostile to the sheriff.

What does it matter that the family owns a few hunting weapons. They live in rural North Dakota and probably hunt as well as use their guns for protection from wild animals. Consider that six people live on the farm, are roughly ten to twelve weapons and unreasonable find?

Why is Rodney Brossart facing a misdemeanor charge concerning the stray cattle? Exactly what is the charge? Why is anyone being charged with anything concerning the stray cattle?

What are the eleven felony charges? They story doesn’t list them or explain what the charges are. Why is Rodney also being charged with terrorizing a sheriff? Did he do more than tell the sheriff to get off his land? We don’t know. We simply know that the Brossarts are bad guys because the police and the newspapers are telling us that they are.

There are still too many questions not reported in the news to determine why the Brossarts were arrested at all. What is abundantly clear is that civilian police departments are far too willing to encroach on civil liberties and private spaces to do their jobs properly. Spy drones are now normal on America’s northern and southern borders and they’re quickly moving into everyday life with alarming frequency. North Dakota seems to think this is okay. Do you?

When drones were first introduced, Americans were told that they were for military use. As has been seen time and again, what’s good for the military, eventually, becomes good for American law enforcement. In the past few years, drones have seen increased use in the United States, from border patrol to regular street policing. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas is no exception.

Beginning next year, the ShadowHawk, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UVA) manufactured by Spring-based Vanguard Defense Industries, will be available for an array of missions. Unlike UVA used by the military, which are used chiefly to gain intelligence, the ShadowHawk will give deputies a “bird’s eye view” of crime scenes, search and rescues and large-scale emergencies, Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel said.

“The sheriff’s office has no air patrol unit,” McDaniel said. “To have an aircraft we can deploy quickly when we need it seems to be an appropriate means of equipment and technology. It’s something that will be able to protect our personnel on the ground and the public.”

McDaniel said there has not been any major opposition since the Sheriff’s Office unveiled the drone in late October.

None of the Montgomery County Commissioners opposed the use of the UVA when the grant application was submitted to the Commissioners Court in December, he said.

Of course the county commissioners are not going to object. They are not the general public that are going to be spied upon. Despite the fact that the police department is trying to reassure the public that they are not going to be spying on citizens, that is exactly what this device is intended to do. Naturally, the police department is stressing that the drone’s missions will be specific, such as finding lost senior citizens and helping firefighters. Mission creep, however, is inevitable and it won’t be long before justifications will be made to expand the use of drones regardless of threats to privacy.

Because they can perch hundreds or thousands of meters in the air, drones literally add a new dimension to the ability to eavesdrop. They can see into backyards and into windows that look out onto enclosed spaces not visible from the street. They can monitor wi-fi signals or masquerade as mobile phone base stations, intercepting phone calls before passing them along. Using a network of drones, it would be possible to follow the movements of every vehicle in a city—a capability that would be invaluable to a police department tracking the getaway car in a bank robbery but invasive if used to track a patient driving to a clinic to get treatment for a confidential medical condition.

Given the fact that these drones have the capability of invading individual’s privacy, is this something Americans should be comfortable in accepting without question?

When unmanned drones were first introduced, many people thought it was perfectly okay to have such drones, but overseas and for military use. Many others, such as myself, claimed that, while they were being used overseas at the moment, they would eventually land on our shores and be used against American citizens in the name of security. That day has now arrived.

View more videos at: http://nbcdfw.com.

The drones look like nothing more than model helicopters. But at 11 pounds and 20 inches long, the unmanned aircraft would be a powerful asset to the city, Bowman said.

In a City Council briefing Tuesday, Bowman said the aircraft are capable of carrying cameras that shoot high-quality still pictures and video and have night-vision capability. The aircraft also have heat-sensing technology the fire department can use.

At the moment, the drones are said to be used for emergency situations such as fires and accidents, but it is sure to be expanded once those capabilities have proven to be effective.

Police say they would operate the aircraft using standard operating procedure for any law-enforcement mission. The unmanned aircraft would not do anything more than a regular helicopter would, they say.

The drones would be able to do more than a regular helicopter simply due to its size. It can go places that a regular helicopter cannot and, therefore, will be invading people’s privacy on a regular basis.

“We are just looking at a vehicle that is a fraction of the cost, that is smaller, that will allow us — in an urban area, where we can’t use the bigger helicopter — to assist with better, more efficient police operations,” Hill said.

And thus the police admit that their aim is to use a helicopter in a small place where regular-sized helicopters cannot go.

Since the first drones were used in Afghanistan several years ago, I’ve been told that they would never be used in the United States. I told everyone who said this, they were wrong. First, they were used on the US-Mexican border. Then, they were tested in Houston. Now, they’re coming to the Miami-Dade police department in another case of what we see in war zones end up being used against citizens.

Miami-Dade is blazing new territory for civilian law enforcement agencies. Cops in Houston have tested UAVs, and a sheriff’s office in Colorado has a drone to look for stranded hikers. But no one has deployed a drone in a large metro area.

What’s not clear is how cops will sort out the raft of thorny privacy questions hovering around plans for using this powerful, new eye in the sky.

“At this point, it doesn’t really matter if you’re against this technology, because it’s coming,” says P. W. Singer, author of Wired for War and an expert on drones. “The precedent that is set in Miami could be huge.”

What is clear, is that the police really do not care about the privacy issues. They see the drones as a means to do their job and they don’t care whose rights are trampled on in the process.

MDPD is keeping the details of its deal with Honeywell quiet. The department didn’t respond to Riptide’s Freedom of Information Act request about the contract, but sources confirm the drone purchased is Honeywell’s T-Hawk.

“All the legal and political and ethical… complications and questions we have to figure out are enormous,” Singer says. “What seemed like science fiction just a few years ago is becoming reality.”

Of course they do not want to respond. They don’t want to speak to the media or the public and they certainly do not want to be held accountable for their actions. The public outcry will just be a complication to them.

We’ve seen their use in the United Kingdom and Venezuela’s airships, why are we accepting these invasions of privacy as something normal in our lives? Given the fact that drones can see through walls, how safe are American citizens going to feel once these become widespread? We need to force local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to be accountable. We cannot let drones become commonplace in our lives and accept invasions of privacy as normal. I, for one, enjoy the privacy I have at home and do not wish to have drones surveilling my every move.

I hope I’m dead by the time these guys take over the world.