How Soon Before Armed Drones Are Overhead in America? Time Now.
Peter Van Buren
AntiWar.com
October 13, 2016
Protocols exist allowing the president to select American citizens, without a whit of due process, for drone killing.
Only overseas, he says, but you can almost see the fingers crossed behind his back. Wouldn’t an awful lot of well-meaning Americans have supported an aerial drone killing in San Bernardino, or at the Pulse club in Orlando? Didn’t many support using a robot to blow up a suspect in Dallas?
How soon before armed drones are over our heads?
Time Now.
North Dakota just legalized its police departments to equip drones with Tasers, tear gas and rubber bullets. The state legislature will push for the removal of the non-lethal force provision in 2017.
House Bill 1328 went into effect August 1. The original piece of legislation sought to ensure police obtained a search warrant to use a drone to gather criminal evidence. However, when a lobbyist with police ties was allowed to amend the bill, it was rewritten to specify that drones could carry anything except (’til next year) weapons capable of lethal force.
Of course plenty of people have died at the hands of police using so-called non-lethal weapons, Tasers in particular. But even if that is not a concern, just wait until 2017, when the police will be able to fly weaponized drones.
Over America. Or is it: Over, America?
