Predator Drones Being Used Against US Citizens

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073248/Local-cops-used-Predator-drone-arrest-North-Dakota-farm-family-stealing-6-cows.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Quote :

Meet the Brossarts, a North Dakota family deemed so dangerous that the local sheriff needed unleashed an unmanned Predator drone to help bring them in.

The Brossart's alleged crime? They wouldn't give back three cows and their calves that wandered onto their 3,000-acre farm this summer.
The same aerial vehicles used by the CIA to track down and assassinate terrorists and militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan are now being deployed by cops to spy on Americans in their own backyards.

The Brossarts are the first known subjects of the high-flying new surveillance technology that the federal government has made available to some local sheriffs and police chiefs - all without Congressional approval or search warrants.

Local authorities say the Brossarts are known for being armed, anti-government separatists whose sprawling farm is used as a compound. Rodney Brossart, 55, and his wife Susan live in a house and a trailer and two RVs with seven of their eight adult children.
When the cattle wandered onto the Brossarts' land, Sheriff Kelly Janke, who patrols a county of just 3,000 people, rounded up some sheriff's deputies and arrested Mr Brossart for failing to report the stray livestock.

They also took away his daughter, Abby, after she allegedly hit an officer during the arrest.
When cops returned to collect the lost cattle, three of Brossart's sons - Alex, Jacob and Thomas - confronted Sheriff Janke with rifles and shotguns and would not allow officers on the farm.

That's when the sheriff summoned a $154 million MQ-9 Predator B drone from nearby Grand Forks Air Force Base, where it was patrolling the US-Canida border for the US Department of Homeland Security.

Using a handheld device that picked up the video camera footage from the spy plane, Sheriff Janke was able to watch the movements of everyone on the farm.

During an 16-hour standoff, the sheriff and his deputies waited until they could see the remaining Brossarts put down their weapons. Then, dressed in SWAT gear, they stormed the compound and arrested the three Brossart sons. No shots were fired.

Susan Brossart, the matriarch of the clan, was later arrested, as well.
Police also recovered the cattle, valued at $6,000.

They face several felony charges and have repeatedly not shown up for court after posting $250,000 bail.
US Customs and Border Protection agents fly eight Predator remote-controlled aircraft to patrol the American borders with Canada and Mexico, searching for smugglers and illegal immigrants.

But increasingly, the federal government and local police agencies are using those drones to spy criminal suspects in America with sophisticated high-resolution cameras, heat sensors and radar. All of it comes without a warrant.

Allowing local sheriffs and police chiefs access to spy planes happened without public discussion or the approval of Congress. And it has privacy advocates crying foul, saying the unregulated use of the drones is intrusive.

'There is no question that this could become something that people will regret,' former Rep Jane Harman, a Democrat, told the Los Angles Times.
The sheriff says that might not have been possible without the intelligence from the Predators.

'We don't have to go in guns blazing. We can take our time and methodically plan out what our approach should be,' Sheriff Janke told the Times.
All of the surveillance occurred without a search warrant because the Supreme Court has long ruled that anything visible from the air, even if it's on private property, can be subject to police spying.

However, privacy experts say that predator drones, which can silently fly for 20 hours nonstop, dramatically surpasses the spying power that any police helicopter or airplane can achieve.

Not good at all.

The Obama regime's looking and more authoritarian each day.

The emperor's got no cloths.

the Harris County Sheriff Dept, the County where the City of Houston is located in, has just acquired 2 of these drones!

next they are going to start raiding people homes without any warrants because they saw on FLIR what they considered unlawful behaviour in the privacy of your own home

the USA is turning into a Police State and most of the population is too busy being SHEEPS that they are not aware of it

recently, the State of Indiana Supreme Court rules the Police in that state no longer need a warrant or reasonable suspicion or probable cause to come into your house - they can just come in anytime they even suspect you are doing something illegal and by the way, they don't even need to knock first

in the State of Michigan, the District Court of that State has ruled that during a traffic stop, even if you are not suspected in any crimes or wanted for any crimes and your only violation is breaking the traffic laws, they can take your cell phone without a warrant or probable cause or reasonable suspicion and plug it into the reader and download all your text messages, voice mail messages, phone call records, contact list

and this is just the tip of the iceberg

Sharky wrote:

The Obama regime's looking and more authoritarian each day.

The emperor's got no cloths.

I love the way the State Department admitted they "asked" Iran to give back the drone they captured, as if Iran is some sort of benevolent country well-known for its charitable works and humanitarian greatness.How did a drone like that even land in one piece? It looked like it was fresh off the production line. Not a scratch on it.

Well at least we know the borders are being patroled - by drones.