U.S. Ready to Offer Mercenaries $10 Billion for a Drug-War Air Force
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12 ... Stories%29
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by jcivil » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:53 am
by elfismiles » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:47 am
by elfismiles » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:00 pm
Robot Completes World Record Pacific Crossing
December 6th, 2012
Curious about the propulsion system? It harvests energy from the passing waves. Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_X05oIUmDo
Via: Scientific American:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ro-2012-12Surviving stormy weather and a shark attack, the Wave Glider just entered the record books for the longest autonomous trip ever taken.
On his first journey across the Pacific Ocean, Papa Mau was bitten by a shark, whipped by by 100 mph winds, and tossed by 30 foot waves. Somehow he survived the whole 9,000 nautical mile trip from Northern California to Australia. Papa Mau now holds the world record for distance traveled by an autonomous vehicle on land or in the sea.
The surfboard-sized robot is one of Liquid Robotics’ Wave Gliders–the first marine robots that propel themselves forward with wave energy. In November 2011, four Wave Gliders took off on a slow journey (they have a top speed of one and a half knots) across the Pacific, armed with sensors that measure oil spills, salinity levels, phytoplankton activity, and more. The goal: to spark interest in marine science, foster new innovations, and prove out Liquid Robotics’ technology. All data from the journey is available for free to anyone who registers on the Liquid Robotics website.
http://cryptogon.com/?p=32712
by elfismiles » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:03 pm
U.S. Army Demonstrates Black Hawk with Autonomous Flight and Landing Capabilities
December 6th, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoCFE8xVhKA
Via: al.com:
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/12/bla ... d_avo.htmlA specially equipped Black Hawk was recently used to demonstrate the helicopter’s ability to operate on its own.
In the first such test of its type, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research’s Development and Engineering Center, based at Redstone Arsenal, flew the Black Hawk over Diablo Mountain Range in San Jose, Calif. Pilots were aboard the aircraft for the tests, but all flight maneuvers were conducted autonomously: obstacle field navigation, safe landing area determination, terrain sensing, statistical processing, risk assessment, threat avoidance, trajectory generation and autonomous flight control were performed in real?time.
“This was the first time terrain-aware autonomy has been achieved on a Black Hawk,” said Lt. Col. Carl Ott, chief of the Flight Projects Office at AMRDEC’s Aeroflightdynamics Directorate and one of the tests pilots.
http://cryptogon.com/?p=32706
by elfismiles » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:17 pm
CyPhy Works Reveals Tethered UAV
December 5th, 2012
It’s, “Impervious to weather, tracking and interception.” Hmm. How about scissors or 00-Buckshot?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFiPbyigxVI
Via: Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/04/cyph ... t-forever/A new venture from an iRobot co-founder called CyPhy Works has borne fruit in the form of two flying drones dedicated to surveillance duty. The first, called Ease, is a mere foot in diameter by 16-inches tall and can fly safely in tight spaces or through open windows or doors, thanks to its petite size and ducted rotors. It packs a pair of HD cameras along with a thermal imager and can stay aloft permanently, in theory, thanks to a microfilament tether attached to a ground station — which also makes it impervious to weather, tracking and interception at the same time, according to CyPhy.
http://cryptogon.com/?p=32662
by elfismiles » Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:28 pm
by elfismiles » Mon Dec 10, 2012 10:00 am
Updated: 11:06 a.m. Wednesday, March 7, 2012 | Posted: 11:05 a.m. Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Unmanned aircraft conference April 17-18 at Sinclair College
Staff Report
DAYTON — Registration is open to businesses, military personnel and others interested in attending an April 17-18 conference on unmanned aerial systems, which include the aircraft and their sensor systems.
Sinclair Community College will host the Ohio UAS Conference at its Ponitz Center in downtown Dayton. The Dayton region, which serves as Ohio’s aerospace innovation hub, is trying to build itself as a center of unmanned aircraft manufacturing, flying and training technology, along with developing sensor systems for the planes’ intelligence-gathering payloads.
Registration costs $300 until March 16, after which it increases to $350, the Dayton Development Coalition said. For employees who are active-duty military, National Guard, military reserves or civil service, registration costs $150. Attendance will be limited to the first 440 registrants, coalition officials said.
To register, go online to https://secure.utcdayton.com/ohiouas201 ... ttrega.asp. For more information about the conference, go to http://www.ohiouasconference.com
http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/ ... c-1/nMzGK/
UAS
Agenda
The Ohio UAS Conference invites you to join us for our 2nd annual conference to be held April 23-25, 2013, at the David H. Ponitz Center (Building 12) of Sinclair Community College, located in Dayton, Ohio. The conference has been expanded this year to include workshops and technical sessions.
Tentative Agenda
Tuesday, April 23 Wednesday, April 24 Thursday, April 25
7:00 AM Registration Opens Registration Opens Registration Opens
8:00 AM General Sessfont-ion General Session General Session
10:00 AM Break Break Break
10:30 AM Breakout Sessions Breakout Sessions Breakout Sessions
12:00 PM Lunch Program Lunch Program Conference Adjourns
1:30 PM Breakout Sessions Breakout Sessions
3:00 PM Break Break
3:30 PM General Session (until 4:30 PM) General Session
5:00 PM Reception at Carillon Park
(until 7:00 PM) Adjourn
Possible topics include:
* NAS Integration
* Human Systems Interface
* M&S
* Privacy
* Precision Agriculture
* First Responders
* Autonomy
* PED
* Airworthiness
* Safety Management
Past distinguished speakers include:
* Dyke Weatherington, Deputy Director, Unmanned Warfare, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
* Joe Sciabica, Executive Director, Air Force Research Laboratory
* Steve Pennington, Director of Bases, Ranges, and Airspace, and Acting Executive Director for the DOD Policy on Federal Aviation, HQ AF
* Rick Proseck, FAA Unmanned Aircraft Program Office
* Randy Willis, Acting Air Traffic Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Group, FAA
* Duke Dufresne, Sector Vice President and General Manager, Unmanned Systems, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
* Dr. Karlin Toner, Executive Director, Joint Planning and Development Office
* Dr. Theron L. Bowman, Chief of Police, Arlington, TX
* Chris Pehrson, Director, Strategic Development, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
http://www.ohiouasconference.com/pages/agenda.html
by elfismiles » Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:00 am
by MinM » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:15 am
'Did We Just Kill A Kid?' — Six Words That Ended A US Drone Pilot's Career
The New Mexico desert gets blistering hot, but inside the small windowless container where Brandon Bryant worked as a drone operator for the U.S. Air Force it stays a cool 63 degrees all year long.
...
No doubt, because on this occasion Bryant says a child walked from behind the building at the last second. Too late for him to do anything else but ask the other pilot, "Did we just kill a kid?"
From der Spiegel:
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.
"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?
The article follows another widely publicized story from the Marine Times about children killed by Americans on Afghan soil published just weeks ago. While obviously a tragedy for the victims and their families, Bryant describes the incredible toll taken on U.S. troops required to obey orders producing such dire results.
From his mother's couch in Missoula, Montana Bryant talks of his 6,000 Air Force flight hours and says he used to dream in infrared. "I saw men, women and children die during that time," he says. "I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I couldn't kill anyone at all." ...
http://www.businessinsider.com/did-we-j ... nt-2012-12
by 8bitagent » Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:33 am
by elfismiles » Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:58 pm
FPSRussia formerly known as "FPS Kyle" is a popular YouTube channel, and a personality of Kyle Lamar Myers (born May 9, 1986) an American YouTube user. He is notable for his portrayal of the Russian character "Dmitri Potapoff", on his YouTube channel FPSRussia. Myers was born and raised in Hart County, Georgia. On October 29, 2012, Myers had a cameo appearance as his character, Dmitri, in the Call of Duty: Black Ops II live action trailer directed by Guy Ritchie.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FPSRussia
by Ben D » Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:03 pm
Legged Squad Support System (LS3): DARPA's four-legged robot with voice recognition (video)
Phys.org)—Today's dismounted warfighter can be saddled with more than 100 pounds of gear, resulting in physical strain, fatigue and degraded performance. Reducing the load on dismounted warfighters has become a major point of emphasis for defense research and development, because the increasing weight of individual equipment has a negative impact on warfighter readiness. The Army has identified physical overburden as one of its top five science and technology challenges. To help alleviate physical weight on troops, DARPA is developing a four-legged robot, the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), to integrate with a squad of Marines or Soldiers.
LS3 seeks to demonstrate that a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot can carry 400 lbs of a squad's load, follow squad members through rugged terrain and interact with troops in a natural way, similar to a trained animal and its handler.
by seemslikeadream » Thu Dec 20, 2012 9:55 am
Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in US
View EFF's new Map of Domestic Drone Authorizations in a larger window.
Today EFF posted several thousand pages of new drone license records and a new map that tracks the location of drone flights across the United States.
These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local law enforcement agencies, universities and—for the first time—three branches of the U.S. military: the Air Force, Marine Corps, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
Military Drone Flights in the United States
While the U.S. military doesn’t need an FAA license to fly drones over its own military bases (these are considered “restricted airspace”), it does need a license to fly in the national airspace (which is almost everywhere else in the US). And, as we’ve learned from these records, the Air Force and Marine Corps regularly fly both large and small drones in the national airspace all around the country. This is problematic, given a recent New York Times report that the Air Force’s drone operators sometimes practice surveillance missions by tracking civilian cars along the highway adjacent to the base.
The records show that the Air Force has been testing out a bunch of different drone types, from the smaller, hand-launched Raven, Puma and Wasp drones designed by Aerovironment in Southern California, to the much larger Predator and Reaper drones responsible for civilian and foreign military deaths abroad. The Marine Corps is also testing drones, though it chose to redact so much of the text from its records that we still don't know much about its programs.
The capabilities of these drones can be astounding. According to a recent Gizmodo article, the Puma AE (“All Environment”) drone can land anywhere, “either in tight city streets or onto a water surface if the mission dictates, even after a near-vertical ‘deep stall’ final approach.” Another drone, Insitu’s ScanEagle, which the Air Force has flown near Virginia Beach, sports an “inertial-stabilized camera turret, [that] allows for the tracking of a target of interest for extended periods of time, even when the target is moving and the aircraft nose is seldom pointed at the target.” Boeing’s A160 Hummingbird (see photo above), which the Air Force has flown near Victorville, California, is capable of staying in the air for 16-24 hours at a time and carries a gigapixel camera and a “Forester foliage-penetration radar” system designed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). (Apparently, the Army has had a bunch of problems with the Hummingbird crashing and may not continue the program.)
Perhaps the scariest is the technology carried by a Reaper drone the Air Force is flying near Lincoln, Nevada and in areas of California and Utah. This drone uses "Gorgon Stare" technology, which Wikipedia defines as “a spherical array of nine cameras attached to an aerial drone . . . capable of capturing motion imagery of an entire city.” This imagery “can then be analyzed by humans or an artificial intelligence, such as the Mind's Eye project” being developed by DARPA. If true, this technology takes surveillance to a whole new level.
Another scary aspect of the Air Force's drone program is the number of times Predator and Reaper drones have crashed. The Washington Post wrote about crashes at civilian airports abroad a few days ago, and the Air Force presents some statistics on actual incidents and the potential for crashes in New Mexico in a document titled "Operational Risk Analysis of Predator/Reaper Flight Operations in a Corridor between Cannon AFB and Melrose Range (R-5104A)." This document notes that "8 incidents [involving Predators] occurred over a period of 79,177 flying hours." (p.. A risk analysis table from the report is below.
Operational Risk Analysis Table for Predator Flights in New Mexico
On a possibly lighter note, DARPA's 2008 drone looks more like a modified flying lawnchair (see picture to left) than an advanced piece of technology. As DARPA notes in its application, this drone has been used recreationally, though probably with someone sitting in it.
Law Enforcement Drones—Some Agencies Release Information While Others Arbitrarily Withhold it
Once again, we see in these records that law enforcement agencies want to use drones to support a whole host of police work. However, many of the agencies are most interested in using drones in drug investigations. For example, the Queen Anne County, Maryland Sheriff’s Department, which is partnering with the federal Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the Navy, applied for a drone license to search farm fields for pot, “surveil people of interest” (including “watching open drug market transactions before initiating an arrest”), and to perform “aerial observation of houses when serving warrants.”
The Gadsden Alabama Police Department also wanted to use its drone for drug enforcement purposes like conducting covert surveillance of drug transactions, while Montgomery County, Texas wanted to use the camera and “FLIR systems” (thermal imaging) on its ShadowHawk drone to support SWAT and narcotics operations by providing “real time area surveillance of the target during high risk operations.” Another Texas law enforcement agency—the Arlington Police Department—also wanted to fly its “Leptron Avenger” drone for narcotics and police missions. Interestingly, the Leptron Avenger can be outfitted with LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology. While LIDAR can be used to create high-resolution images of the earth’s surface, it is also used in high tech police speed guns—begging the question of whether drones will soon be used for minor traffic violations.
More disturbing than these proposed uses is the fact that some law enforcement agencies, like the Orange County, Florida Sheriff's Department and Mesa County, Colorado Sheriff, have chosen arbitrarily to withhold some or—in Orange County's case—almost all information about their drone flights—including what type of drone they're flying, where they're flying it, and what they want to use it for—claiming that releasing this information would pose a threat to police work. This risk seems extremely far-fetched, given that other agencies mentioned above and in prior posts have been forthcoming and that even the US Air Force feels comfortable releasing information about where it's flying drones around the country.
Interesting Drone Uses
Universities and state and local agencies are finding new and creative uses for drones. For example, the Washington State Department of Transportation requested a drone license to help with avalanche control, while the U.S. Department of Energy in Wyoming wanted to use a drone to “monitor fugitive methane emissions.” The University of Michigan requested one license for its “Flying Fish” drone—essentially a buoy that floats on open water but that can reposition itself via flight (check out the picture to the left of the drone with some dolphin)—and another license for its “YellowTail” drone, which is designed to study “persistent solar-powered flight.”
And while some proposed uses seem unequivocally positive—several agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry want to use drones to help in fighting forest fires—other uses raise the problem of mission creep. For example, the University of Colorado (which the FAA said has received over 200 drone licenses) requested a license in 2008, not just to study meteorological conditions but also to aid “in the study of ad hoc wireless networks with [the drone] acting as communication relays.” And Otter Tail County, Minnesota wanted to use its drone, not only for “engineering and mapping” but also “as requested for law enforcement needs such as search warrant and search and rescue.”
Records Show FAA is Still Concerned About Safety but Reinforce Need for Greater Transparency
Luckily, these records show the FAA is still vigilant about safety. The agency denied Otter Tail’s license application because the county couldn't meet the FAA’s minimum requirements for pilots and observers and presented an "unacceptable risk" to the National Airspace System. The FAA also denied the Georgia Tech Police Department’s application because its drone—the Hornet Micro—was not equipped with an approved sense-and avoid system, even though Georgia Tech wanted to fly it in the middle of a major helicopter flight route.
However, once again, the records do not show that the FAA had any concerns about drone flights’ impact on privacy and civil liberties. This is especially problematic when drone programs like Otter Tail’s appear on first glance to be benign but later turn out to support the same problematic law enforcement uses that EFF has been increasingly concerned about. The FAA recently announced it wants to slow down drone integration into US skies due to privacy concerns. We are hopeful this indicates the agency is finally changing its views.
In the meantime, these records further support the need for full transparency in drone licensing. Before the public can properly assess privacy issues raised by drone flights, it must have access to the FAA’s records as a whole. It's been over a year and a half since we first filed our FOIA request with the FAA, and we're still waiting for more than half of the agency's drone records. This is unacceptable. Also, law enforcement agencies with active drone licenses like the Orange County Sheriff's Department should not be able to withhold all important information about their drone flights under a specious claim that revealing the information could interfere with a law enforcement investigation. If a huge federal agency like the US Air Force can be up front about when and how it's using drones, so too should the large and small law enforcement agencies and other public entities around the country. Without this information it's impossible to fully assess the issues raised by drone surveillance.
To download and review any of the documents, follow this link and click on the "FOIA Documents" tab in the middle of the page.
by elfismiles » Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:40 am
by elfismiles » Wed Jan 02, 2013 9:11 pm
NY Times loses bid to uncover details on drone strikes
By Jonathan Stempel and Jennifer Saba
NEW YORK | Wed Jan 2, 2013 5:18pm EST
(Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday rejected The New York Times' bid to force the U.S. government to disclose more information about its targeted killing of people it believes have ties to terrorism, including American citizens.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan said the Obama administration did not violate the law by refusing the Times' request for the legal justifications for targeted killings, a strategy the Times said was first contemplated by the Bush administration soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
McMahon appeared reluctant to rule as she did, noting in her decision that disclosure could help the public understand the "vast and seemingly ever-growing exercise in which we have been engaged for well over a decade, at great cost in lives, treasure, and (at least in the minds of some) personal liberty."
Nonetheless, she said the government was not obligated to turn over materials the Times had sought under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), even though it had such materials in its possession.
"The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me," McMahon said in her 68-page decision.
The newspaper and two reporters, Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, had sued the government for details about the government's drone program, including the late 2011 killings of U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman in separate strikes in Yemen.
Civil liberties groups have attacked the drone program, which deploys pilotless aircraft, as in effect a green light for the government to kill Americans without constitutionally required due process. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has rejected that contention.
Among the materials sought by the Times was a memorandum that the newspaper had in early October 2011 reported had been prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. The Times cited people who had read the document.
The Times said this memorandum had authorized the "legal targeting" of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric who joined al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate and directed many attacks.
APPEAL PLANNED
The Times said it plans to appeal McMahon's decision.
"We began this litigation because we believed our readers deserved to know more about the U.S. government's legal position on the use of targeted killings against persons having ties to terrorism, including U.S. citizens," New York Times assistant general counsel David McCraw said in a statement.
He said McMahon, despite ruling for the government, explained "eloquently ... why in a democracy the government should be addressing those questions openly and fully."
McMahon also rejected information requests in a parallel lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. That group said it will appeal, and also has a lawsuit seeking information about targeted killings pending at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The public has a right to know more about the circumstances in which the government believes it can lawfully kill people, including U.S. citizens, who are far from any battlefield and have never been charged with a crime," Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement.
Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said that agency is reviewing the decision.
PROGRAM ON "TIGHT LEASH"
Citing protections envisioned by the Constitution's framers, McMahon said there were "legitimate reasons, historical and legal" to question whether the administration could unilaterally authorize killings taking place outside a "hot" field of battle.
But she rejected the Times' argument that the administration could not rely on exemptions from having to disclose classified or privileged material by virtue of having made at least two dozen public statements about the targeted killing program.
Among these were Obama's statements in an online forum on January 30, 2012, that the government was "judicious" in its use of drones, and that the program was "kept on a very tight leash."
She also cited a speech on March 5, 2012, at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago where Holder said the government could lawfully use lethal force in a foreign country against U.S. citizens who had senior operational roles in al-Qaeda and were "actively engaged" in efforts to kill Americans.
McMahon dismissed the entire case except for one small issue related to two unclassified memos.
The cases are New York Times Co et al v. U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-09336; and American Civil Liberties Union et al v. U.S. Department of Justice in the same court, No. 12-00794.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Jennifer Saba in New York; Editing by Gary Hill, Bernard Orr)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/ ... OV20130102
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