Roving Drones and Porno Scanners (OR)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:  A Trilogy (Part 1):  

From "Drone trade group adopts guidelines for flying in 

U.S. airspace" by W.J. Hennigan (Los Angeles Times 7-5-12): 

An expected proliferation of unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies over the next few years is generating concern among civil libertarians and citizens about safety and privacy, and the nation's drone makers are taking heed.


The Assn. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International in Arlington, Va., has published a code of conduct for manufacturers and operators of the thousands of drone aircraft that are expected to be flying in U.S. airspace by 2015.

  

"We want everybody to know that this technology will be handled safely and with the utmost respect to individuals' privacy," said Ben Gielow, the association's general counsel and government relations manager. "Ultimately, public confidence is needed in fielding these systems."

But critics are unimpressed. Unresolved, they say, are worries about how commercial planes and small, low-flying drones can safely share the same airspace. Also, there are privacy concerns about the drones' use of high-powered cameras as they fly above backyard pool parties and other private activities.

The San Francisco digital legal advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation shares those concerns. Jennifer Lynch, attorney with the foundation, said the code is ambitious but limited.

It "does not go far enough to recognize the very real threat to privacy posed by surveillance drones flying in the U.S. and makes no actual and enforceable commitments to protect individuals' civil liberties and privacy rights," she said.

For the rest of the article, go HERE.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:  A Trilogy (Part 2):  

 

From Disinfo.com (7-8-12):
"Anti-Obama Journalist Claims Drones Are Following Him"

Journalist Joseph Farah says the aircraft he saw hover above his rural Northern Virginia home recently was a government surveillance drone, and he believes the unwelcome visit was just a step in the Obama administration’s war against liberty.

“I’m taking my dog for a walk and guess what I see right over the tree line right above my head is a drone,” Farah, the editor of World Net Daily, tells radio host Alex Jones this week.

“I don’t live in the city, I don’t live in a populated area, I live in one of the most rural places you could possibly live in Northern Virginia and there could only be one thing that this drone was spying on and that would be me, that would be my property because there’s just nothing else around except woods and deer,” he adds.

Farah implies in the interview that the drone could have been dispatched by US President Barack Obama, whom he insists is out to attack his critics. It just so happens that Farah is perhaps one of the most famous opponents of the current administration, and has been such since before the commander-in-chief ever took the oath of office. In a 2008 op-ed, Farah was one of the first well-known journalists to take jabs at the authenticity of President Obama’s birth certificate.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:  A Trilogy (Part 3):  

  

Posted by Cory Doctorow on boingboing.net (7-2-12):

Cops in USA to drive around in pornoscannerwagons, covertly irradiating people and looking through their cars and clothes

These pornoscannerwagons will look like regular anonymous vans, and will cruise America's streets, indiscriminately peering through the cars (and clothes) of anyone in range of its mighty isotope-cannon. But don't worry, it's not a violation of privacy. As AS&E's vice president of marketing Joe Reiss sez, "From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be."

For the entire post, go HERE.

"I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky."

--Richard Brautigan, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," 1967