If you’ve been wondering which American city would be the first to have an advanced Predator-type surveillance drone circling overhead, look no further: San Diego, California. General Atomics (the maker of the Predator and Reaper drones) and NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) have announced they will be demonstrating the capabilities of the newest of the Predator fleet, the SkyGuardian™, over San Diego next summer. The fact that General Atomics is a huge local employer, I’m sure played no role in San Diego’s decision to volunteer their residents for this experiment...
GA-ASI Partnering with NASA to Demo Commercial Mission with a Large UAS in Southern California
At 11,000 lbs. max. takeoff weight, 79 ft. wingspan, and cutting edge surveillance gear, it is the biggest heaviest most ginormous Next-Gen 2021 Cadillac SUV of the Predator family. They have taken all the lessons learned from war zones overseas, and like the Jeep, the Huey, and the Hummer, they’ve added some bells and whistles and are ready to mass-produce them for domestic use. But before the US Air Force purchases this pricey item (they’re charging Belgium $600 million for four of them), they’ll want to see what intelligence they can vacuum up from an American city (and its citizens). Thanks for being the guinea pigs pinned to the board under the magnifying glass, San Diego!
All joking aside, this is the next step towards innocent American citizens being under permanent 24/7/365 surveillance from the air, that I’ve been writing about for years now. To read my latest summary of what led up to this, click here.
Saturday, Nov 16, 2019 · 3:25:18 AM +00:00
·
theOtherBarry
Two years ago, General Atomics was already thinking what many people thought when they saw this San Diego story:
Look for Military Drones to Begin Replacing Police Helicopters by 2025
And the industry-friendly writer who got this story from them was just as horrified as we might be:
“That’s good news for General Atomics and hawkish police departments, bad news for anyone concerned about growing surveillance powers of law enforcement. Even if the eye in the sky isn’t carrying Hellfire missiles, there’s something deeply dystopian about a machine whose cousin track Al-Qaeda across Afghanistan turned to track communities of color in places like Baltimore.”
This is the reality that’s starting, summer of 2020. Will we do anything to stop it?