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#21
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:52:21 -0800, Richard Riley
wrote in :: On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 15:46:12 GMT, Larry Dighera wrote: :On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 12:38:33 GMT, "John Doe" :wrote in . net:: : :Why does baby Bush deploy UAVs for the mission of securing the :nation's southern border? Because UAVs cost millions of dollars, and :require a crew of 7 on the ground to operate them, not to mention the :airspace grab through TFRs, the money spent on this non-hostile :mission would be much better spent on live bodies in Cessna C-182s :equipped with IR sensors. The RFP for the southern border project specified UAV's with 12 hour endurance, synthetic aperture radar and a laser illuminator as well as a FLIR system, light amplification cameras, comm relay for ground agents, a mode S transponder and a pile of other stuff. Is the equipment specification in that Request For Proposal a result of necessity to accomplish the mission of securing the nation's boarders, or was the specification established to conform to pre-existing UAV equipment? (are you able to provide a URL for the RFP?) After all, the civilian militia currently patrolling the southern boarder, that sprang up out of necessity to protect private property, successfully uses model aircraft equipped with video cameras. The difference in cost is many orders of magnitude less than a UAV and a ground crew. You have a 182 and a crew that can do that? You could deploy four C-182s with 2-man crews with capabilities similar to the UAV specification, and save millions of dollars, and avoid impacting the safety of the National Airspace System with Temporary Flight Restrictions. The Bush administration's choice to employ UAVs is clearly not driven by minimizing cost nor capabilities. And - btw - the optical systems can't be in the propeller slipstream, the turbulance degrades their resolution too much. That's why so many of the UAV's are pushers. So mount the FLIR head out on the wing out of the prop-wash. So you're looking at a twin, minimum 2 people on board and a PILE of gear - and 12 hour endurance. Let me remind you, the mission is currently being successfully accomplished with model aircraft fitted with video cameras. The use of UAVs is not justified for this border patrol mission. :UAVs are useful for missions on which the otential for loss of crew is a factor, and about four times more :costly to operate than conventional manned surveillance aircraft. If :the Bush administration's goal were truly boarder security, they could :field four times as many manned observation/surveillance aircraft. It's a lot easier to look at the video and data from a base station on the ground with a hot coffee in hand than in the airplane after you've been flying for 10 hours straight. I'll accept your lack of contention as agreement, that UAVs only make sense for missions that have potential for catastrophe for manned aircraft. :There was some fuss about the FAA creating TFRs for the UAVs that are flying :with boarder patrol along the Mexico. As well there should have been. The FAA has the responsibility of safely operating the NAS. Given the rash of poorly thought out Executive branch mandated TFRs that have been created since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it's a wonder that the NAS continues to function at all. :And well there should be. The current UAVs lack the ability to comply :with FARs requiring aircraft to maintain _visual_ separation in VMC. Look up "HALE ROA" From this statement on the Access 5 web-site: http://www.access5.aero/access5_custom/what.html What is Access 5 ? Access 5 is a national project sponsored by NASA and Industry with participation by the FAA and DoD to introduce high altitude long endurance (HALE) remotely operated aircraft (ROA) for routine flights in the National Airspace System (NAS). Access 5 commenced in May 2004 and is slated to run for five years. The project has received initial funding from NASA and guarantees of support from the ROA industry. (ROA will be used interchangably [sic] with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) throughout this website.) The goal of Access 5 is to enable what government and industry leaders believe will ultimately be a robust civil and commercial market for HALE ROA. The current lack of ready access to the NAS inhibits investment in ROA commercialization and the ability of users to obtain cost-effective ROA services. Access 5 seeks to remove the barriers to aviation's most compelling new offering in decades. It is patently obvious that Access 5's goal is all about big business exploiting and compromising the safety of the NAS in which the public relies for travel. :Why can't the UAV just fly along under an IFR flight plan and everyone :else just avoid the little thing just like any other plane on an IFR flight plan? They will. The problem is the VFR guy with no electrical system and no transponder, barreling through and not seeing the UAV. If the "VFR guy" fails to see-and-avoid the UAV, he is subject to FAA administrative action probably resulting in suspension of his pilot certificate if he survives the MAC. On the other hand, if the UAV crew's failure to see-and-avoid causes a MAC, the "VFR guy" probably dies. Please cite the federal regulations that specify what action will be taken against the UAV crew in the event of their causing a MAC. :The borders are unsecured, because the Bush administration doesn't :want to secure them. The UAVs are being deployed to establish a recedent for remote domestic surveillance, in my opinion, not to :secure the nation's borders. Given the cost involved, what other :reason for UAV deployment makes sense? You want to see a precident for domestic surveillance? See http://news.pajamasmedia.com/science...ng_Satel.shtml WICHITA, Kan., Jan. 13, 2006 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- Satellites have monitored crop conditions around the world for decades, helping traders predict futures prices in commodities markets and governments anticipate crop shortages. But those satellite images are now increasingly turning up in courtrooms across the nation as the Agriculture Department's Risk Management Agency cracks down on farmers involved in crop insurance fraud. The Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency, which helps farmers get loans and payments from a number of its programs, also uses satellite imaging to monitor compliance. Across government and private industry alike, satellite imaging technology is being used in water rights litigation and in prosecution of environmental cases ranging from a hog confinement facility's violations of waste discharge regulations to injury damage lawsuits stemming from herbicide applications. The technology is also used to monitor the forestry and mining industries. "A lot of farmers would be shocked at the detail you can tell. What it does is keep honest folks honest," said G.A. "Art" Barnaby Jr., an agricultural economist at Kansas State University. Satellite technology, which takes images at roughly eight-day intervals, can be used to monitor when farmers plant their acreage, how they irrigate them and what crops they grow. If anomalies are found in a farm's insurance claim, investigators can search satellite photos dating back years to determine cropping practices on individual fields. ... While fewer than 100 cases have been prosecuted using satellite imaging since the RMA started its crackdown in 2001, data mining _ coupled with satellite imaging _ pinpoints about 1,500 farms annually that are put on a watch list for possible crop fraud, Hand said. Ground inspections are done on the suspect farms throughout the growing season. The agency says its spot checklist generated by the satellite data has saved taxpayers between $71 million and $110 million a year in fraudulent crop insurance claims since 2001. The agency stepped up its enforcement after the Agriculture Risk Protection Act of 2000 mandated it use data mining to ferret out false claims, Hand said. Every year, it ships claims data to the Center for Agriculture Excellence at Tarleton State University in Stephensville, Texas, where analysts look for anomalies in claims. They generate a list of claims for further investigation, with satellite imaging pulled on the most egregious cases. Just as U.S. satellites kept track of things like the wheat harvest in the former Soviet Union, other countries have also launched satellites to monitor American crops. Germany, France and others have satellites monitoring crop conditions, and many other private firms sell those images in the U.S. "Everybody spies on everybody. I was stunned to hear that myself," Edwards said. "Someday, I may have to rely on a French satellite to convict an American citizen." Just because the federal government spies on its citizens, doesn't make it right: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121600021.html Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Post-9/11 Order Bypassed Special Court By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A01 President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night. The super-secretive NSA, which has generally been barred from domestic spying except in narrow circumstances involving foreign nationals, has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people under the program, the New York Times disclosed last night. ... Congressional sources familiar with limited aspects of the program would not discuss any classified details but made it clear there were serious questions about the legality of the NSA actions. The sources, who demanded anonymity, said there were conditions under which it would be possible to gather and retain information on Americans if the surveillance were part of an investigation into foreign intelligence. But those cases are supposed to be minimized. The sources said the actual work of the NSA is so closely held that it is difficult to determine whether it is acting within the law. The revelations come amid a fierce congressional debate over reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Patriot Act granted the FBI new powers to conduct secret searches and surveillance in the United States. Most of the powers covered under that law are overseen by a secret court that meets at Justice Department headquarters and must approve applications for wiretaps, searches and other operations. The NSA's operation is outside that court's purview, and according to the Times report, the Justice Department may have sought to limit how much that court was made aware of NSA activities. Public disclosure of the NSA program also comes at a time of mounting concerns about civil liberties over the domestic intelligence operations of the U.S. military, which have also expanded dramatically after the Sept. 11 attacks. For more than four years, the NSA tasked other military intelligence agencies to assist its broad-based surveillance effort directed at people inside the country suspected of having terrorist connections, even before Bush signed the 2002 order that authorized the NSA program, according to an informed U.S. official. The effort, which began within days after the attacks, has consisted partly of monitoring domestic telephone conversations, e-mail and even fax communications of individuals identified by the NSA as having some connection to al Qaeda events or figures, or to potential terrorism-related activities in the United States, the official said. It has also involved teams of Defense Intelligence Agency personnel stationed in major U.S. cities conducting the type of surveillance typically performed by the FBI: monitoring the movements and activities -- through high-tech equipment -- of individuals and vehicles, the official said. The involvement of military personnel in such tasks was provoked by grave anxiety among senior intelligence officials after the 2001 suicide attacks that additional terrorist cells were present within U.S. borders and could only be discovered with the military's help, said the official, who had direct knowledge of the events. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the secret order may amount to the president authorizing criminal activity. The law governing clandestine surveillance in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, prohibits conducting electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. A government agent can try to avoid prosecution if he can show he was "engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction," according to the law. "This is as shocking a revelation as we have ever seen from the Bush administration," said Martin, who has been sharply critical of the administration's surveillance and detention policies. "It is, I believe, the first time a president has authorized government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and eavesdrop on Americans." Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she is "dismayed" by the report. "It's clear that the administration has been very willing to sacrifice civil liberties in its effort to exercise its authority on terrorism, to the extent that it authorizes criminal activity," Fredrickson said. ... |
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:24:56 GMT, "John Doe"
wrote in . net:: Guess it's time to change the FARs to welcome UAVs to US airspace....(like it or not, they're here) Perhaps it's time to publicly voice your opposition to UAVs in domestic airspace before it's too late. http://www.house.gov/writerep/ http://www.senate.gov/general/contac...nators_cfm.cfm |
#23
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
("Jose" wrote)
It's also partly the UAV's fault. Everything is required to see and avaoid in VMC. That's pretty much what the 'illegals' on the ground are trying to do also - see and avoid. Montblack |
#24
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:31:22 GMT, "John Doe"
wrote in . net:: I'm not really that opposed to ops along the boarder. My concern is when UAVs spread to other areas around the country, metro areas, police actions, etc and now we start having TFRs or worse all over the place. Right. This is the camel's nose under the tent. http://camelphotos.com/tales_nose.html |
#25
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
("John Doe" wrote)
Politics to show that the administration is doing something to address the problem. I call it Bandaid Politics. Two years into his second term and ten years after everyone knew there was a problem ...it's not time for a bandaid, it's time for a tourniquet! Montblack |
#26
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
John Doe wrote:
If you're flying in VMC and you don't see that "little thing", and have a midair, it's your fault. Why does it matter if anyone is on board the UAV or not? Who cares whose fault it is? You're much more likely to be blindsided by one of these things than by an aircraft piloted by someone who isn't suicidal. Personally I think a NOTAM saying when/where the UAVs will be should be enough for VFR pilots to avoid the thing. Why do we need a TFR? Put out a NOTAM, and the people smugglers will be able to find out what areas aren't being patrolled at the moment. George Patterson Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self. |
#27
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
John Doe wrote:
ATC provides IFR seperation to aircraft all over the world. ATC does not provide separation between IFR aircraft and VFR aircraft. George Patterson Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self. |
#28
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
You want to see a precident for domestic surveillance? See
http://news.pajamasmedia.com/science...ng_Satel.shtml That, is an interesting article! |
#29
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
"George Patterson" wrote \ Put out a NOTAM, and the people smugglers will be able to find out what areas aren't being patrolled at the moment. How about a NOTAM that says the areas involved, and the altitude the thing will be flying at, and leave the notam in place. Then, all you have to do is avoid, say 2000 feet and you will not hit/be hit by it. -- Jim in NC |
#30
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UAV's and TFR's along the Mexico boarder
"john smith" wrote in message ... You want to see a precident for domestic surveillance? See http://news.pajamasmedia.com/science...ng_Satel.shtml That, is an interesting article! AP slacking off. NPR had that story in November or December on Morning Edition. I think it was a multi-part piece. |
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