[tesla69]

Atariana works for the US counterpart to the Chinese version. If you don't think the US has an equal function you're just being naive.
++++++++++++++++++
http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...505916,00.html
In response, the propaganda departments of provincial and municipal governments have recently been instructed to build teams of internet commentators, whose job is to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names.
Although advertisements are supposed to have been placed in-house, many details about the part-time political pacifiers have emerged in the domestic media. According to the Southern Weekend newspaper, a team of about 20 commentators has been operating in the city of Suqian, in Jiangsu province, since April.
"In the information age and the internet age, the most important and critical mission in front of us is how to seize the initiative on internet opinion and how to seize the high point of internet opinion," the paper quoted the deputy director of the local propaganda department, Zhang Fenglin, as saying.
Applicants for the job - mostly drawn from the propaganda and police departments - were told they had to understand government policies, know political theory, be politically reliable and understand internet technology. Successful candidates have been offered classes in Marxist theory, propaganda techniques and updates on the development of the internet around the world.
A summary of objectives declared that commentators should "be proactive in developing discussion, increase control, accentuate the good, avoid the bad, and use internet debate to our advantage."
Reports that at least two other localities have recruited similar teams suggest the strategy is being encouraged by the central government. Few will admit to the practice, but Nanjing officials said the city was hiring 20 online commentators from the ranks of its existing employees.
"They don't need to give up their current jobs because it is not full time. All they need to do is spend some time every day monitoring internet discussion," said a member of the propaganda department. "There are commentators like this all over the country. Until now we haven't had detailed instructions about how it works. So nothing is clear yet."
Although the existence of an internet police force - estimated at more than 30,000 - has been known for some time, attention has previously focused on their work as censors and monitors. Countless critical comments appear on bulletin boards of major portals such as Sohu and Sina only to be erased minutes, or sometimes just seconds, later. In the most recent case, all postings that blamed corrupt local officials or slow-moving police for the deaths of 88 children in floods last Friday were removed almost as soon as they appeared. But the task of covertly guiding opinion - as in Suqian - has proved controversial for different reasons. "I think Suqian's practice is not proper," said Zhan Jiang, dean of journalism at China Youth University for Political Sciences. "If officials want to guide public opinion they should publish an editorial in the People's Daily under their own names. It is very wrong to anonymously spread government propaganda. Online commentary is a kind of abuse of power."

[floatingslowly]

I like how anytime somebody disagrees with somebody else, inevitably, one is accused of working for the government.

y'all are a bunch of fuckin' reverse-mccarthyists around here.

[ThePits]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

your right. i have.

sorry about that.

if the guys that were enlisting after pearl harbor were doing so for the same reasons most were after 9/11....god have mercy on us all. europeans (and descendants there of) have always been out for blood. wether the reasons are justified or not. just always been a knack for violence...wether it be for power, or revenge.

Not just europeans, the whole of humanity has been guilty of that at one time or another

Ever since we crawled out of the primordial soup we have been bashing each others brains out

[5Against1]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

yr right. europeans just seem to kick the most ass. america has been a country how long? we have military bases in how many countries?

how many countries (all of which have been around much longer than us) have bases here?....


....see what im saying.

not that its good or anything.

The U.S. has bombed 48 countries since 1945. I can't think of any "white" ones except Bosnia/Kosovo though.

[tesla69]

Just like Stalinist USSR

ACLU: Feds’ Drugging of Immigrants Torture?

Posted 2 hours, 19 minutes ago
By Martha Neil
In a motion filed yesterday in a asylum case, the American Civil Liberties Union calls for a halt to an admitted federal policy of forcibly injecting some immigrants with psychotropic medication and putting them aboard commercial airlines for deportation.
It says the practice violates federal law and the Bill of Rights and may also be tantamount to torture, reports the Los Angeles Times.
In Senate testimony last month, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said 50 immigrant detainees had been forcibly given psychotropic drugs in seven months, and 33 had no prior psychiatric diagnosis, the newspaper reports.
"It's both medically inappropriate and shocking that the government believes it can treat immigrants like animals and shoot them up with powerful anti-psychotic drugs that can be fatal--without a doctor's examination or court oversight," says Ahilan Arulanantham, an ACLU lawyer.
The federal case concerns two detainees (in addition to the 50 cited by ICE), allegedly forcibly injected with psychotropic medication, the Times says.
Mark Mills, a Columbia University psychiatry professor retained by the ACLU, says the injections were medically inappropriate, and included an excessive Cogentin dose given at least one of the two. (ICE records don't show what medication the other man received.)
"In more than 30 years of psychiatric practice, I have never seen or heard of a case where 4 milligrams was delivered at once, particularly as an initial matter," Mills wrote in a sworn statement.
Lauri Haley, an ICE spokeswoman, declined to comment about the case, but said "medical sedation is an act of last resort and is rarely used." When used, it is both legal and overseen by "medical professionals," she said.
A government brief says ICE policy permits forcible medication of detainees only if "a medical professional from the U.S. Public Health Service ... determine[s] that they present a danger to themselves or to others," the Times reports. However, government lawyers now say the policy has been changed to require a court order.

How do you find the time to post all that stuff if you are living in a police state? Just wondering.

[Rob Instigator]

I have been telling everyone for decades that the fascists won WWII. They killed the most socialist minded president the USA ever had (JFK) then they killed his brother when he was getting close to the Democratic Nomination.

[Rob Instigator]

to quote Kaiser Soze "The biggest trick the devil pulled is convincing us that he does not exist."

any freedom that impinges on the fascist state will be cut down. anything else is fine and dandy, as long as we spend spend spend.

[atari 2600]

I have been telling everyone for decades that the fascists won WWII. They killed the most socialist minded president the USA ever had (JFK) then they killed his brother when he was getting close to the Democratic Nomination.

I strongly feel that the "most socialist-minded President" was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that's not to say that it's an across-the-board good thing either to be "more socialist," although during WWII it seems to have been necessary. What would be truly progressive is to institute new amendments to the U.S. Constitution to strengthen the document to allow it to adapt to current times; and this is what the Founding Fathers intended all along, yet the document has been relatively unchanged for the entire history of this country.

And sorry to impugn the Kennedys, because much of this is hearsay, but many believe they were in deep with the mob from their father's, Joe Kennedy's, connections. It is, however, well-known that JFK had elections in Illinois, particularly Chicago, rigged and there is debate about what other voting fraud took place. And this is, of course, not to suggest that Nixon would have been any better. JFK was most likely killed because of a memorandum delivered to the National Security Council declaring that he would no longer accept their authority on Presidential decisions. To what end JFK brought this measure forth, good or bad, is not precisely known for sure. What is particularly known is that Bobby Kennedy, as attorney general, specifically set out to strip away mob control in many areas of the country. The mafia felt particularly offended, since the Kennedys had always, up until that time, been members of the mafia. Many feel the mafia, in connection with elements of the government and military, was responsible for the assassinations of both.

During RFK's presidential bid, he talked a very good game, although we can never be certain how that would have played out if were to have become president, since he was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan. One at least hopes that the death of his brother had made him a better man before his untimely death.

Understandably, people love and remember JFK for Profiles in Courage, an account of his and others' service in the Senate (most scholars agree it was written by a ghost writer), for his dedication to lunar exploration, for his Bay of Pigs diplomacy, and most of all, for being shot and killed, henced martyred, during his presidency.

But in short, and as a general rule of thumb, I would suggest that one never fully trust any family member from a political dynasty. History proves it's never all that wise to do so.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

to quote Kaiser Soze "The biggest trick the devil pulled is convincing us that he does not exist."

any freedom that impinges on the fascist state will be cut down. anything else is fine and dandy, as long as we spend spend spend.

Well, we know about the nine billion that mysteriously disappeared in Iraq. And we know about the skyrocketing deficit which is now over eight trillion dollars due to the Homeland Security Act and the Iraq War.

And some of us may even remember the Reagan-era Cold War abuse of military contracts and sub-contracts, the $640 toilet seats and $435 hammers.

here's a new one:
Bookkeepers Wanted: Pentagon investigators discovered in August that a small South Carolina company fraudulently collected $20.5 million in shipping costs, including one invoice of $999,798 for sending two washers (cost: 19 cents each) to a base in Texas. According to Bloomberg News, the Defense Department was said to have a policy of automatically and unquestioningly paying shipping bills labeled "priority." [Bloomberg News, 8-16-07]
http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/nw070930.html

How much do you wanna bet me that the Giuliani campaign manager in South Carolina, State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, the same one indicted for running a crack cocaine distribution ring, was somehow involved with the dummy company?
http://wonkette.com/politics/dept'-of-conspiracy-brother-was-right/giuliani-campaign-chairman-caught-running-crack-distribution-ring-270372.php

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

I strongly feel that the "most socialist-minded President" was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that's not to say that it's an across-the-board good thing either to be "more socialist," although during WWII it seems to have been necessary. What would be truly progressive is to institute new amendments to the U.S. Constitution to strengthen the document to allow it to adapt to current times; and this is what the Founding Fathers intended all along, yet the document has been relatively unchanged for the entire history of this country.

And sorry to impugn the Kennedys, because much of this is hearsay, but many believe they were in deep with the mob from their father's, Joe Kennedy's, connections. It is, however, well-known that JFK had elections in Illinois, particularly Chicago, rigged and there is debate about what other voting fraud took place. And this is, of course, not to suggest that Nixon would have been any better. JFK was most likely killed because of a memorandum delivered to the National Security Council declaring that he would no longer accept their authority on Presidential decisions. To what end JFK brought this measure forth, good or bad, is not precisely known for sure. What is particularly known is that Bobby Kennedy, as attorney general, specifically set out to strip away mob control in many areas of the country. The mafia felt particularly offended, since the Kennedys had always, up until that time, been members of the mafia. Many feel the mafia, in connection with elements of the government and military, was responsible for the assassinations of both.

During RFK's presidential bid, he talked a very good game, although we can never be certain how that would have played out if were to have become President, since he was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan. One at least hopes that the death of his brother had made him a better man before his untimely death.

People love and remember JFK for Profiles in Courage, which was a mostly true account of his service in the Senate (most scholars agree it was written by a ghost writer), for his dedication to lunar exploration, for his Bay of Pigs diplomacy, and most of all, for being shot and killed, henced martyred, during his presidency.

But in short, and as a general rule of thumb, I would suggest that one never trust any family member from a political dynasty. History proves it's never all that wise to do so.

very very true.

I personally am of the opinion that the Mafia killed of kennedy and his bro and afterwards legitimized themselves through corrupt politicians and government offices like the IRS.

[atari 2600]

Yep. We're kinda gettin off on a tangent, but the thing is, these are the mechanisms that set up the current state we have.

Read the wiki listing on Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.
excerpt:
In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (Britain). Kennedy's Irish and Catholic status did not bother the British; indeed he hugely enjoyed his leadership position in London society, which stood in stark contrast to his outsider status in Boston. His daughter Kathleen married the heir to the Duke of Devonshire, the head of one of England's grandest aristocratic families. Kennedy rejected the warnings of Winston Churchill that compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible; instead he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement in order to stave off a second world war that would be a more horrible "armageddon" than the first. Throughout 1938, as the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified, Kennedy attempted to obtain an audience with Adolf Hitler.[4] Shortly before the Nazi aerial bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy sought a personal meeting with Hitler, again without State Department approval, "to bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany."[5]
Kennedy argued strongly against giving aid to Britain.
"Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.”, stated Ambassador Kennedy, Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940. In a one simple statement, Joe Kennedy ruined any future chances of becoming US president, metaphorically committing political suicide. While Blitzkrieg bombs fell daily on England, Nazi troops occupied Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, Ambassador Kennedy unambiguously and repeatedly stated his belief that the war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or Facism. In the now-infamous, long, rambling interview with two newspaper journalists, Louis M. Lyons of the Boston Globe and Ralph Coglan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kennedy opined:
"It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time.” ... “As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that she's (Britain’s) fighting for democracy. That's the bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us.” ... "I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that the country gets it," [6]
When the American public and Roosevelt Administration officials read his quotes on democracy being "finished", and his belief that the Battle of Britain wasn't about "fighting for democracy.", all of it being just "bunk", they realized that Ambassador Kennedy could not be trusted to represent the United States. In the face of national public outcry, he was offered the chance to fall on his sword, and he submitted his resignation later that month.

[cryptowonderdruginvogue]

have not read this thread in a LONG time.

cliff notes, someone?

[atari 2600]

Throughout the rest of the war, relations between Kennedy and the Roosevelt Administration remained tense (especially when Joe Kennedy, Jr., vocally opposed FDR's renomination). Having effectively removed himself from the national stage, Joe Sr. sat out the war on the sidelines. Kennedy did however stay active in the smaller venues of rallying Irish and Roman Catholic Democrats to vote for Roosevelt's reelection in 1944. like Al Smith. He claimed to be eager to help the war effort, but as a result of his previous gaffes, he was neither trusted nor re-invited. [7]
With his own ambitions for the White House in self-inflicted ruins, he held out great hope for his eldest son Joseph Jr. to gain the presidency. However, Joe Jr. was killed in England while undertaking a high-risk bombing mission. Kennedy then turned his attention to grooming the second son, John F. Kennedy, who won the 1960 election.

Anti-Semitism
Kennedy was (for a while) a close friend with the leading Jewish lawyer Felix Frankfurter, who helped Kennedy get his sons into the London School of Economics, where they worked with Harold Laski, a leading Jewish intellectual and prominent Socialist.[8] While holding positive attitudes towards individual Jews, Kennedy's views of the Jews as a people were allegedly, by his own admission, overwhelmingly negative.
According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies." Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch."[9] When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assault on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded "well, they brought it on themselves."[10]
On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador in London, who claimed in Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy."[11] Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh.[12]
Kennedy had a close friendship with Nancy Astor; the correspondence between them is reportedly replete with anti-Semitic tropes.[13] As Edward
Renehan notes:
As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase).... Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world."[14] By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term for Roosevelt meant war; as Leamer reports, "Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews and their allies would manipulate America into approaching Armageddon."[15] Nevertheless, Kennedy supported Roosevelt's third term in return for Roosevelt's support of Joseph Kennedy Jr. for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942. [16]

[atari 2600]

Even during the height of the conflict, however, Kennedy remained "more wary of" prominent American Jews such as Felix Frankfurter than he was of Hitler.[17]Kennedy told reporter Joe Dinneen:
It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I... believe they should be wiped off the face of the earth... Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much... Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind. When Dinneen wrote The Kennedy Family, he was pressured to remove these quotations from the book by John F. Kennedy himself. Dineen complied.[18]
Presidential ambitions for family
Joe Kennedy was a fiercely ambitious individual who thrived off competition and winning. And, in his eyes, the ultimate prize was being president of the United States. Joe Kennedy wanted his first son, Joseph Kennedy Jr. to become president, but after his death in WWII, he became determined to make his second oldest son, John F. Kennedy, president. Joe Kennedy was consigned to the political shadows after his WWII remarks that "Democracy is finished...", and he remained an intensely controversial figure among US citizens because of his suspect business credentials, his Roman Catholicism, his opposition to Roosevelt's foreign policy, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. As a result, his prescence in John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign had to be stymied. Having him in the spotlight would hurt John, making it look as if it were his father who was running for president. However, Joe Kennedy still drove the campaign behind the scenes. He played a central role in planning strategy, fundraising, and building coalitions and alliances. Joe supervised the spending and to some degree the overall campaign strategy, helped select advertising agencies, and was endlessly on the phone with local and state party leaders, newsmen, and business leaders. He had met thousands of powerful people in his career, and called in his chips to help his sons. He would use this to his son's advantage. His father's connections and influence was turned directly into political capital for the senatorial and presidential campaigns of John, Robert and Ted. Historian Thomas J. Whalen describes Joe's influence on John Kennedy's policy decisions in his biography of Joseph Kennedy. Joe was influential in creating the Kennedy Cabinet (Robert Kennedy as Attorney General for example). However, in 1961, Joe Kennedy suffered from a heart attack that placed even more limitations on his influence in his son's political careers. Joseph Kennedy expanded the Kennedy Compound, which continues as a major center of family get-togethers. When John F. Kennedy was asked about the level of involvement and influence that his father had held in his razor-thin presidential bid, JFK would joke that on the eve before the election, his father had asked him the exact number of votes he would need to win - there was no way he was paying "for a landslide."

[ThePits]

Originally Posted by 5Against1

The U.S. has bombed 48 countries since 1945. I can't think of any "white" ones except Bosnia/Kosovo though.

Is that a card I see before me?

What colour would you class Iraq as?

Or Serbia?

And lets look at what countries were bombed and why

[tesla69]

Jaywalkers smarting after rude encounter with cops


ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
October 9, 2007
As infractions go, jaywalking is minor. It’s not the sort of thing anyone expects will lead to scrapes, bruises and a night in jail. But what happened to Benjamin De Jong and his girlfriend after a Mariners game Sept. 15 is more than a simple case of jaywalking.
“Police brutality is more like it,” contends the 22-year-old, who was visiting from British Columbia when he got a lasting memory of Seattle, courtesy of police.
De Jong admits he and his girlfriend jaywalked across First Avenue in Pioneer Square — just like a throng always does after a sporting event. They were on the heels of friends who forged into traffic just ahead of them that evening, heading to the J&M Cafe.
“As we were 5 to 10 feet from the curb, an unmarked vehicle sped toward us,” De Jong said. “He hammered on his brakes. Two guys jumped out wearing dark clothing.”
Put yourself in De Jong’s shoes. One second you are about to join friends at a pub after going to see a Mariners game. The next, you’re terrified about who might be storming out of a strange van just feet away. Thugs? Thieves? A driver with road rage?
Nope. Try cops — though De Jong insists he and his girlfriend couldn’t tell the men were officers. “They never said to us, ‘Stop, this is Seattle police,’ or that they wanted to talk to us,” De Jong said. “You know how cops in movies show badges? Nothing like that happened. I thought they wanted to fight.”
The Seattle Police Department’s internal affairs unit is now looking at the case.
De Jong — 5 feet 7 inches tall and 150 pounds — said one of the men from the van grabbed him from behind and brusquely turned him around. He said he saw the second man from the van jerk his 105-pound girlfriend by the arm like a rag doll.
“Yes, I used choice words that night,” De Jong said. “Any guy would if he saw what was happening to his woman and thought a couple of thugs were doing it.”
De Jong was tossed on the ground. His knees got bruised. Blood oozed from his elbows. He was handcuffed and taken to jail. He faces pedestrian interference and obstructing charges. His girlfriend, Kristen Heidt, also 22 and from Canada, was roughed up; bruises were left on her body — and she has photos. She was not taken to jail or charged, even though a police report says she grabbed an officer during the confrontation. Heidt remains shaken up.
The incident is the latest to raise questions about Seattle police conduct — in which civilians accuse cops of failing to identify themselves and being unprofessional and in which officers’ police reports don’t square with victims’ accounts.
This summer, undercover Seattle police in an unmarked car shot at Jesse Toro II, who thought the police were gang-bangers trying to hurt him after a traffic dispute. Toro says at no point did the vice-unit officers show badges or flash police lights.
Last month, 21-year-old Andrew Rutherford ended up bloodied and in the hospital after an off-duty Seattle officer in a civilian car pulled over the Jeep carrying Rutherford and his friends in West Seattle. Rutherford says the officer pulled out a gun, never showed his badge and didn’t immediately identify himself. He and his friends thought they were being carjacked — until uniformed cops stampeded in.
Now comes the case of De Jong and his girlfriend, who came to town just to cheer on De Jong’s kin — Mariners pitcher Chris Reitsma.
Seattle police Capt. Steve Brown confirmed last week that the two officers were riding in an unmarked van and wearing standard uniforms, though he called back later to clarify a point: One of the officers wore a police jacket over his shirt.
Brown conceded De Jong and his girlfriend “may not have immediately recognized (the officers) because they were in a plain car.” He added De Jong was “intoxicated and belligerent.”
De Jong, however, said he had a few beers over the course of the evening — but wasn’t drunk. Either way, the police report makes no mention of drunkenness. “If I was drunk,” De Jong said, “put it in the report.” The report also claims the officers didn’t rush the couple but “walked over.”
The Police Department encourages officers to contact jaywalkers, but not necessarily issue citations.
“It doesn’t mean that a ticket has to be written, and it certainly doesn’t mean that a pedestrian is going to be put on the ground,” Brown said. “I think the pedestrian determines what the outcome will be.”
Yes, but cops determine outcomes, too. Officers are trained to identify themselves and de-escalate situations so jaywalking doesn’t end with someone getting jacked up.
De Jong is considering a lawsuit — as a matter of principle. His aim: better policing. He wonders how many others have been roughed up by overzealous officers.
His family says the City Attorney’s Office floated a deal: De Jong can agree to community service and alcohol counseling and the whole thing can go away. But they believe this is nothing more than a shameless attempt to cover up police misconduct, “a big joke,” they say.
They’re so right, it isn’t even funny.

[atari 2600]

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs.


By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 9, 2007; Page A03

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.
"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

 

DragonSpies
Robotic fliers have been used by the military since World War II, but in the past decade their numbers and level of sophistication have increased enormously.



Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.
"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "
That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

for the rest of the story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100801434.html

[ThePits]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs.


By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 9, 2007; Page A03

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.
"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

 

DragonSpies
Robotic fliers have been used by the military since World War II, but in the past decade their numbers and level of sophistication have increased enormously.



Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.
"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "
That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

for the rest of the story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100801434.html

Everytime a person walks down a street they are filmed by cctv, what does it matter if it flies or if its strapped to a post?

I always wonder why people are bothered by cctv in the street if they aren't doing anything wrong

Being observed covertly in your house anyone would get pissed at, but in the street???

[demonrail666]

in principle i don't object (except when having a post pub wee up a tree) but ultimately I have two objections that sort of contradict one another:

1. As an individual I resent people I don't know having information about my everyday travels. While these mostly only entail trips to work, pub, bank, pub, comic shop, pub, record shop, pub, friends, and the occasional visit to the pub, it makes me uncomfortable that this informastion is on record.

2. The way it's been used as a replacement for police actually on the street.