Thousands of military drones to be deployed over US mainland

World Socialist Website
by Tom Carter

A recent Department of Defense report to Congress as well as a number of media investigations have exposed government plans to deploy tens of thousands of drones over the US mainland in the coming years.

An investigative report published over the weekend by the Christian Science Monitor cited the government’s own estimates that “as many as 30,000 drones could be part of intelligence gathering and law enforcement here in the United States within the next ten years.”

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as “drones,” are extremely sophisticated remotely-operated aircraft, developed and manufactured by the military-industrial complex in recent years at a cost of billions of dollars.

Drones vary in size from the four-pound RQ-11B Raven surveillance drone, which can be launched by hand, to the giant MQ-9 Reaper combat drone, manufactured by Northrup Grumman. The Reaper has a maximum take-off weight of 7,000 pounds, including up to 3,000 pounds of bombs, missiles and other armaments. The infamous MQ-1 Predator drone, armed with 100-pound Hellfire missiles, is the Obama administration’s favored weapon in its illegal assassination program. A Predator drone was used in the unprecedented assassination of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen last September.

With a push of a button, thousands of pounds of high explosives can be dropped on anyone, anywhere in the world, with startling precision. Safe behind video screens at military bases within the US, military drone operators refer to their victims as “bug splats.” Thousands of innocent civilians have already been murdered in this way in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

An April Department of Defense report, titled “Future Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training, Operations, and Sustainability,” reveals that a massive drone infrastructure is already being erected within the US, with billions of dollars being allocated, bases being erected, thousands of pilots and crews being trained, and inventories being stockpiled.

The report identifies 110 military bases that will serve as drone launch sites. The deadly Predator and Reaper drones will operate out of Creech Air Force Base (AFB) in Nevada, Holloman AFB and Cannon AFB in New Mexico, Fort Drum in New York, Grand Forks in North Dakota, Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, Whiteman AFB in Missouri, and the Southern California Logistics Airport, among others.

The accompanying map, from an Air Force power-point presentation released this month, shows current and projected locations for drone bases within the US.

The Department of Defense report argues for lifting the current framework of restrictions on drone flights over the US on the grounds that it “does not provide the level of airspace access necessary to accomplish the wide range of DoD UAS missions at current and projected operational tempos (OPTEMPOs).”

The language of the report is revealing and ominous. “This constraint will only be exacerbated as combat operations shift from abroad and systems return to US locations,” the report states. It expressly refers to plans to “conduct continental United States (CONUS)-based missions.”

In January, Congress passed HR 658, which requires the Federal Aviation Administration to take steps to facilitate the integration of drones “into the national airspace system.” President Obama signed the bill on February 14 with no public discussion or comment. (See “Drones come to the US”)

Since Obama signed the bill, hundreds of drones have already begun flying over the US to spy on and monitor the population. A recent ABC News investigative report entitled “UAVs: Will Our Civil Liberties Be Droned Out?” outlined the possibility of drones buzzing overhead becoming “a fact of daily life.”

ABC News reported: “Drones can carry facial recognition cameras, license plate scanners, thermal imaging cameras, open WiFi sniffers, and other sensors. And they can be armed.”

“Among the most eager to fly domestic drones are America’s police departments,” the report stated. “In Texas, a Montgomery county sheriff’s office recently said it would deploy a drone bought with money from a Department of Homeland Security grant and was contemplating arming the drone with non-lethal weapons like tear gas, rubber bullets or Taser-style rounds.”

The ABC News report identified “political protests” as one of the activities that can be monitored by drones. In December, the American Civil Liberties Union published a detailed report on the dangers of a massive build-up of surveillance drones within the US, warning that “our privacy laws are not strong enough to ensure that the new technology will be used responsibly and consistently with democratic values.”

Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU, described last month a “nightmare scenario” of widespread drone spying leading “to an oppressive atmosphere where people learn to think twice about everything they do, knowing that it will be recorded, charted, scrutinized by increasingly intelligent computers, and possibly used to target them.”

According to a Los Angeles Times article in December of last year, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are already using Predator drones for operations within the US. Last week, a huge Global Hawk drone being operated by the US Navy for an unknown purpose crashed in Maryland.

The deployment of tens of thousands of surveillance drones over the mainland US takes on special significance in light of recent revelations that the Obama administration is secretly constructing “bottomless” databases to house information gathered about US citizens. (See “Obama administration expands illegal surveillance of Americans”)

The build-up of drone bases within the US is one component of preparations by the US government for a confrontation with its own population. Like everything else associated with the so-called “war on terror”—including torture, detention without trial, warrantless spying, assassinations, military tribunals, and expanded executive and intelligence powers—the use of drones for spying and assassination in the Middle East is a prelude to the development of systems that will ultimately be used against the American people in the event of social upheavals.

On “Terror Tuesdays” at the White House, President Obama helps draw up a list of opponents of US policy overseas who are to be illegally assassinated by drone-fired missiles. These “kill lists” have already included US citizens. With tens of thousands of drones flying overhead, and with the US mainland designated as a “battleground” in the never-ending and geographically unlimited “war on terror,” the US ruling class hopes one day soon to be able to eliminate its domestic opponents with similar ease.

The U.S. Internment Camp: Prison for a New American Century

Activist Post

The topic of civilian internment camps in the United States has been largely dismissed as a paranoid “conspiracy theory” by the mainstream media. Recent legislation and newly uncovered government documents, however, reveal the sad truth: The United States is quickly descending into a full-blown authoritarian police state.

NDAA 2012: Patriot Act Part Two

On December 31, 2011, while the majority of Americans were busy watching balls drop and drinking themselves into oblivion, President Obama quietly signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. This unprecedented legislation effectively codified the executive branch’s authority to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial, stripping them of their Constitutional right to due process and habeas corpus.

Under this legislation, if you are simply “suspected” of providing support to a group the government classifies as a terrorist organization—or an affiliate or associated force of said organization—you can be rounded up and detained until the end of the “War on Terror”—a war, according to policy makers, that has no end.

Over the course of this endless and prefabricated war, the government’s definition of “terrorist” has slowly shifted post 9/11 from Al Qaeda, a group of dubious power initially funded and supported by the CIA and the Pakistani ISI, to such “domestic terrorists” as Occupy Wall Street protestors, pro-life advocates and Ron Paul supporters. When the FBI set-up a band of dimwitted “anarchist” patsies to plant a fake bomb on a bridge, it became blatantly clear who the government now sees as the true enemy of the state. This has been the FBI’s modus operandi for quite some time.

The default argument against the existence of internment camps designed for Americans has always been that the United States government would never put its own citizens in prison camps–couldn’t happen. It’s unfortunate how quickly some people are willing to forget that our government has already done exactly that; during World War II, citizens of Japanese descent were rounded up and locked away, just for being of a certain ancestry. Now the question becomes: Would they do it again? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be “yes.”

A U.S. Army field manual, FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations, has been leaked to Public Intelligence that outlines in vivid detail exactly how these civilian internment camps are to be run.

Martial Law In America

This disturbing 326-page document is intended to provide guidance for commanders and staff on internment and resettlement (I/R) operations in order to effectively deal with I/R populations, including U.S. military prisoners, civilian internees, retained personnel and enemy combatants.

In the event of a “military or civil conflict” or “natural or man-made disaster,” the U.S. Army is to partner with both international and domestic agencies, including the United Nations, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to support these I/R operations.

This field manual comes to light, coincidentally, just a few weeks after it was revealed that DHS and ICE are stocking up on several hundred million rounds of hollow point ammunition.

While the military undoubtedly has contingency plans for numerous war-time scenarios with and in foreign nations, this document reveals that these I/R facilities can be established within the United States. In section 2-40 of the manual, it states: The I/R tasks performed in support of civil support operations are similar to those during combat operations, but the techniques and procedures are modified based on the special OE associated with operating within U.S. territory and according to the categories of individuals (primarily DCs) to be housed in I/R facilities.

Currently, U.S. citizens are protected from the military enforcing civilian laws within the United States or its territories thanks to the Posse Comitatus Act. However, given Obama’s willingness to usurp Constitutional protections at the drop of a helmet, I’m not holding my breath that a second Obama term or another puppet administration won’t attempt to overturn Posse Comitatus in the future. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

While the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 was a dark day in American history, the methods of human control, discipline and degradation outlined in this official field manual go beyond the pale. We’ll touch on a few of the more egregious examples of the unconstitutional, liberty-stripping language contained within FM 3-39.40, but we encourage you to read the document for yourself here to get a full picture.

Inside the Camps

Complete with razor wire, guard towers, maximum security areas with individual cells and patrol roads, it is clear these civilian internment camps are not designed to merely protect displaced citizens from “natural or man-made disaster[s]”.

Once captured,soldiers working at the camps are to “process detainees using the ‘search, silence, segregate, speed, safeguard and tag (5 Ss and T)’ technique.” The most concerning of these is “silence.” Soldiers manning the camps must “prevent detainees from communicating with one another or making audible clamor such as chanting, singing or praying.” The soldiers are also to “silence uncooperative detainees by muffling them with a soft, clean cloth tied around their mouths and fastened at the back of their heads.” It goes even further:

6-16 Military police must not speak to detainees except to give orders or directions. Do not let detainees talk to or signal each other during the processing phase at any echelon. This prevents them from plotting ways to counter security, planning escapes, or orchestrating other undesirable activities. Detainees who refuse to be silent may require a muffle (an item used to prevent speech or outcry without causing injury to the detainee, such as cloth) in certain tactical situations. If it is suggested that this document is merely a contingency plan to deal effectively with a natural disaster, these barbarous tactics of control surely indicate otherwise. To make matters even more sinister, you will be outfitted with your very own “Detainee Identification Band” and issued an “Internment Serial Number.”

Civilian Internees essentially have zero rights once in military detention, and since the government is now in the business of classifying activists and protestors as potential national security threats, it only makes sense for them to attempt to not only silence dissidents, but re-educate them as well.

It goes like this: PSYOP officers “assist the military police force in controlling detainees and DCs” as well as “introduce detainees or DCs to U.S. and multinational policy.” These “PSYOP officers” are also trained to “develop PSYOP products that are designed to pacify and acclimate detainees or DCs to accept U.S. I/R facility authority and regulations”, “identify political activists”, and “plan and execute a PSYOP program that produces an understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.”

So, if you are forced into one of these camps with the belief that waging extrajudicial wars against sovereign nations without congressional approval is illegal and morally reprehensible, the PSYOP team at Camp FEMA will be happy to instruct you otherwise.

Furthermore, given the military’s vast creativity in developing so-called non violent weapons, the mind boggles at what “PSYOP products” they have in store for these I/R camps.

You will also be subject to state sponsored strip searches, forced immunizations, food rationing, and labor requirements. Step out of line? Section 6-99 informs us that:

If necessary, the military police commander or appointed officer can initiate general court-martial proceedings against detainees.

Basically, once detained, you can expect to have nearly every facet of your existence controlled and dictated by military forces. From food, clothing and money to recreation, labor, and health care, you are effectively a slave of the new American police state.

The following quote from section 6-10, sums up the entirety of American foreign policy: Detainees are treated humanely and as EPWs until their status is determined according to DOD policy.

Related:Restricted U.S. Army Internment and Resettlement Operations Manual