Activist Group Black Fish Using Drones to Defend the Ocean from Driftnets

by Alex Chitty / Vice

The Black Fish’s founder Wietse van der Werf. Photo by Chris Grodotzki.

On a warm night in July 2012, off the island of Ugljan in the Croatian Adriatic, two activists slipped into the water near a line of huge fish farms. Security boats patrolled the perimeter of the vast circular nets, as guards stationed on a nearby hill kept watch through the night. And for good reason: the thousands of bluefin tuna in the farms, destined for the tables of Japanese sushi restaurants, are worth millions. Individual fish routinely sell for more than $1,500 at wholesale markets in Tokyo and closer to home. The Croatian tuna had been caught as juveniles under a loophole in international law, and were being “fattened up” before heading to market.

Wearing tactical diving gear, the divers arrived at the first net, slicing three-quarters of its length and sending bluefin streaming out. The divers swam to another net, repeating the process, and then headed home. The security teams circling above were none the wiser until the following day. The activists, from a group known as the Black Fish, were long gone. The raid was similar to a previous attack in September 2010, when Black Fish divers freed dolphins from holding pens near Taiji, Japan.

ConocoPhillips to Use Drones in Alaska

by Ryan Koronowski / Think Progress

Credit: (AP Photo/University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, David Giessel)

The FAA issued an approval in July that paved the way for a “major energy company” to fly unmanned drones in U.S. airspace. Yesterday it became clear which corporation would be using drones to aid its Alaskan oil drilling efforts: ConocoPhillips.

This marks the first time a private company has received permission to fly “unmanned aircraft systems,” UAS — or drones — in America for non-experimental purposes.

“Until now, obtaining an experimental airworthiness certificate — which specifically excludes commercial operations — was the only way the private sector could operate UAS in the nation’s airspace,” the FAA announced last month. FAA hailed the move as “a milestone that will lead to the first approved commercial UAS operations later this summer.”

“A major energy company plans to fly the ScanEagle off the Alaska coast in international waters starting in August.”

That “major energy company” is ConocoPhillips, as reported by Petroleum News.

AeroVironment, one of the two companies that manufacture the drones approved for use by ConocoPhillips, hailed the approval at the time: “This marks the first time the FAA has approved a hand-launched unmanned aircraft system for commercial missions.”

When Drones Guard the Pipeline: Militarizing Fossil Fuels in the East

By Winona LaDuke / Indian Country Today

Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn’t make a corporation a terrorist.

I’m in South Dakota today, sort of a ground zero for the Keystone XL Pipeline, that pipeline, owned by a Canadian Corporation which will export tar sands oil to the rest of the world. This is the heart of the North American continent here. Bwaan Akiingis what we call this land-Land of the Lakota. There are no pipelines across it, and beneath it is the Oglalla Aquifer wherein lies the vast majority of the water for this region. The Lakota understand that water is life, and that there is no new water. It turns out, tar sands carrying pipelines (otherwise called “dilbit”) are 16 times more likely to break than a conventional pipeline, and it seems that some ranchers and Native people, in a new Cowboy and Indian Alliance, are intent upon protecting that water.

Military Drones and Face Recognition Inevitable in NYC

from the Verge

Military Drones and Face Recognition Inevitable Part of NYC Future

Governmental use of unmanned surveillance drones has inspired a lot of concern about privacy, but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks the battle’s already over. In a radio interview this week, Bloomberg said essentially that drones are an inevitable part of our future (and maybe our present), comparing them to the thousands of cameras already located around Manhattan. “What’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building?” he asked. “We’re going into a different world, uncharted… you can’t keep the tide from coming in.”

It’s not a question of whether it’s good or bad. I just don’t see how you can stop them.

Striking a tone more of resignation than endorsement, Bloomberg said that our future includes more visibility and less privacy. Face recognition will be integrated into the drone surveillance, and he wondered aloud whether a drone is that much more invasive than someone standing outside your home. Bloomberg did say legislation is necessary, but warned against hasty action, saying “these are long-term, serious problems.”

Northern Ireland Police to Use Drones at G8 Summit

from the Guardian

The drones could cost the PSNI up to £1m. Photograph: Keith Morris/Alamy

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is expected to buy two drones for the G8 summit in County Fermanagh in June, it emerged tonight. The aircraft can relay live pictures from high-quality cameras and are flown remotely.

It was reported that they could cost around £1m.

World leaders such as US president Barack Obama are expected to attend this summer’s economic gathering, and a massive security operation is planned at the luxury Lough Erne golf resort which is hosting the conference.

The PSNI has told the Policing Board that it wants to buy the drones for use during the G8 summit and afterwards to combat terrorism and crime, the BBC said.

Drones Over Disney World

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News

[The text of this work is free to share and distribute under the following Creative Commons License CC-BY-ND 3.0]

Sleeper cells, domestic terrorists and the Seven Dwarfs had better beware: Florida’s Orange County Sherriff’s office is getting hyped to unleash unmanned drones over Orlando skies this summer.

Disney will now be more exciting once blood thirsty drones patrol the skies.

Two drones, similar to those which fly over tribal regions of Central Asia to bomb suspected terrorists, unlucky wedding parties, children and even American citizens, are currently being tested.

However, according to Sheriff’s spokesman Jeff Williamson, Orlando’s drones will not be armed.  The office still needs approval from county officials and the FAA.

Drones are already being used all over the United States, have been recommended for use by wildlife officials to shoot “problem” wolves in the West and are a daily site along the U.S. Mexico border. The Miami-Dade Police Department is also considering their use.

Predator drones used by the military and CIA cost roughly $4 million a pop and are about the size of a two-seater Cessna. Orlando’s drones are a bit smaller and, according to Williams, cost roughly $25,000 apiece.

A map of Disney’s rugged Jungle Cruise terrain, a region known for lawless tribes sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Williams did not comment in any depth as to exactly how the remote-controlled planes would be used but in an email he noted that they might be deployed to look for explosives, barricaded suspects and to inspect “hostile/inaccessible terrain,” which may refer to Orlando traffic, the regions dwindling swamps, or Disneyland’s sanitized version of a wild Jungle Cruise.

Will the Orange County Sheriff’s drones hunt down Dopey’s dope and Grumpy’s anti-American manifesto before its too late?

Montana Using Unmanned Drones Against Wolves

Cross Posted from LA Times

In early November, Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, made his own political contribution. Thrilled at the testing of a drone aircraft manufactured in Montana, Baucus declared: “Our troops rely on this type of technology every day, and there is an enormous future potential in border security, agriculture and wildlife and predator management.” A manufacturer’s representative claimed his company’s drone “can tell the difference between a wolf and a coyote.” Pilotless drone aircraft used by the CIA and the Air Force to target and kill alleged terrorists now appear to be real options to track and kill “enemy” wolves.

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Corrected Billboard ‘Applauds’ NSA Prior to Congressional Vote

from California Department of Corrections

The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has unveiled a new billboard campaign to defend the domestic spying operations of the National Security Agency (NSA).

On July 23, 2013 the CDC successfully apprehended, rehabilitated and discharged a billboard at Bayshore Boulevard near Sunnydale Avenue in San Francisco. The CDC released the corrected ad one day before a U.S. House of Representatives vote that would have curtailed the agency’s surveillance inside the United States.

The CDC’s ad features a phalanx of massive robots emerging from an ocean storm and marching inland through a barrage of rocket fire. Military helicopters and an aircraft carrier are dwarfed by the robots who wear acronyms of American security agencies: the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The largest robot lumbers toward the billboard’s headline, TO FIGHT MONSTERS WE CREATED MONSTERS…THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE.

Drone Demonology: Flying Robots, Cop Mustaches & Resistance in the End Times

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News

The first time I ever saw a drone I was sweating my ass off, hiking jugs of water through a cactus forest to drop in remote canyons for famished migrants making the deadly trek through the Sonoran desert. U.S. Customs and Border Protection surveillance drones patrol the skies along the border with Mexico on the daily. Like any good activist I gave the drone the bird and then quickly ducked beneath a cholla, which I don’t advise doing, as it is a cactus with a reputation.

Two 10,000-pound Predator-B border patrol drones. These are the fellas that patrol the borderlands, from Yuma, Ariz., to Brownsville, Tex.

Since his inauguration, noble peace prize winning president Barack Obama has increased the U.S. military’s use of drones and rewritten the rules of engagement in over a dozen countries around the world. Hundreds of civilians, including swaths of children and several dozen Al Qaeda operatives have been eviscerated by remote. Even four U.S. citizens have been assassinated by drones, violating due process and habeas corpus protections in the U.S. constitution. Reports put the ratio of civilians to “suspected terrorists” killed by drone strikes at about 50 to 1, meaning roughly 98% of the deaths are “collateral damage.”    

Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance

by Moxie Marlinspike / Wired

Suddenly, it feels like 2000 again. Back then, surveillance programs like Carnivore, Echelon, and Total Information Awareness helped spark a surge in electronic privacy awareness. Now a decade later, the recent discovery of programs like PRISM, Boundless Informant, and FISA orders are catalyzing renewed concern.

The programs of the past can be characterized as “proximate surveillance,” in which the government attempted to use technology to directly monitor communication themselves. The programs of this decade mark the transition to “oblique surveillance,” in which the government more often just goes to the places where information has been accumulating on its own, such as email providers, search engines, social networks, and telecoms.

Both then and now, privacy advocates have typically come into conflict with a persistent tension, in which many individuals don’t understand why they should be concerned about surveillance if they have nothing to hide. It’s even less clear in the world of “oblique” surveillance, given that apologists will always frame our use of information-gathering services like a mobile phone plan or Gmail as a choice.