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FBI Drone Deployment Timeline 33

An anonymous reader writes "The FBI insists that it uses drone technology to conduct surveillance in 'very limited circumstances.' What those particular circumstances are remain a mystery, particularly since the Bureau refuses to identify instances where agents deployed unmanned aerial vehicles, even as far back as 2006. In a letter to Senator Ron Paul last July, the FBI indicated that it had used drones a total of ten times since late 2006—eight criminal cases and two national security cases—and had authorized drone deployments in three additional cases, but did not actually fly them. The sole specific case where the FBI is willing to confirm using a drone was in February 2013, as surveillance support for a child kidnapping case in Alabama. New documents obtained by MuckRock as part of the Drone Census flesh out the timeline of FBI drone deployments in detail that was previously unavailable. While heavily redacted—censors deemed even basic facts that were already public about the Alabama case to be too sensitive for release, apparently—these flight orders, after action reviews and mission reports contain new details of FBI drone flights."

Comment Re:Is it dead? (Score 3, Insightful) 110

same endurance as ARM-based tablets with similar battery capacities while running a full-fat desktop OS rather than a phone OS with delusions of competency.

I don't know about you, but the last thing I want on a tablet is a "full-fat desktop OS".

It's not a freaking desktop. I don't use it like a desktop. I don't need the bloat and overhead of a desktop or a desktop OS.

If you want a full-fat desktop OS, get a Windows tablet or a laptop. Because until I can get a tablet with 1TB of storage, I'm not wasting several hundred megs of it on a piece of software which has been steadily growing bigger for the last decade.

The average app I download on Android is well under 30M. And, for me, that's a selling point.

And, really Android is essentially Linux. Are you suggesting Linux is lacking competency? Because Linux has been running efficiently on smaller systems for 20 years now.

Comment Re:Is it dead? (Score 0, Troll) 110

They may be power-hungry (although not that much anymore), but from my experience in doing ports, the best ARM SoCs barely have the performance of 12-year-old x86 processors.

Meh, one of the things I like about tablets is that it finally forced people to scale back the bloat and make leaner software.

A full featured piece of software in 25MB? Count me in. Your 4GB bloated install, not so much.

And, really, my now 1.5 year old Android tablet is a dual core CPU with enough juice for what I need it to do.

The last thing I want is Intel ushering in the new era of going back to bloated software which demands absurd resources. Microsoft is already doing that.

Seriously, design something new and interesting. Don't just keep shoe-horning the x86 architecture into everything because you don't have anything else.

Comment Re:Is it dead? (Score 2, Interesting) 110

No need to run x86. So why push x86 into the portable space?

Kinda what I was thinking. x86 is now ancient, and unless things have changed a lot in the last few years, tend to be pretty power hungry.

So, I guess if I want to run Windows on it, or legacy software, or have no real battery life this could be a good thing. And, really, who expects to run legacy software on a tablet?

Or, Intel could actually try to make a lightweight/low power chip meant specifically for tablets and not try to further saddle us with an architecture which is already long in the tooth. But, apparently they've grown beyond the 'innovating' phase of a company, and are well and truly into the 'flogging a dead horse' phase.

If you're going after Chinese white-box tablets, you're not aiming very high.

Me, if I saw a tablet which said "Intel Inside", the tablet would still be inside the store when I left. Because, right or wrong, my perception is it's going to suck power, and it's probably going to be geared to people who want to install Windows applications.

No thanks.

Comment Re:WTF?? (Score 1) 798

The police didn't force the destruction of evidence. It was the principal that told the student to delete the recording.

You know, to a highschool student, I'm not sure there's a whole lot of difference.

Because when the principal, the administrators, the teachers, and the cops are all standing around telling you that you must delete it or face consequences ... which entity is it which is forcing you to delete it?

And since the police then subsequently charged him with something, pretending like they didn't play a role in this farce is pretty naive.

Comment Re:Truth! (Score 1) 818

Pssst ... as a fellow Canadian, I can tell you the exact same thing is happening here, unfortunately.

Our current government allows lobby groups (who themselves are mere puppets for the same groups in the US) to write the text of treaties and laws, when our environmental protections are being gutted in order to make it more efficient for businesses, and when you have a government which increasingly ignores some of the laws due to ideology ... we're well on our way to being equally fucked.

So, please, don't make us Canadians look all smug and douchy on the topic. Because the exact same thing is happening here.

Comment Re:WTF?? (Score 5, Insightful) 798

Yes, the kid got charged because he violated Pennsylvania's wiretapping and recording laws. Pennsylvania is a two-party consent state so both parties to the conversation must consent before a recording can be made.

Yeah, and supposedly this school has a zero tolerance policy towards bullying.

And according to TFA, the bullying was happening in the class room, with a teacher present. Which means the school had more or less abandoned their role in policing this, and the kid was left with no other recourse.

Shortly thereafter, a loud noise is heard on the recording, which her son explained was a book being slammed down next to him after a student pretended to hit him in the head with it. When the teacher yells, the student exclaims, "What? I was just trying to scare him!" A group of boys are heard laughing.

What teacher can't be watching this in their own classroom and NOT understand that bullying was happening?

If the teacher who was physically in the room wasn't doing anything, WTF good is telling the school about it? Because the school is either indifferent, clueless, or incompetent to address the issue.

And the officer involved?? I would also say was incompetent or indifferent:

He later answered as to why he thought the disorderly conduct charge applied to this case by saying, "Because his (the student's) actions - he engaged in actions which served no legitimate purpose." He then read the statute as, "Creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by acts which serve no legitimate purpose."

I would say the legitimate purpose was to demonstrate that the bullying was, in fact happening, was happening while there was a teacher present, and that nothing at all was being done about it. He certainly didn't create a "hazardous or physically offensive condition". Sorry, but I think the cop was a fucking idiot.

I'm inclined to agree with the lawyer on this one. The police misapplied the statute here, forced the kid to destroy the evidence, and then didn't do a single thing about the problem.

And people wonder why kids go into school with guns? I can't even believe the story has a link to a contest to win an AR-15.

I read this whole story as a complete failure of the police and school to understand and deal with the actual issue here.

Comment WTF?? (Score 5, Insightful) 798

So, kid gathers evidence of bullying by other kids, gets charged?

That is insane.

So, if I take a video of someone stealing my car, would I get arrested? Under what circumstances could I do that and not be charged? WTF doesn't gathering evidence of bullying get an exemption from wiretap laws?

Whatever law enforcement and officers of the court were involved in this are total morons. This makes no sense at all.

Comment Re:Get rid of income Tax (Score 1) 423

The entire premise of capitalism is that money that gets invested into useful purposes

No, the entire premise of capitalism is people own stuff. Period.

There is an assumption people might invest in useful stuff and make rational decisions in their own best interests. The reality is not quite the same.

When billionaires buy multi-million dollar yachts and diamond crusted iPhones you get to see why kings periodically get their heads chopped off.

The producers add their tax burden to the cost of goods. The study from Harvard econ. sets the price of goods as 22% higher (average) than they would otherwise be without the income tax.

And, if you didn't have a government to take taxes and do the things the public needs, your society would be a shitty place to live, and would be the most brutally Darwinistic thing you can imagine. So those 22% lower costs would be offset by a society which is many many times the worse to live in.

This fictional, utopian tax free society would be not nearly as good as its proponents claim it would be.

If you model your economic system on the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, you will not like the results.

Comment Re:Not even much money (Score 2) 423

Yeah, but making taxes difficult to do also creates animosity towards the IRS which directly helps the talking points of the right.

And god forbid they actually lose talking points by actually accomplishing something they've said they'd like to do.

Nosiree, if we don't change anything, we can keep bitching about it and we can blame the other guys. And, we can keep getting paid by the lobbyists to maintain the status quo.

Because, really, politicians are douchebags just looking to line their own pockets. Some of them may be honest, but increasingly, I doubt that fact and think we should start off with the premise they're crooked and on the take and force them to live under much more careful scrutiny.

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