Tag: drones

Dubai makes its own RAIN to tackle 122F heat: Drones blast clouds with electrical charge to produce downpours

The United Arab Emirates is creating its own rain using drones that fly into clouds and unleash electrical charges to beat the sweltering 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) heat. 

The rain is formed using drone technology that gives clouds an electric shock to ‘cajole them’ into clumping together and producing precipitation. 

The UAE is one of the most arid countries on Earth, and it hopes the technique could help to increase its meagre annual rainfall. 

And it is working. Video footage released by the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology shows monsoon-like downpours across the country which create a sheet of rain on the highways. 

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Israel Is Sending Robots With Machine Guns to the Gaza Border

Gaza is often described as the world’s largest open-air prison. Over two million people inhabit the tiny coastal strip, and they must endure a 70 percent unemployment rate; frequent shortages of medical supplies, fuel and clean water; constant power outages; and the fundamentalist governance of the extremist group Hamas. Add to that the Israeli air strikes that knocked down multiple high-rise residential buildings in a war last May—the third war since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Gazans who’ve had enough will find it difficult to leave. There’s both a naval blockade and a 40-mile-long border fence barring entry into Israel, complemented by an additional nine miles of steel and concrete walls on the Gaza-Egyptian border. Only a lucky minority are granted permits to pass through checkpoints into Israel or Egypt for work or medical care. But the checkpoints are frequently closed at times of high tension.

And now, in a new dystopian twist out of RoboCop, people defying the border barrier may be confronted by a robotic six-wheeled car blaring warnings from a built-in public address system. And if non-compliant, the robot can address the infraction with a turret-mounted machine gun.

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New Air Force weapon can take out hundreds of drones instantly — and silently

The U.S. Air Force unveiled a weapon this month designed to take out hundreds of drones at once with barely a sound.

The Tactical High Power Operational Responder (THOR) uses a beam of energy to scramble the electronics inside hundreds of drones at once.

“This unique system allows base defense forces to stop [unmanned aerial system] attacks at long range before they threaten critical infrastructure,” the Air Force Research Lab said in a June 16 animated video.

Increasingly sophisticated drones are becoming more threatening in the hands of enemy militaries as attack and surveillance capabilities grow, the Air Force said in the video. THOR is more effective than small arms and more efficient than heavy arms, which are currently used against drones.

When THOR identifies a target, it shoots a beam of microwaves in less than a second, providing an instant effect on the drones.

The system is different from a laser, which shoots a beam capable of destroying one drone, according to the Air Force. Instead, THOR’s utilization of high-powered microwaves allows it to scuttle swarms of unmanned aerial systems.

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The U.S. Marines Are Getting Suicide Drones — Lots Of Them

In the near future, the United States Marine Corps will begin fielding a so-called suicide drone, essentially a quickly deployable — and expendable — flying bomb. Based on the UVision Hero-120, the loitering munition is the largest of the company’s short-range systems.

What It Can Do

Don’t let “short-range” fool you, however. Powered by an electric motor and controlled by a “man-in-the-loop” the Hero-120 has a maximum range of 40 kilometers, or nearly 25 miles, and can stay aloft for an hour. The canister launched drone has 8 pop-out fins and is remarkably lightweight.

The entire drone weighs just 12.5 kilos and packs a 4.5-kilo explosive warhead, presumably in its nose. Packed into multiple canister launcher-type pods, it is not hard to imagine large numbers of the Hero-120 sent aloft at once — and in fact, that is exactly what the Marine Corps wants to do.

The Marine Corps contracted with Mistral, an American weapon system company, to integrate the Hero-120 onto the LAV and JLTV land vehicles, as well as onto the LRUSV, a long-range remotely operated drone boat. When mated to a vehicle, multiple Heros could be stacked together, not unlike a multiple rocket launcher system.

The Marine’s new suicide drone will differ slightly from the Hero-120 however, though it is not exactly clear what this difference will be exactly. 

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Killer drone ‘hunted down a human target’ without being told to

After a United Nations commission to block killer robots was shut down in 2018, a new report from the international body now says the Terminator-like drones are now here.

Last year “an autonomous weaponized drone hunted down a human target last year” and attacked them without being specifically ordered to, according to a report from the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Libya, published in March 2021 that was published in the New Scientist magazine and the Star.

The March 2020 attack was in Libya and perpetrated by a Kargu-2 quadcopter drone produced by Turkish military tech company STM “during a conflict between Libyan government forces and a breakaway military faction led by Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army,” the Star reports, adding: “The Kargu-2 is fitted with an explosive charge and the drone can be directed at a target in a kamikaze attack, detonating on impact.”

The drones were operating in a “highly effective” autonomous mode that required no human controller and the report notes:

“The lethal autonomous weapons systems were programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect, a true ‘fire, forget and find’ capability” – suggesting the drones attacked on their own.

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We’re All Targets of the Biden Administration’s New Pre-Crime Surveillance Program

Recently, the Biden Administration announced the establishment of what is essentially a pre-crime surveillance program. This program comes as no surprise to those of us with any concern for our civil rights as we saw this coming a thousand miles away. 

Of course, the program will combat “violent domestic extremism” and “violent white supremacy.” (Because all those years of blaming Muslims was just to get silly white people to give up their rights so the surveillance and police state could be turned back on them.) 

Who is running this pre-crime surveillance program?

The new office of pre-crime is called the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. (CP3) is run by the Department of Homeland Security. However, John W. Whitehead has pointed out the DHS is “notorious for:

  • militarizing the police and SWAT teams
  • spying on activists
  • dissidents and veterans
  • stockpiling ammunition
  • distributing license plate readers
  • contracting to build detention camps
  • tracking cell phones with Stingray devices
  • carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities
  • using the TSA as an advance guard
  • conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners
  • carrying out soft target checkpoints
  • directing government workers to spy on Americans
  • conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers
  • carrying out Constitution-free border control searches
  • funding city-wide surveillance cameras
  • utilizing drones and other spybots

Sounds very “Minority Report,” right?

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Chicago Cops Use Asset Forfeiture Funds to Buy Drones “Off the Books”

Asset forfeiture funds help build the ever-growing national surveillance state.

Civil asset forfeiture is a pernicious policy in its own right. It is nothing more than legalized, institutionalized, government-sanctioned theft. Forfeiture laws flip due process on its head and create perverse “policing for profit” incentives.

On top of that, we have long suspected that police departments use forfeiture money to secretly purchase surveillance technology. Recent Chicago Police Department emails obtained from a trove of hacked documents prove this happens, revealing that cops used asset forfeiture money to buy drones off the books with no oversight or accountability.

According to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times, details of the CPD drone program were revealed in an email sent by the director of police research and development. In the email exchange, Karen Conway told other high-ranking police officials that the department’s counterterrorism bureau “utilized 1505 funds for a pilot Drone program that operates within the parameters of current laws.”

Conway wrote that drones “have been purchased and the Electronic & Technical Support Unit (Counter-terrorism) is in the process of creating a training to start a pilot. Some of the Drone uses will be for missing persons, crime scene photos, and terrorist-related issues.”

The city refused to answer specific questions about the drone program, saying the city would not answer questions relating to hacked emails.

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DRONE WHISTLEBLOWER DANIEL HALE JAILED AHEAD OF SENTENCING

DANIEL HALE, a former Air Force intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to sharing classified documents about drone strikes with a reporter, has been arrested ahead of his sentencing in July.

In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act, and he faces up to 10 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July, but a federal judge has ordered him incarcerated until then for violating the terms of his pretrial release, according to court records.

It’s unclear precisely what Hale is accused of doing, and court documents show that his lawyers objected to his jailing. Minutes from a hearing last week indicated that the prosecution “seeks continued detention at this time” and that Hale’s lawyers argued that “there [are] no actual violations committed by the [defendant] as alleged.”

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Afghanistan: Nearly 1,600 Child Casualties in Airstrikes Over Past Five Years

Almost 1,600 children were killed or wounded in airstrikes in Afghanistan over the past five years, according to a report from Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

The report analyses data released earlier this year by the UN and found that between 2016 and 2020, there were 3,977 civilian casualties from airstrikes in Afghanistan, 1,598 of which were children. Out of that number, 785 were killed, and 813 were wounded.

About 50 percent of the civilian casualties were caused by the US and its NATO coalition partners. The rest were at the hands of the Afghan Air Force, which is entirely propped up by the US.

From 2018 to 2019, the US dropped bombs on Afghanistan at a higher rate than it did during the height of the surge in 2011. In 2019, the US Air Force was responsible for more than two-thirds of child casualties from all airstrikes.

The Trump administration loosened the rules of engagement in Afghanistan, which led to the uptick in airstrikes. Last year, a report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project found that civilian casualties in airstrikes rose 330 percent from 2016 to 2019 due to the relaxed rules of engagement.

Since the US-Taliban peace deal was signed in February 2020, the US has reduced its airstrikes in the country, although the US has occasionally bombed the Taliban since. In March 2020, US Central Command stopped publishing reports on Afghanistan airstrikes, so there’s no way to know for sure at what rate the US bombed the country that year.

While US bombings decreased in 2020, the Afghan Air Force significantly escalated its airstrikes. The UN found that civilian casualties resulting from airstrikes by the Afghan Air Force during the first six months of 2020 had tripled, compared to the same time period in 2019.

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DARPA’s Aerial Dragnet Hunts Drones With Drones

It is a system that provides a wide-area surveillance capability that uses sensors mounted on drones to detect, classify and track small drones in dense urban environments.

DARPA’s Aerial Dragnet program aims to achieve the technically difficult goal of detecting and tracking small UAS in urban terrain. The program seeks innovative technologies to provide persistent, wide-area surveillance of all UAS operating below 1,000 feet in a large city. While Aerial Dragnet’s focus is on protecting military troops operating in urban settings overseas, the system could ultimately find civilian application to help protect U.S. metropolitan areas from UAS-enabled terrorist threats.

“We’re using drones to find drones, essentially,” Paul Zablocky, a program manager with the DARPA Strategic Technology Office said, during a C4ISRNET Conference on April 21st.

The government is concerned about the various dangers posed by small UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems), which can be armed with explosives or used to collect sensitive information.

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