Weaponized Police Drones Legal in North Dakota

This crossed my FB feed from a fellow DFH dog trainer.

The original draft of the House Bill 1328 said: “A state agency may not authorize the use of, including granting a permit to use, an unmanned aircraft armed with any lethal or non-lethal weapons, including firearms, pepper spray, bean bag guns, mace, and sound-based weapons.”

However, the state's police union amended the Bill, limiting the ban to only lethal weapons, meaning that sounds cannons or rubber bullets could be used on police drones, according to The Daily Beast.

Mr Becker said that he didn’t fight the amendments, telling the Arstehnica website that he wanted “the Bill to pass to at least require warrants.”

However, he said that he will aim to change the law in two-years’ time when North Dakota’s House of Representatives returns to session.

It is unclear whether local police departments will use weaponised drones, even though they are technically legal.

NO!

This is NOT OK.

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riverlover's picture

And this is appalling. A really bad idea. Police did not have enough weaponry in North Dakota?

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elenacarlena's picture

apparently. Now they can put a child's eye out. And of course no one will have any idea which drone operator is responsible.

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Big Al's picture

I remember years ago writing an article about the drone industry, at that time centered in San Diego and a couple other places, and the congressional caucus for drone (UAV's), and how the drone industry was going to go bonkers, that every police station in the fucking country would have them and they'd start weaponizing them.
Exactly.
We knew, we did nothing, they're doing it.

So what exactly are the sound cannons and rubber bullets for? Protesters in North Dakota?
Ya, and the cops want us to give them a break.

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RantingRooster's picture

totally fucking Wacko

Holy crap, shit will only be a matter of time before...

[video:https://youtu.be/_Wlsd9mljiU]

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sojourns's picture

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
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k9disc's picture

Trigger Warning. The footage is super ugly and inhumane.

The tools of violence on the video reminds me of looking at instruments of torture from the inquisition. It's fairly nauseating. SkyNet indeed.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Pricknick's picture

something to shoot that can bite back.
Target practice anyone?
It's a matter of time before someone claims self defense in removing these from the sky.

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k9disc's picture

on how the Dallas Robot Assassin was a watershed moment in domestic drone police policy.

We've had several watershed, police state moments over the last couple years:

Free Speech Pens
Sargent Pepper
The National Attack on Occupy
The Black man with 20 guns drawn on him in Ferguson
Surveillance Drones in NYC
Police Dogs on College Kids
The Dallas Robot Assassin
Private Security Dogs on DAPL Protectors
Robot Drones Legal in ND

That's right off the top of my head... we're in trouble.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu