Talk of drones patrolling US skies spawns anxiety

This September 2011 file photo provided by Vanguard Defense Industries, shows a ShadowHawk drone with Montgomery County, Texas SWAT team members. The prospect that thousands of drones could be patrolling U.S. skies by the end of this decade is raising the specter of a Big Brother government that peers into backyards and bedrooms. The worries began mostly on the political margins, but there are signs that ordinary people are starting to fret that unmanned aircraft could soon be circling overhead. (AP Photo/Lance Bertolino, Vanguard Defense Industries)

This September 2011 file photo provided by Vanguard Defense Industries, shows a ShadowHawk drone with Montgomery County, Texas SWAT team members. The prospect that thousands of drones could be patrolling U.S. skies by the end of this decade is raising the specter of a Big Brother government that peers into backyards and bedrooms. The worries began mostly on the political margins, but there are signs that ordinary people are starting to fret that unmanned aircraft could soon be circling overhead. (AP Photo/Lance Bertolino, Vanguard Defense Industries)

(AP) ? The prospect that thousands of drones could be patrolling U.S. skies by the end of this decade is raising the specter of a Big Brother government that peers into backyards and bedrooms.

The worries began mostly on the political margins, but there are signs that ordinary people are starting to fret that unmanned aircraft could soon be circling overhead.

Jeff Landry, a freshman Republican congressman from Louisiana's coastal bayou country, said constituents have stopped him while shopping at Walmart to talk about it.

"There is a distrust amongst the people who have come and discussed this issue with me about our government," Landry said. "It's raising an alarm with the American public."

Another GOP freshman, Rep. Austin Scott, said he first learned of the issue when someone shouted out a question about drones at a Republican Party meeting in his Georgia congressional district two months ago.

An American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist, Chris Calabrese, said that when he speaks to audiences about privacy issues generally, drones are what "everybody just perks up over."

"People are interested in the technology, they are interested in the implications and they worry about being under surveillance from the skies," he said.

The level of apprehension is especially high in the conservative blogosphere, where headlines blare "30,000 Armed Drones to be Used Against Americans" and "Government Drones Set to Spy on Farms in the United States."

When Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, suggested during a radio interview last month that drones be used by police domestically since they've done such a good job on foreign battlefields, the political backlash was swift. NetRightDaily complained: "This seems like something a fascist would do. ... McDonnell isn't pro-Big Government, he is pro-HUGE Government."

John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute of Charlottesville, Va., which provides legal assistance in support of civil liberties and conservative causes, warned the governor, "America is not a battlefield, and the citizens of this nation are not insurgents in need of vanquishing."

There's concern as well among liberal civil liberties advocates that government and private-sector drones will be used to gather information on Americans without their knowledge. A lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco, whose motto is "defending your rights in the digital world," forced the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year to disclose the names of dozens of public universities, police departments and other government agencies that have been awarded permission to fly drones in civilian airspace on an experimental basis.

Giving drones greater access to U.S. skies moves the nation closer to "a surveillance society in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded and scrutinized by the authorities," the ACLU warned last December in a report.

The anxiety has spilled over into Congress, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been meeting to discuss legislation that would broadly address the civil-liberty issues raised by drones. A Landry provision in a defense spending bill would prohibit information gathered by military drones without a warrant from being used as evidence in court. A provision that Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., added to another bill would prohibit the Homeland Security Department from arming its drones, including ones used to patrol the border.

Scott and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have introduced identical bills to prohibit any government agency from using a drone to "gather evidence or other information pertaining to criminal conduct or conduct in violation of a regulation" without a warrant.

"I just don't like the concept of drones flying over barbecues in New York to see whether you have a Big Gulp in your backyard or whether you are separating out your recyclables according to the city mandates," Paul said in an interview, referring to a New York City ban on supersized soft drinks.

He acknowledged that is an "extreme example," but added: "They might just say we'd be safer from muggings if we had constant surveillance crisscrossing the street all the time. But then the question becomes, what about jaywalking? What about eating too many donuts? What about putting mayonnaise on your hamburger? Where does it stop?"

Calabrese, the ACLU lobbyist, called Paul's office as soon as he heard about the bill.

"I told them we think they are starting from the right place," Calabrese said. "You should need some kind of basis before you use a drone to spy on someone."

In a Congress noted for its political polarization, legislation to check drone use has the potential to forge "a left-right consensus," he said. "It bothers us for a lot of the same reasons it bothers conservatives."

The backlash has drone makers concerned. The drone market is expected to nearly double over the next 10 years, from current worldwide expenditures of nearly $6 billion annually to more than $11 billion, with police departments accounting for a significant part of that growth.

"We go into this with every expectation that the laws governing public safety and personal privacy will not be administered any differently for (drones) than they are for any other law enforcement tool," said Dan Elwell, vice president of the Aerospace Industries Association.

Discussion of the issue has been colored by exaggerated drone tales spread largely by conservative media and bloggers.

Scott said he was prompted to introduce his bill in part by news reports that the Environmental Protection Agency has been using drones to spy on cattle ranchers in Nebraska. The agency has indeed been searching for illegal dumping of waste into streams but is doing it the old-fashioned way, with piloted planes.

In another case, a forecast of 30,000 drones in U.S. skies by 2020 has been widely attributed to the FAA. But FAA spokeswoman Brie Sachse said the agency has no idea where the figure came from. It may be a mangled version of an aerospace industry forecast that there could be nearly 30,000 drones worldwide by 2018, with the United States accounting for half of them.

Fear that some drones may be armed has been fueled in part by a county sheriff's office in Texas that used a homeland security grant to buy a $300,000, 50-pound ShadowHawk helicopter drone for its SWAT team. The drone can be equipped with a 40mm grenade launcher and a 12-gauge shotgun. Randy McDaniel, chief deputy with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, told The Associated Press earlier this year his office had no plans to arm the drone, but he left open the possibility the agency may decide to adapt the drone to fire tear gas canisters and rubber bullets.

Earlier this year Congress, under pressure from the Defense Department and the drone manufacturers, ordered the FAA to give drones greater access to civilian airspace by 2015. Besides the military, the mandate applies to drones operated by the private sector and civilian government agencies, including federal, state and local law enforcement.

Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass, and Joe Barton, R-Texas, co-chairs of a congressional privacy caucus, asked the FAA in April how it plans to protect privacy as it develops regulations for integrating drones into airspace now exclusively used by aircraft with human pilots. There's been no response so far, but Acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta will probably be asked about it when he testifies at a Senate hearing Thursday.

___

Follow Joan Lowy at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

___

Online:

http://www.faa.gov

Associated Press

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President Again Circumvents Congress to Implement Immigration ...

By Cong. Randy Neugebauer

Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. ? On Friday, President Obama issued an Executive Order saying his administration will not deport illegal aliens under the age of 30 if they meet certain criteria. His action effectively disregards the will of Congress, where immigration policy should be established.

There is no question our immigration system is complex and desperately needs to be reformed. But it should not be done by offering shortcuts to those who ignore the laws of our country.

Rewarding those who are here illegally only demeans the effort that legal immigrants put forth to become American citizens through the legal channels established by our laws.

I am extremely disappointed in President Obama?s actions, which are increasingly governed by politics rather than policy.

The solution to our immigration dilemma must be a comprehensive, consistent solution that is publicly and openly debated in Congress.

Decision Not to List Lizard on ESA will Save Jobs in Texas
I am extremely pleased that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decided last week not to list the dunes sage brush lizard under the Endangered Species Act.?Listing the species for protection under the Endangered Species Act would have had unprecedented effects on energy producers, farmers, and ranchers and devastated local economies by limiting energy production and agricultural activities.

Instead, energy producers in West Texas and New Mexico are conducting voluntary conservation agreements to protect the lizard.

I hope that the FWS noticed the efforts made by Texas and New Mexico to preserve this species and that they will make the same decision regarding the Lesser Prairie Chicken in the future.

Farm Bill Update
The 2012 Farm Bill continues to be debated here in Washington.

Today, the Senate will start its second week of floor debate on their version of the Farm Bill. Several hundred amendments have been filed to the bill on the Senate floor and senators are working through the amendment process.? I anticipate the?House Agriculture Committee will begin debating its own version of the bill soon so we can pass it out of committee by Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas? July 4th goal.

The House and Senate must agree to and pass one version of the bill and the president must sign it before the current Farm Bill expires on September 30th. As a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee, I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass a five year Farm Bill that will provide producers the certainty they need.

As this process progresses, I will continue to provide regular updates.

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Cooling Centers available in Union Co., throughout Southern Ill.

UNION COUNTY, IL (KFVS) -?Governor Pat Quinn announced Monday there will be services available throughout the state to protect people from the heat.

The Governor also encouraged residents to check on family members and neighbors who are vulnerable to hot weather, including the elderly and children.?

?Rising temperatures like those we?re expecting in the days ahead can be extremely dangerous, especially for elderly residents and children,? Governor Quinn said. ?I urge people to take steps to stay safe and cool. If you have children, or elderly neighbors or relatives, please check on them regularly to make sure they are safe.?

The state has opened more than 120 cooling centers around Illinois, in order to help those without air conditioning find respite from the heat. The cooling centers are located at Illinois Department of Human Services offices throughout the state, as well as at Illinois Tollway Oases in the Chicago area.?Cooling centers are open to the public during regular business hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call the Illinois Department of Human Services hotline at 800-843-6154, or click here to check for locations online.

Cooling centers in Union County include:

  • 1000 N. Main Street Willow Hall in Anna

?High temperatures and humidity can lead to serious health problems, particularly for the elderly and young children,? Dr. LaMar Hasbrouck, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health said. ?If the body does not cool properly or does not cool enough, a person may suffer a range of heat-related illnesses from, heat rash to heatstroke, which can be fatal.?

Governor Quinn and the IDPH are encouraging Illinoisans to watch for signs of heat-related illnesses. Symptoms of heat-related illness include headaches, skin that is hot to the touch, increased body temperature, loss of consciousness, seizures and irregular heartbeats.

To stay cool and avoid illness, they say people should increase their fluid intake but avoid drinks with caffeine, alcohol and sugar; decrease strenuous, outdoor physical activity; and remain in air-conditioning when possible.?

The Illinois Department on Aging also encourages relatives and friends to make daily visits or calls to senior citizens living alone. When temperatures and humidity are extremely high, seniors and people with chronic health conditions should be monitored for dehydration and other effects of extreme heat. Additionally, seniors should eat lighter meals, take longer and more frequent rests, and drink plenty of fluids.

For information about heat preparedness, visit the Ready Illinois website at www.Ready.Illinois.gov.

Copyright 2012?KFVS. All rights reserved.

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Bobby Brown and Alicia Etheridge: Married!


Bobby Brown and fiancée Alicia Etheridge got married Monday.

Bobbi Kristina Brown? Not on hand for the Hawaiian celebration.

The R&B singer and ex-husband of Whitney Houston was surrounded by other family and friends, including his older kids Landon, 23, La'Princia, 22, and Bobby Jr., 19, as well as Brown and Alicia Etheredge's only child together, Cassius, 3.

Bobby Brown-Alicia Etheridge Wedding

The groom wore a red suit and Adidas sneakers ... obviously.

Bobby, who has been arrested numerous times over the years for suspicion of DUI, not paying child support and more, posted the photo of the wedding party.

The couple became engaged in a very public way in 2010, when Brown popped the question to Etheridge during a New Edition show in Jacksonville, Fla.

Brown has often credited Etheredge with giving him a new lease on life following his 2007 divorce from Whitney Houston, who passed away in February.

Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, Bobby's daughter with Whitney Houston, is "not on good terms right now" with her dad and was MIA, according to a source.

As for a honeymoon ... Bobby and Alicia, who is also his manager, will continue traveling with the New Edition tour, resuming June 23 in Oakland, Calif.!!!!

Congrats we guess.

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Liberia's Taylor to appeal war crimes conviction

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21 dead, 100 injured in Nigeria church blasts, rioting

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The most dangerous cities in America

By Michael B. Sauter, Douglas A. McIntyre, Ashley C. Allen. staff, 24/7 Wall St.

AP

With a 32.3 percent poverty rate and nearly 20 percent unemployment, Detroit also has the second-highest violent crime rate in the country.

?This week, the FBI announced that violent crime dropped 4 percent in 2011, compared to a 5.5 percent drop in 2010. Nationally, the murder rate fell 1.9 percent from 2010, and robbery, forcible rape and assault fell 4 percent each. However, among the cities with the highest violent crimes rates, the trend is not entirely positive.

A 24/7 Wall St. review of 2011 FBI crime data shows that violent crime rose in more than half of the cities that have among the highest rates in the country. In seven of the 10 cities, murder rates increased. In eight of the 10, burglary went up.

Strained budgets are forcing police layoffs that many cities can?t afford to make. More than half of local police departments that responded to a national survey reported cuts in the 2011 fiscal year, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, an organization of police executives from across the country. Many are cutting police forces through planned layoffs and attrition.

More than half of the cities with the highest violent crime rates are cutting law enforcement budgets and police forces as well. However, unlike the national picture, the situation is worse for these cities, which depend on tax bases that are shrinking faster than most.

The cities with the highest crime rates tend to have particularly high poverty rates, high unemployment and low median income. Two of the worst-off cities, Flint and Detroit, Mich., both have had well-publicized budget woes. Flint was taken over by an emergency city manager after failing to pay its bills in 2011. Detroit is facing similar budget problems and recently came to a temporary oversight agreement with the ?state.

While the Police Executive Research Forum notes that budget cuts appear to be slowing in police departments in the United States, most departments are still cutting. According to the group?s April report on local police budgets, this includes many of the cities on this list.

Oakland, Calif., cut its budget by 7 percent in the current fiscal year, with an additional 5 percent cut on the way, according to PERF. In the past two years, the city lost 80 police officers to layoffs and another 108 to attrition. This occurred despite increases in both violent and property crime in 2011.

24/7 Wall St.: America's richest school districts

Similarly, while the Detroit Police Department reported no cuts for fiscal year 2012, the city is planning a 15 percent cut next year. Detroit also has one of the highest crime rates in the country.

On its website, the FBI cautions against using crime data to compare city violence because rankings tend to be simplistic and ignore factors that influence crime, as well as the different ways crimes are measured and reported. ?Data users should not rank locales because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place,? the FBI warns.

Congressional Quarterly,?which publishes and analyzes FBI crime statistics each year, referred to crime rate in terms of the ?safest? and ?most dangerous? cities. However, the publication recently dropped the terms ?safe? and ?dangerous? due to the concerns of criminologists, Rachel Boba Santos,?professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University who wrote the introduction to the Congressional Quarterly Report,?told 24/7 Wall St.

Despite these objections, Santos said the data is useful to get a feel for the needs of a particular community and to look at a specific city?s trends on a year-over-year basis. She said the data also is used at the federal level to determine funding resources for different communities, comparing crime rates.

Based on the FBI?s Uniform Crime Report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 U.S. cities with populations of 100,000 or more with the highest rates of violent crime per 1,000 residents. Using the estimated populations and crime incidents from UCR, which measures incidents of eight types of violent and nonviolent crime for 2011, 24/7 Wall St. calculated the incidence of the four types of violent crime per 1,000 persons for that year: murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In addition to crime data, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed median income and poverty rates for these cities from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2010, the most recent available year. We also included average 2011 unemployment rates for these cities, provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

24/7 Wall St.: America's most (and least) peaceful states

These are the 10 cities with the highest rates of violent crime.

1. Flint, Mich.

  • ?Violent crimes per 1,000: 23.4
  • ?Population: 102,357
  • ?2011 murders: 52
  • ?Median income: $22,672
  • ?Unemployment rate: 18.9 percent

According to the FBI examined, no city with more than 100,000 residents had a higher violent crime rate than Flint. In 2011, there were 2,392 incidents of violent crime in Flint, which has a population just above 100,000. That same year, there were just 1,246 violent crimes in all 10 of the safest cities in America -- which have 13 times as many residents as Flint among them. Flint has the second-highest murder rate and the highest rates of aggravated assault, burglary and arson in the nation. According to Flint Mayor Dayne Walling: ?there are too many guns on the street and it?s easy for individuals with evil motives to take another human being?s life.? Though the violent crime has long been a problem in Flint, in 2010 the city laid off 20 of its 140 police officers, a decision that diminished both the police?s street presence and response times to crime.

2. Detroit, Mich.

  • ?Violent crimes per 1,000: 21.4
  • ?Population: 713,239
  • ?2011 murders: 344
  • ?Median income: $25,787
  • ?Unemployment rate: 19.9 percent

Long regarded as one of the poorest cities in the U.S., with a 32.3 percent poverty rate and nearly 20 percent unemployment in 2010, Detroit has the second-highest violent crime rate in the country. Homicide increased by 11 percent in 2011, while robbery and aggravated assault are fourth and second highest in the country, respectively. Nonviolent crime is also an issue, with burglary, motor vehicle theft and arson rates in the top 10 rankings in the country.?In response to an 18 percent decrease in the Detroit police budget, which will result in the elimination of 380 positions through attrition and early retirement, the city has begun taking steps to decrease police funding by introducing ?Virtual Precincts.? The plan, which closes police stations between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m, requires citizens to report non-emergency crime to a call center, and frees up more patrol officers to respond to 911 emergency calls.

3. St. Louis, Mo.

  • ?Violent crimes per 1,000: 18.6
  • ?Population: 320,454
  • ?2011 murders: 113
  • ?Median income: $32,688
  • ?Unemployment rate: 11.7 percent

Although the total number of murders in the city has decreased by 31 since 2010, crime in St. Louis did not improve overall last year. Violent crime rates in St. Louis have risen dramatically, from 17.5 to 18.6 cases per 1,000 people. And the city?s murder rate is still the fourth highest in the nation, its robbery rate is the fifth highest in the nation and its aggravated assault rate is third-highest in the nation. Despite these troubling facts, the St. Louis Police Department recently faced potentially drastic budget cuts that may require the elimination of 100 street-patrolling officer positions through attrition.

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4. Oakland, Calif.

  • ?Violent crimes per 1,000: 16.8
  • ?Population: 395,317
  • ?2011 murders: 104
  • ?Median income: $49,190
  • ?Unemployment rate: 15.6 percent

Oakland historically has been among the most crime-ridden cities in California, with a violent crime rate this year of 16.8 per 1,000 people. There were 14 more murders in 2011 than in 2010, causing Oakland to maintain the ninth-highest murder rate in the country two years in a row. Oakland is the number one city for both robbery and motor vehicle theft rates in the country. Oakland city councilmember Desley Brooks, who wants to allocate $11 million in revenue to the police force, acknowledges the increased violent crime, saying, ?we cannot ignore that we have had an increase in violent crime, and so we cannot continue to do the same thing the same way and expect that it?s going to be a different result.?

5. Memphis, Tenn.

  • ?Violent crimes per 1,000: 15.8
  • ?Population: 652,725
  • ?2011 murders: 117
  • ?Median income: $37,045
  • ?Unemployment rate: 11.1 percent

In 2011, Memphis defied the national trend of declining crime rates in major U.S. cities. The rate of violent crimes per 1,000 people increased, from 15.4 to 15.8. This was the product of increases in murders, which rose from 89 to 117, and aggravated assault incidents, which rose by 100 cases. A rising unemployment rate, which grew 1.2 percent to 11.1 percent in 2011, likely has not helped to reduce criminal behavior. With a current budget deficit of $45 million, Mayor Wharton says he may need to consider ?taking boots off the street,? by laying off members of the police force in the near future.

Read the rest of the list of most dangerous cities at 24/7 Wall St.'s Web site.

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