Now we are flying predators from an Air Force Base in North Dakota to help local police with surveillance and serving warrants. Welcome to the nightmare. Our constitution may as well be used as toilet paper anymore.
Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone.
As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.
The above is not from some future science fiction tale, but a news account from the LA Times. We all knew it was coming, but not this soon, and not without any public accountability nor debate. The sad thing is that this seems to be the way our government works now, we find out about it not from congressional discussion, but from a news story buried somewhere that they hope we will not see.
Rest in Peace Posse Comtatus Act.
