Everything Drones

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/28/FAA-drone-zones-cities

Drone tests may soon be carried out over a city near you. In response to Breitbart News queries about the limitations on the location of so-called “drone zones” – zones specifically designated to test commercial and military drones under Federal Aviation Administration regulations – FAA Pacific Division Public Affairs Manager Ian Gregor told Breitbart News, “I don’t believe anything is ruled out.” This means that even heavily populated areas will be considered for possible drone zones.

Gregor added, The Congressional mandate states the FAA must consider geographic and climatic diversity and the location of ground infrastructure and research needs in selecting [unmanned aircraft system (UAS)] test sites … The FAA does not believe the planned test sites need to be identical. It is possible that the size of the sites as well as the research work performed will vary from site to site.
Several states have been competing for the billions of dollars in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) development that will surely follow the FAAs establishment of drone zones. These locations include California, Nevada, Iowa, and Ohio. As of Thursday morning, California Governor Jerry Browns office had not responded to requests for comment. Overall, the FAA is expected to clear six drone zones.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book Bullies: How the Lefts Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).

• BY SPENCER ACKERMAN
• 03.28.13
• 3:27 PM

BY: Bill Gertz
March 26, 2013 4:59 am

http://freebeacon.com/game-of-drones/

China’s military is expanding its unmanned aerial vehicle forces with a new Predator-like armed drone and a new unmanned combat aircraft amid growing tensions with neighbors in Asia, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

New unarmed drone deployments include the recent stationing of reconnaissance and ocean surveillance drones in Northeast Asia near Japan and the Senkaku islands and along China’s southern coast. Drones also are planned for the South China Sea where China has been encroaching on international waters and bullying nations of that region in asserting control over international waters, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.

“Unmanned aerial vehicles are emerging as critical enablers for PLA long range precision strike operations,” said Mark Stokes, a former military intelligence official now with the Project 2049 Institute. “A general operational PLA requirement appears to be persistent surveillance of fixed and moving targets out to 3,000 kilometers of Chinese shores.”

Virginia Tech is a player in a potential federal drone test range. Meanwhile, the university is doing its own research — and drone is not the preferred term.

BLACKSBURG — With nearby airports notified that an unusual aircraft was about to take off, a drone rose from a Montgomery County field March 9.

The unmanned helicopter climbed to a training altitude of about 130 feet and roamed a few miles outside Blacksburg.

Drones aren’t only prowling the Middle East to try and incinerate terrorists. They fly over such American communities as the New River Valley.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/1781625-12/the-skys-the-limit-for-drone-research-at.html

Domestic drones will soon be soaring through the sky left and right, but a company in Oregon with ties to the US military is marketing a service that they say will make sure private property is safe from surveillance.

The team at one-month-old Domestic Drone Countermeasures doesn’t go into many specifics, but says they can offer services that will make sure Americans aren’t being spied on by hovering eyes in the sky.

“If there’s going to be private and commercial drones, there will be people who want to safeguard information,” DDC’s Tim Faucett told Portland’s KOIN 6 News last month. “Think about industrial espionage, or companies that don’t want drones around their facilities.”

http://libertycrier.com/tech/anti-drone-devices-for-sale-military-contractor-claims-to-have-counter-uav-technology/

As domestic government agencies scramble to send up unmanned aircraft to patrol and monitor, concerns about the rights of those being watched are being left behind.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/government-499980-drone-society.html