(MintPress) – “If the federal government, the executive in particular, thought that there was a national security issue and needed to use drones in one of the states which has outlawed the drones in their airspace, then it could set up a clash,” said Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in a recent statement to Mint Press News.
Thirteen states now have legislation banning or limiting drone use in their airspace. This bucks a trend among law enforcement and federal authorities favoring an increase in unmanned drone technology. The nearly two-week manhunt for Christopher Dorner exposed the increased militarization of law enforcement as state and local authorities used robots and helicopters equipped with heat-seeking technology to locate and kill the former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer.
The story may be reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, but embedded in the Dorner saga was a police response that many communities and states are working to legislate against, potentially setting up a future clash pitting states against police and federal authorities using drones in cases concerning matters of “national security.”
After the Federal Aviation Administration approved drone test sites in six states this week, the drone rush has begun for police departments across the country, eager to increase surveillance capabilities. The FAA has given the green light to drone flights as soon as 2015.
The Dorner case
“Burn that fucking house down!” shouted a police deputy giving the order to kill whistleblowing ex-police officer Chris Droner this week. After using guided robots to start a fire, consuming a cabin where Dorner was hiding, authorities positively identified the charred remains of the corpse using dental records, ending a week-long ordeal to locate and subdue the former police officer.
Dorner’s case highlights advanced police technology used in tracking and eventually killing the 33-year-old former Navy officer. Before starting the fatal fire, police guided a remote-controlled demolition vehicle to the base of the cabin, using it to tear down the walls of the cabin where Dorner was hiding and peering inside.
The ex-cop was wanted for shooting and killing four individuals and wounding several others in attacks over the past 10 days.
“We’re gonna go ahead with the plan with the burner,” one sheriff’s deputy told another. “Like we talked about.” Minutes later, another deputy reported, “The burner’s deployed and we have a fire.” The startling police orders were picked up by reporters listening to a police scanner.
In the lead-up to the showdown at the cabin in Big Bear Lake, authorities patrolled areas east of Los Angeles using helicopters equipped with heat-seeking technology.
Lost in the Rambo-like portrayal of Dorner’s demise is the story of an individual trying to expose racism and abuse of police power within the LAPD. Despite reporting former colleagues for beating suspects and using unnecessary force against citizens, nothing was done to discipline the guilty parties.
Americans watching the manhunt on national television witnessed first hand the expanding militarization of police as they used high-tech robots and surveillance aircraft to track down Dorner.
Robotic Warfare Comes to U.S.
Over the past 10 years, the majority of FAA permits have been granted to companies developing drones, including Raytheon, General Atomics, Telford Aviation and Honeywell.
This trend could change with an FAA announcement Thursday granting permits for six states to host drone test sites around the U.S. This announcement could create a competition among cash-strapped state governments hungry to boost sagging economies with an influx of federal funding.
Industry experts believe that this could be the beginning of a rapidly-expanding multibillion-dollar market for drones. State and local police departments are expected to be the biggest purchasers of unmanned surveillance aircraft.
Prior to Thursday’s announcement, an August 2012 report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation showed that a number of police departments have already received permits to fly drones for surveillance purposes.
The North Little Rock police department already has a drone that “can carry day zoom cameras, infrared cameras, or both simultaneously.” The Miami Dade Police and the Texas Department of Public Safety were also named in the report as having used drone aircraft with similar technology.
Thirteen states have introduced legislation banning or limiting drone flights in state airspace — this is an encouraging development for those concerned about the federal overreach in drone surveillance. Because of the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution, federal legislation could be used to override state legislation, for matters of “national security,” if the executive branch demands drone flights to watch citizens or to apprehend individuals, like Christopher Dorner.
Since 2004, the U.S. has already used drones to kill suspected terrorists and more than 1,000 innocent civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries where the U.S. is currently fighting the war on terror.
In Yemen, three U.S. citizens were denied due process of law when they were killed by U.S. drone strikes in 2011.
The increased militarization of police forces and the proliferation of drone technology could create situations in the future where citizens like Chris Dorner, or ones who may not have committed crimes, are targeted for assassination on U.S. soil.
“I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility. I think that they may well be used for police actions, demonstrations, civil disobedience, things like that. I can see, for example, if they were to use drones for surveillance and find this guy Dorner who’s now on the loose, the former police officer who has been killing people. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they didn’t use a drone to kill him if they had the technology available,” added Cohn, author of “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse.”
Cohn joins a growing group of activists, legal experts and citizens speaking out against the proliferation of drone technology and the abuse of civil liberties.
“The problem is that there is so much room for abuse and I just don’t trust law enforcement authorities to be using drones properly and not targeting people who do not pose an imminent threat. I think this is a real slippery slope. The technology is developing so fast,” added Cohn, an expert on civil liberties and former president of the National Lawyers Guild.
“Drones are going to be very inexpensive. You can probably get one for $300 that can be put in a backpack and people in this country — law enforcement and also private citizens — and also people in other countries are going to be using this technology,” Cohn said.