tinydancer
Diamond Member
This is unreal. The cops were allowed to use a predator drone to arrest an "anti government" family who had kept $6,000. worth of cattle that had wandered on to their land.
The "anti government" family refused to return the cattle. That's how this whole mess started. You have to read this story.
ETA Important update: The Sheriff wanted to go whole hog on this.
Check out what else is coming out.
Armed with a search warrant, 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.
All for a few cows. I put good money this Sheriff has had a hard on family for a long time.
And would anyone like to take a guess at what it cost to use the drone? I don't have a clue, but I'd sure like to find out.
Here's the link.
Local cops used Predator drone to arrest North Dakota farm family for 'stealing 6 cows' | Mail Online
Allowing local sheriffs and police chiefs access to spy planes happened without public discussion or the approval of Congress. And it has privacy advocates crying foul, saying the unregulated use of the drones is intrusive.
'There is no question that this could become something that people will regret,' former Rep Jane Harman, a Democrat, told the Los Angles Times.
The sheriff says that might not have been possible without the intelligence from the Predators.
'We don't have to go in guns blazing. We can take our time and methodically plan out what our approach should be,' Sheriff Janke told the Times.
All of the surveillance occurred without a search warrant because the Supreme Court has long ruled that anything visible from the air, even if it's on private property, can be subject to police spying.
However, privacy experts say that predator drones, which can silently fly for 20 hours nonstop, dramatically surpasses the spying power that any police helicopter or airplane can achieve.
The "anti government" family refused to return the cattle. That's how this whole mess started. You have to read this story.
ETA Important update: The Sheriff wanted to go whole hog on this.
Check out what else is coming out.
Armed with a search warrant, 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.
All for a few cows. I put good money this Sheriff has had a hard on family for a long time.
And would anyone like to take a guess at what it cost to use the drone? I don't have a clue, but I'd sure like to find out.
Here's the link.
Local cops used Predator drone to arrest North Dakota farm family for 'stealing 6 cows' | Mail Online
Allowing local sheriffs and police chiefs access to spy planes happened without public discussion or the approval of Congress. And it has privacy advocates crying foul, saying the unregulated use of the drones is intrusive.
'There is no question that this could become something that people will regret,' former Rep Jane Harman, a Democrat, told the Los Angles Times.
The sheriff says that might not have been possible without the intelligence from the Predators.
'We don't have to go in guns blazing. We can take our time and methodically plan out what our approach should be,' Sheriff Janke told the Times.
All of the surveillance occurred without a search warrant because the Supreme Court has long ruled that anything visible from the air, even if it's on private property, can be subject to police spying.
However, privacy experts say that predator drones, which can silently fly for 20 hours nonstop, dramatically surpasses the spying power that any police helicopter or airplane can achieve.
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