Drone plane manufacturing industry is writing the legislation that governs their use in the US
Yesterday, we reported how the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVS), a drone trade group, actually doubled its recent lobbying expenses. Today, we report on a PowerPoint presentation put together by top AUVS lobbyists Michael Toscano, Mario Mairena, and Ben Gielow. The lobby group — which maintains an official partnership in Congress with Reps. Buck McKeon (R-CA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and dozens of other lawmakers — was the driving force behind the domestic drone decision passed last week. In the presentation obtained by Republic Report, there are several fascinating concerns raised by the lobbyists.
The report lists a few items, but this one has to be the most chilling:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/drones-and-military-industrial-complex.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), an affiliate of privately-held General Atomics, is a leading manufacturer of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), tactical reconnaissance radars, and surveillance systems. The company’s Aircraft Systems Group is a leading designer and manufacturer of proven, reliable UAS. It also manufactures a variety of solid-state digital Ground Control Stations (GCS) and provides pilot training and support services for UAS field operations. The Reconnaissance Systems Group designs, manufactures, and integrates the Lynx® Multi-mode Radar and the highly sophisticated Claw® sensor payload control and image analysis software on to both manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft. It also integrates other sensor and communication equipment into manned Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft and develops emerging technologies in solid-state lasers, electo-optical sensors, and ultra-wideband data links for government applications.
GA-ASI has over 5,000 employees at multiple facilities in the San Diego area and in the Mojave Desert, just east of Los Angeles.
http://www.ga-asi.com/about/index.php?du
edited to add this procurement by the Pentagon:
December 31, 2011|By W.J. Hennigan
The Air Force has bought a new hunter-killer aircraft that is the fastest and largest armed drone in its fleet.
The Avenger, which cost the military $15 million, is the latest version of the Predator drones made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., a San Diego-area company that also builds the robotic MQ-9 Reapers for the Air Force and CIA.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/31/business/la-fi-stealth-drone-20111231
therefore it is much easier to deploy thousands and thousands of them.
I'd say that's at least a scad. 
Did you know that Rep. Giffords had introduced a bill to ban the sale of drone aircraft and other USAF toys on the open market, and was targeted for murder in the mass killing in Arizona a week after John Wheeler was found dead from head injuries and his body dumped in a landfill in New Jersey?
John Wheeler--most famous for his work on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial--had one of the highest security clearances in the country and was also some kind of investigator and adviser (possibly "fixer"
to several presidents, and to the Pentagon, on high level, top secret wrong-doing or mess-up's (for instance, the episode of the missing nukes during the Bush Junta). At the time of his mysterious death, he was working for Mitre Corporation on drone aircraft development and cyber security. Mitre is a HUGELY powerful and influential high technology corporation, which, for instance, programs all airport systems around the world, both civilian and military. (They wrote the book on NORAD.)
I've looked closely at the available details of Wheeler's death, and I'd say that, a) he was being hunted, b) he was kidnapped, drugged and released, and c) his persecutors/murderers wanted something from him (wanted him to do something? wanted him to give them something--possibly something he was hiding in the floorboards of his kitchen?). He refused and was murdered and this very patriotic man, with a top secret clearance, security advisor to a succession of presidents and to the Pentagon, West Point graduate and main force behind the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, was dumped out with the garbage.
And nobody in the Corporate Press or in our national political establishment seemed to care about it at the time, and it quickly flowed into the great river of national forgetfulness.
Was he investigating corruption in the drone industry or the Air Force? Same month: The AF admitted that it had lied to a Senate committee on its drone aircraft operations, using the quibble that the law requiring disclosure of their operations did not mention drones because drones had not been invented when that law was written! Did Wheeler's death have something to do with this--something the AF or Mitre was trying to cover up?
Was Wheeler's death connected to another violent incident in the same 10-day period--the firey death of Ashley Turton, in her own garage in Washington DC, in her own BMW, which was half out of the garage. The vehicle spontaneously combusted on the very day that she closed a multi-billion dollar deal between her company, Progress Energy, and Duke Energy (which recently opened a big new aeronautical facility at Charlotte International). One of Progress Energy's projects was building new nuclear power plants. She was a Progress Energy lobbyist. She was married to Obama's liaison to the House and both she and her husband had done extensive legislative and congressional work. They had three small children. The week before she died, Turnot attended an important Democratic Party meeting in...Arizona! I don't know if Giffords attended that meeting, but it seems likely.
Giffords was on all the relevant committees that oversee high technology development by the military and its contractors. She also had a interest in green energy.
Wheeler and Turnot meet violent deaths and Giffords is gravely attacked, all within 10 days of each other--and all within spitting distance, time-wise, of an Air Force scandal. Wheeler's death was declared a murder. It is unsolved. Turnot's death was declared an accident (a pretty impossible one). The assault on Giffords was without motive, as far as I know, and seems to have been committed by a "programmed" madman (of the Sirhan Sirhan kind--scrambled brains, repetitive outflow, like their brains are stuck on certain things and fixed in a drug-induced, programmed haze that they can't get out of).
Wheeler dies first (on New Year's 2010), followed by the Dem Party meeting in Arizona (Jan. 5, which was attended by Turnot and might have been attended by Giffords). Then the attack on Giffords (three days later, Jan. 8). Then Turnot's firey death (Jan. 10).
I don't know if there are any connections. If there are connections, I don't know if Giffords has figured this out, suspects anything or even remembers submitting a bill to ban the sale of drone aircraft--or whether or not she met with Turnot at that Dem Party meeting in Arizona, or remembers anything about it.
If there is something in this, and she knows or suspects something, she would have to stay quiet about, I imagine--if she wants to stay alive.
Wheeler's behavior before his murder is chilling and fascinating. He cuts off all communications with everyone, for the two day period leading up to his murder, including an abrupt cutoff of his West Point buddies (they were exchanging emails about sports) and proceeds into a baffling saga, wandering around his home town on foot, seemingly dazed and in need of help. Several strangers offer help. He refuses all help and calls no one--not his wife (who was out of the country), not his lawyers, not his friends or colleagues, not his employer, not what must have been his extensive contacts in DC and in the region, not the police. He can't find his car. He tells someone his briefcase was stolen. He spends the night (Dec 30) at an unknown location, and shows up on a surveillance camera the next day having discarded his soiled coat jacket (the first shot of him on camera, the previous day, he looks like he's been mugged) and acquired a hooded sweatshirt. He hangs around a law office building and finally goes up to the law offices, asks to speak to a partner and disappears before the receptionist can find anyone. He shows up on the surveillance camera again, outside the building, heading off into the night. He was murdered that night and his body was found the next day in a landfill.
He had bipolar disorder but no history of drug or alcohol abuse. No one thought he was drunk. He did not act like he was on a "bender." He acted confused and hunted. And he further very clearly acted like he COULDN'T ask for, or accept, help. He was on his own, incommunicado, trapped maybe, in a dilemma. What was his dilemma? Why didn't he hitch a ride (which he had done many times) or call a taxi and go home (only 20 minutes away)? Why didn't he call the police or have someone call? Surely they would have taken him home--an advisor to presidents and the frigging Pentagon.
Another complication involves some smoke bombs that were set off at an unfinished house, across the street from his own. He had strongly objected to that construction, which violated a civil war memorial. His cell phone was found at the site. But it is completely absurd to posit that a West Point grad and top security advisor to presidents and the Pentagon, would smoke bomb anything and leave his cell phone behind (!)--as one of his West Point buddies pointed out. Wheeler was trained in demolition. As his West Point buddy said, if Wheeler had wanted that construction gone, it would have been gone, leaving no trace! The most logical conclusion is that somebody was setting him up--seeding a trail with evidence. But how did they get his cell phone, and when, where and why did he discard it? Did he think his pursuers were tracking him via his cell phone? That is a quite logical surmise, considering his other behavior and who he was. This was not a CIVILIAN in some kind of trouble. This was a highly trained, highly technology savvy, ex-military officer working for Mitre, for godssakes!
Turnot's death also has many anomalies. Basically, the fire that killed her could not have happened by accident. They said she was drunk. And I'd like to know how they could tell that, from a burnt-to-a-crisp body. They said she hit something in her garage, at very slow speed, and that engulfed her BMW in flames and she burned up in it. What was she supposed to have hit? No clue. How could a BMW become engulfed in flames even if she bumped a gas can or an electrical outlet, at 5 MPH? Think about it. A bit of gas splashes on the hood. An electric spark somehow alights on the gas. Poof! That bit of gas flames up. Then what? It goes out--and the hood has a dark spot on the paint! It doesn't engulf the BMW in flames and burn its occupant to a crisp. What could do that? Even if the gas/spark, that might have been caused by a very low speed crash into a couple of things in her garage, had gotten under the car, that would not blow up a BMW, and certainly not that fast (so she couldn't get out). It would likely have petered out--and any confluence of hit objects, in an ordinary garage, that could produce that result, would almost have to have been PLACED THERE and PLANNED.
And this devoted mother of three small children, who were at home at the time, was drinking so heavily at 5:00 in the morning, all alone, celebrating her big Progress/Duke deal, that she couldn't get her car into or out of her garage, or couldn't open the door and exit the car, when she saw a fire? It's not plausible--from any perspective. Really, I think this was murder and it was covered up.
Upshot, today: Drones abroad, drones at home, drones killing people without benefit of trial, drones spying God knows where, drones in Libya killing rebel troops, loyal troops and civilians alike, drones on the open market sold to friendly militaries and security forces, and it's only a matter of time before they show up all over. Drones galore!
WE PAID for the development of this technology (with John Wheeler in the middle of it, and Rep. Giffords trying to limit its proliferation, and the Air Force lying about it) and now it's the slickest item on the weapons market and a lot of people are making a lot of money from it.
Wheeler and Giffords are connected by mutual interest. With Turnot, there is no obvious connection except that she was in Arizona at a Democratic meeting three days before Giffords was attacked and five days before she herself burned to death in her BMW.
I'm thinking whistleblower. I'm thinking powerful assassins and I'm thinking cover up. Both Wheeler's and Turnot's deaths were bumped out of the news by the violence in Arizona. Neither one has been given a proper investigation. Wheeler's killer or killers are still at large. Turnot's death is inexplicable. The attack on Giffords had no motive that we know of, but it, for sure, shut her up. She has now resigned her congressional seat for health reasons.
Dec. 31. Wheeler beaten and dumped in a landfill.
Jan. 5. Meeting in Arizona.
Jan. 8. Giffords attacked, almost killed.
Jan. 10. Turnot burned to death.
?????????
...um, yeah.
something to add after their reports! In other news... 