The first one is a Let It Happen On Purpose:
"Small copter avoids detection, reaches Capitol; Fla. man gave advance notice of protest flight" by Mike DeBonis and Marc Fisher Washington Post April 16, 2015
WASHINGTON — Doug Hughes loves to fly. As a kid, he’d plant himself at the local airport and monitor the comings and goings of planes. He read up on the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk.
On Wednesday, Hughes, a 61-year-old Florida mailman who dearly wants campaign finance reform, flew his fragile little gyrocopter through some of the most closely protected airspace on the planet and landed it on the West Lawn of the US Capitol. He called it Project Kitty Hawk.
He announced his plans on the Internet and in his hometown newspaper. He said he felt compelled to deliver 535 letters to members of Congress urging them to tighten the rules on money in political campaigns to do what he could to halt corruption in the nation’s capital.
Yeah, thanks for the "help."
‘‘I have no intention of hurting anyone,’’ Hughes wrote on his website, the Democracy Club, which carries the motto, ‘‘Because We the People own Congress.’’ ‘‘There is no way I can prevent overreaction by the authorities, but I have given them as much information and advance warning as my fuel supply allows.’’
The warning, which apparently came in the form of a call from one of Hughes’s friends to a Secret Service agent, didn’t help. Air defense systems did not detect the copter as it entered restricted airspace above Washington, according to a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman. No one tried to stop the gyrocopter, which sounds like a lawnmower and looks like a flying bridge chair.
Air Force Major Jamie Humphries, a NORAD spokesman, said the authorities are investigating why NORAD was not made aware of the gyrocopter until after it had landed on the Capitol grounds.
We will see why below.
‘‘We are trying to determine the why, but I can say we did not scramble assets,’’ he said.
‘‘The pilot was not in contact with FAA air traffic controllers and the FAA did not authorize him to enter restricted airspace,’’ said a statement from the agency’s spokeswoman, Laura Brown. Private aircraft are prohibited from flying over Area 56, a swath of Washington’s federal core stretching from the White House east to Stanton Park in Washington.
The FAA said that any pilot who flies in that area at an altitude below 18,000 feet ‘‘without prior coordination and permission . . . may face civil and criminal penalties.’’
‘‘I don’t believe that the authorities are going to shoot down a 60-year-old mailman in a flying bicycle,’’ Hughes said in a video that appeared on the Tampa Bay Times website before he landed. ‘‘I’m defenseless. . . . A Boy Scout with a BB gun could shoot me down.’’
Hughes took off from a location that he described only as being ‘‘over an hour away from the no-fly zone,’’ but turned out to be the Gettysburg Regional Airport, about 80 miles away. He landed on an expanse of grass at the foot of Capitol Hill. He sat inside his open-air cockpit for about a minute, then US Capitol Police surrounded the copter and arrested him.
‘‘No sane person would do what I’m doing,’’ Hughes said in the Tampa Bay Times video. ‘‘I’m not suicidal.’’ He also said he is not a terrorist, noting that ‘‘terrorists don’t announce their flights before they take off.”
Although Hughes, a silver-bearded man with a quiet manner, said he had no desire to die in his demonstration, he told the Times that he was first inspired to take extreme protest measures after his son committed a gruesome public suicide.
Although the guardians of the nation’s airspace did not see the mailman coming, some Washington residents did.
So WHEN is the NEXT FALSE FLAG AIRPLANE TERROR, huh? Carrying a nuclear bomb this time?
Jose Labarca, 55, was sitting on the Mall at about 1:50 p.m. when he spotted the aircraft about 35 to 40 feet in the air, heading east toward the Capitol.
The chopper, Labarca said, ‘‘looked totally official’’ with its Postal Service logo. ‘‘I thought, the Postal Service has helicopter service to the Capitol now?’’ Labarca said the pilot appeared to be wearing a mailman’s uniform. ‘‘When he flew by us, he gave us a thumbs up,’’ he said.
Elizabeth Bevins saw the chopper land as she walked alongside the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool below the Capitol. ‘‘I assumed it was some sort of police system,’’ she said. ‘‘But then I saw the other police and realized it was someone doing something crazy.’’
In August 2012, John Joseph Hughes, 24, drove west into the eastbound lanes of a major highway near Orlando, turned off his headlights, and hit the accelerator until he slammed into an oncoming vehicle. Hughes killed himself and the other driver. Police said the younger Hughes had been distraught after arguing with his girlfriend and had told her he planned to kill himself.
And that somehow ties into corruption in Congre$$?????
Sure is a strange way to commit suicide, too. Sorry for questioning whether this pile of propaganda is real.
About a year ago, after Doug Hughes published his plan on his website, a Secret Service agent in Florida questioned both Hughes and a friend of his, Mike Shanahan, the Times reported. Hughes told the agent that he did own a gyrocopter, which he kept at a small airport, and that he had been planning a dramatic gesture to focus attention on campaign finance reform. Hughes told the agent he did not plan to crash his copter into any buildings.
Oh, so the SECRET SERVICE KNEW ALL ABOUT IT, huh?
The Times said the same agent visited Hughes’s workplace, the post office in Riverview, a couple of days later and asked co-workers about him. But there was no further contact from the Secret Service, Hughes told the newspaper.
The Times account of Hughes’s plans was published shortely before he landed.
‘‘It worked, looks like,’’ tweeted reporter Ben Montgomery just after Hughes landed. ‘‘Can’t believe he made it.’’
!!!!!
Me neither!
Montgomery flew from Florida to be on the scene; he said in an interview that his newspaper was ‘‘comfortable reporting this story knowing . . . that the authorities did know about this, even if they didn’t know when exactly he was going to pull it off.’’
That is where the print copy ended it.
Jennifer Orsi, managing editor of the Times, said in a statement that the newspaper called the Capitol Police and the Secret Service about an hour after Hughes took off from Gettysburg, and about 30 minutes before he landed.
‘‘We feel we did the right thing,’’ said Neil Brown, editor of the Times. ‘‘He told the authorities what he was going to do. We decided to be full-blown observers on it.’’ Brown said no government agency has complained about the paper’s actions, though the Secret Service called Wednesday afternoon to say ‘‘they may want to talk to our reporters.’’
This is SUCH an effin' JOKE!!!
Montgomery, who said he had expected Hughes to be shot down, described Hughes as a ‘‘mix of P.T. Barnum and Paul Revere.’’
Yeah, it IS a CIRCUS, and as for the revolution....!
Patrick Hughes, the pilot’s brother, said: ‘‘The actions he has taken are those of his own making and choosing. . . . But if you get a chance to talk to him, I am sure he will have lots to say.’’
Uh-huh.
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So he is jail, right?
"Security gap cited after D.C. stunt" Associated Press April 17, 2015
WASHINGTON — The Florida postal carrier charged Thursday with two federal crimes for steering his small gyrocopter through protected Washington airspace ‘‘literally flew under the radar’’ to the lawn of the Capitol, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said as key lawmakers raised alarms about security risks.
OMG!!!!! This IS a STUNT so that a FURTHER NET OF TYRANNY can be dropped over the leaders to keep them further away from any real people!!
Doug Hughes, 61, was charged with violating restricted airspace and operating an unregistered aircraft, crimes that carry penalties of up to four years in prison and fines. He was released from custody and allowed to return to Florida on home detention. A federal magistrate judge ordered him not to fly any aircraft and told him to stay away from Washington except for court visits and keep clear of the White House and Capitol while in town.
The stunt, aimed at drawing attention to campaign finance reform, exposed a seam in efforts to protect the White House, Capitol, and other vital federal buildings.
So they KNOW IT WAS COMING, IGNORE IT, and now alarms are going off and they need more security! This is a FART-IN-YOUR-FACE LAUGHER coming from them, folks.
The stunt caused no injuries and few disruptions as Hughes flew in low and slow, landing between the Capitol and its reflecting pool on Wednesday. But lawmakers demanded explanations for how he managed to remain undetected as he flew to Capitol Hill from Gettysburg, Pa.
I, I, I.... think we know how!
Concerns were magnified by the confirmation that Hughes was interviewed in 2013 by the Secret Service, which apparently determined he did not pose a threat, according to Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
No, he has PERFORMED HIS ROLE WELL! A federal employee, right?
‘‘I think that there’s absolutely a gap, and it’s a very dangerous gap, with regard to our airspace,’’ Cummings said. ‘‘I don’t want people to get a message that they can just land anywhere. Suppose there was a bomb or an explosive device on that air vehicle? That could have been a major catastrophe.’’
Oh, we ARE GETTING the MESSAGE!
Lawmakers of both parties expressed disbelief that none of the security agencies tasked with protecting Washington became aware of Hughes’s flight in time to stop it.
It does bring disbelief.
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So WHAT EXCUSE have they come up with for the "failure?"
"Gyrocopter ‘indistinguishable’ from birds, kite" by Matthew Daly Associated Press April 30, 2015
WASHINGTON — A small gyrocopter that flew through miles of the nation’s most restricted airspace before landing at the US Capitol was indistinguishable on radar from nonaircraft such as a flock of birds or a balloon, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday.
Except they knew he was coming.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told a House committee that the slow-moving gyrocopter appeared as an ‘‘irregular symbol’’ on radar monitored by air traffic controllers. Huerta and other officials said the small, unidentified object did not pose an apparent threat before landing on the Capitol’s West Lawn April 15.
Another lesson regarding airport radar.
It was a UFO, huh?
Forensic analysis conducted later identified a slow-moving object that traveled about 70 miles from Gettysburg, Pa., to the Capitol. Officials now believe that was the gyrocopter. A dot representing the gyrocopter ‘‘appeared only intermittently throughout the flight,’’ Huerta said.
Details about how the copter flight was tracked emerged Wednesday as questions continued two weeks after the open-air copter — described by its pilot as a ‘‘flying bicycle’’ — landed at the Capitol. Law enforcement agencies gave conflicting accounts about whether the copter could have been shot down and offered few answers about how the response was coordinated and what changes, if any, have been made in the aftermath of the episode.
Come on!!!!!!!!
Admiral William Gortney, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said Wednesday that officials did not have the ability to shoot down the aircraft before it landed, contradicting testimony from Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine.
9/11 all over again with NORAD!
What, were there more war game drills we were not being told about?
Asked directly whether the copter could have been shot down, Gortney said no.
‘‘We did not have a detection,’’ he told the House Oversight Committee.
Dine testified earlier that Capitol police saw the copter ‘‘seconds before it landed’’ on the Capitol lawn and could have shot it down but chose not to do so, in part because of the potential danger to tourists and other bystanders.
And if he had gotten through and bombed the White house or killed the president?
Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican and chairman of the oversight panel, said the contradictory testimony showed a breakdown in communication among the various agencies that protect the nation’s capital and its airspace.
14 years after 9/11 and NOTHING HAS CHANGED!
Why didn't he CALL THEM OUT on this FRAUD anyway?
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Good thing he wasn't flying a drone:
"Prosecutors won’t charge White House drone operator; FAA may fine" by Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post March 19, 2015
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they will not charge the recreational drone operator whose device crashed onto the White House lawn Jan. 26, but the Washington resident and intelligence community worker may face a fine from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Related: Droning While Drinking at the White House
Seems kind of SILLI, doesn't it?
The decision, announced by the office of US Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen, came after the security breach of the executive mansion grounds focused national attention on potential threats posed by the growing use of small, unmanned aircraft.
You know what this is smelling like. More staged and scripted agenda-pushing slop.
Secret Service agents presented the results of their investigation, but in a statement, prosecutors said a forensic analysis determined that the drone’s operator was not in control of it when it crashed.
The FAA bans flights by unauthorized drones within a 30-mile circle around Washington, a security measure implemented after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The aviation agency’s regulations do not make exceptions for a pilot’s lack of intent, officials said, and the FAA could propose a civil penalty of up to $1,100.
Then that gyroscope should have been shot down, right?
Elsewhere in the United States, amateur pilots must keep aircraft at least 5 miles away from airports and below 400 feet.
Shawn Usman, 31, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency employee who operated the aircraft, was unavailable for comment but is cooperating with authorities and wished to apologize to all involved, especially the Obamas and security officials, his attorney said.
Authorities had said Usman contacted the Secret Service about six hours after a 2-foot-wide DJI Phantom ‘‘quadcopter’’ landed on White House grounds early Jan. 26, triggering a lockdown.
Prosecutors said the investigation determined that Usman borrowed the quadcopter from a friend. Usman told investigators he flew it around his northwest Washington apartment and outside his window a few blocks from the White House the night of Jan. 25. About 3 a.m. Jan. 26, Usman said, he lost control of the drone and saw it climb to about 100 feet over 10th Street NW.
Yup.
‘‘The man knew that the drone’s battery was nearing the end of its charge and expected that it would crash somewhere over the Mall. He went to sleep not knowing where the drone had gone,’’ prosecutors said. ‘‘After he awoke to news reports of the crash on the White House grounds, he self-reported the incident to the Secret Service.’’
Did he go to sleep or just pass out?
President Obama and his wife were visiting India at the time, and the Secret Service said the device did not pose a threat to the building or the first family.
OMG, it's ANOTHER AGENDA-SEREVING PSYOP!!
That's where the print copy ended it.
The incident follows a series of security lapses at the White House that triggered a shake-up of the Secret Service leadership.
Rearranged deck chairs is what they did.
In September, a man with a knife in his pocket scaled the White House fence and ran through much of the mansion’s main floor. An armed private security contractor in Atlanta boarded an elevator with the president without authorization that same month, and new criticism surfaced over the Secret Service’s response to gunshots fired at the White House in 2011.
They let a gunman get close to the president?
Meanwhile, small drones have violated a three-mile, permanent no-fly area around the White House, called the P56 zone, four times since July, according to FAA reports.
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Turns out it WAS a test:
"Secret Service testing drones near White House" by Alicia A. Caldwell and Josh Lederman, Associated Press March 10, 2015
WASHINGTON — The Secret Service is conducting middle-of-the-night drone flights near the White House in secret tests to devise a defense against the unmanned aircraft, the Associated Press has learned.
The government-controlled drones will be flown between 1 and 4 a.m. during the next several weeks over parts of Washington — airspace that’s usually off limits as a no-fly zone, according to a US official briefed on the plans.
The official said the Secret Service is testing drones both for its own use in law enforcement and protection, and to identify how to defend against hostile drones. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to publicly discuss the plans. The Secret Service has said details are classified.
Among the tests is the use of signal-jamming technology to thwart control of a remotely piloted aircraft, the official said.
Researchers at the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Secret Service, have been testing methods to combat drones at remote sites. But testing in a real-world environment around the White House will help in understanding how radio waves are affected by buildings, monuments, and even tall trees.
The challenge for the Secret Service is how to quickly detect a rogue drone flying near the White House or another location where the president is, then within moments hack its guidance mechanism to seize control or jam its signal to send it off course or make it crash.
Some consumer-level drones, which commonly carry video cameras, have enough lifting power to carry small amounts of explosives.
The Secret Service has said only that it will openly test drones over Washington, but it has declined to provide details such as when it will fly, how many drones, over what parts of the city, for how long, and for what purposes. It decided to tell the public in advance about the tests out of concern that people who saw the drones might be alarmed, particularly in the wake of the drones spotted recently over Paris at night. Flying overnight also diminishes the chances that radio jamming would accidentally affect nearby businesses, drivers, pedestrians, and tourists.
What was the skinny on that anyway?
It is illegal under the US Communications Act to sell or use signal jammers except for narrow purposes by government agencies.
Depending on a drone’s manufacturer and capabilities, its flight-control and video-transmission systems commonly use radio frequencies common to popular Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. Jamming by the Secret Service could disrupt nearby Internet networks or phone conversations.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah!
Signals emanating from an inbound drone — such as coming from a video stream back to its pilot — could allow the Secret Service to find and track it.
Federal agencies generally need approval to jam signals from a Commerce Department agency, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The agency declined say whether the Secret Service sought permission because it said such requests are not routinely made public.
The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed it formally authorized the Secret Service to fly the drones and granted a waiver to fly them over Washington. The agency declined to provide specifics.
In January, a wayward quadcopter drone piloted by an off-duty US intelligence employee landed on the White House lawn. The Secret Service said the landing appeared to be accidental and not a security threat.
But it did give this agenda a push.
The incident led the agency to focus more attention on drone-related security issues. Published reports have disclosed that the Secret Service already uses jammers in high-level motorcades to disrupt signals that might detonate remotely triggered bombs.
Researchers with DHS’s science and technology directorate working on strategies to interdict an unauthorized drone flying into a secure area are trying to balance security against their burgeoning commercial use and the interests of hobbyists. Likewise, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said last week it’s studying how the United States can resolve privacy risks that come with increasing drone use.
Oh, what a wonderful world we are heading into.
There are basically three ways to stop a drone, said Jeremy Gillula, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: block the radio signals linking the drone to its controller, hack the aircraft’s control signals and trick it into believing it is somewhere else, or physically disable it. Police also could physically knock a drone out of the air with a projectile or use a net to catch it.
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So what is it going to look like out there?
"Drone companies entering Wild West phase" by Scott Kirsner, Globe Correspondent February 27, 2015
Panoptes Systems in Cambridge is just one of the local companies hoping to benefit from a soaring hobbyist drone market and an expected surge in sales to businesses.
Last year, funding for peacetime drone startups topped $100 million, according to the research firm CB Insights. But it’s an industry still in the Wild West phase, waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to adopt rules to allow the commercial use of drones. The FAA, which bans businesses from deploying drones, in February proposed regulations to govern their use; they won’t go into effect for at least two years, however.
That hasn’t stopped companies like Above Summit , a Somerville photography and videography business, from flying drones for hire — most recently to examine snow loads on the roofs of city-owned buildings.
“We’re not trying to be cowboys, and we don’t want to come across as combative,” says David Avery, Above Summit’s director of communications. “But legislation is lagging behind.”
One of the first local companies to build drones — or what it terms “flying robots” — is CyPhy Works of Danvers, launched in 2008. Chief executive Helen Greiner, a founder of iRobot Corp., initially won a $100,000 government grant to design aircraft that could fly outdoors and indoors, “to aid in hostage situations, search and rescue, fire fighting, and armed standoffs,” according to the grant application.
It's flown far beyond that, as we knew it would.
***********************
A Hopkinton-based website, Drone Life, has tracked the surge in hobbyist and industrial drone usage. It publishes a guide to drones available for purchase today and also a directory of service providers to shoot your wedding or company golf outing from above. Founder Alan Phillips acknowledges that offering drones-for-hire violates federal rules but adds that courts are still determining whether the FAA has jurisdiction.
For now, companies flying drones either have to apply for a special exemption from the FAA — just 30 have been granted so far — or count on the agency not having sufficient enforcement resources to play whack-a-mole with everyone flying unmanned aircraft for pay.
It’s an interesting moment for the civilian drone industry — not just because of the cloud of regulatory uncertainty but also because of the array of startups and military contractors racing to improve products while reducing costs....
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Did you get your acceptance letter? Sure it is real and not a fake?
Better check just to be sure.
Other drone stops:
"Drone pilots, start your engines. In just a few months, researchers could be sending unmanned aircraft into the air from sites across Massachusetts. A testing program, based out of Joint Base Cape Cod, will offer a chance for New England companies, academics, and independent engineers to send their lab work skyward. Chris Kluckhuhn, whose company was contracted to oversee the program and collect drone flight data for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the flights will take place far from populated areas so residents won’t be disturbed by, say, a camera-outfitted quadcopter flying above their neighborhoods. “You’re not going to see big, huge drones flying overhead,” said Kluckhuhn, the head of Plymouth-based Avwatch and a former helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard. MassDevelopment, a quasi-public state agency whose goals include making full use of military bases, said Monday it awarded a $220,000 contract to Avwatch to manage the test program and install networking equipment. H. Carter Hunt Jr., the vice president for defense sector initiatives at MassDevelopment, said flights could take place across the state as soon as research teams get certification from the FAA, the federal agency that dictates what gets to fly and what doesn’t."
The only place they use the big ones are overseas to drop missiles on people.
"The roar of mammoth Air Force bombers and tanker planes has long been silenced at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, but backers of the nation’s first unmanned aircraft business park say the drones are creating a buzz. Construction on the Grand Sky grounds probably won’t begin until May, but national and international companies are jockeying for position in the 1.2 million-square-foot park near the former alert pad where bombers and tankers were poised for takeoff on a moment’s notice. North Dakota is one of six sites around the country testing unmanned aircraft, for which some Americans have lingering concerns about privacy and safety. The new park’s tenants are likely to be researching and developing drones for a host of applications: farming, law enforcement, energy, infrastructure management, public safety, coastal security, military training, search and rescue, and disaster response. Defense technology giant Northrop Grumman has already signed a letter of intent to anchor the park."
Lingering concerns implies a fait accompli. No $topping the drones now.
"US military spending is flat, but that’s not a problem for the Israeli defense company Elbit Systems Ltd. Long dependent on the United States for sales, it has been shifting its focus to faster-growing markets in Asia and Latin America, where demand helped push up Elbit’s backlog of orders to $6.3 billion at year’s end, an 8 percent jump from 2013. The United States accounted for 28 percent of sales last year, still the biggest slice from any single country. But unlike US defense contractors that focus on airplanes, ships, and tanks, Elbit is succeeding with niche products and services, like upgrading aircraft systems and enhancing cyberwarfare capabilities. Its combined sales in Asia and South America surpassed those in the United States for the first time last year, representing 35 percent of the company’s $2.96 billion in sales. Elbit has said that demand for drones and homeland security and electronic warfare systems in Latin America and land fire control systems in Asia drove the sales increase."
Yeah, somehow the money and the agenda always find its way back to Israel!
"Last week, Facebook showed plans for drone aircraft that beam lasers of high-speed data to remote parts of the world. It is too early to say if Facebook’s drone technology will be shared, but in another stunning example, in June, Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of Tesla Motors, said he was giving away all his electric car company’s patents “in the spirit of the open-source movement.” Does this mean the birth of a new world where everything is free and all ideas are open? No."
Facebook is now its own country in the New World Order?
"Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla Motors Inc., was paid a minimum salary of $35,360 in 2014. But the real value of his compensation is closer to $100 million. Tesla granted Musk 5.27 million options valued at $78.1 million in 2012 that were intended to compensate him for 10 years, according to documents filed at the time. Last year, 527,490 of those options vested and had a value of $102.4 million as of Dec. 31, according to the Bloomberg Pay Index. Stock of Tesla, maker of the first all-electric sports car, has surged sevenfold from the $31.17 exercise price on the options Musk was awarded in 2012. The payout of Musk’s option awards is tied to performance goals, such as increases in the company’s market capitalization and development of its vehicles."
I guess that makes greed okay (as I almost missed it).
Related: SpaceX capsule soars with dummy in 1st test of crew escape
Has a Mu$ky smell to it!
With the same results:
"Crashing drones expose secrets about US surveillance targets" by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post March 26, 2015
WASHINGTON — Crashing drones are spilling secrets about US military operations.
A surveillance mission was exposed last week when a Predator drone crashed in northwest Syria while spying on the home turf of President Bashar Assad. US officials believe the drone was shot down, but they haven’t ruled out mechanical failure. Regardless, the wreckage offered the first hard evidence of a US confrontation with Assad’s forces.
So we ARE at WAR with Syria despite the claims of the president and pre$$.
The mishap in Syria follows a string of crashes in Yemen, another country where the US military keeps virtually all details of its drone operations classified.
Yemeni tribesmen have reported three cases in the past 15 months in which US drones have fallen from the sky, pulling back the curtain on likely surveillance targets.
Even those are pos like the rest of the weapons and equipment?
Air Force spokesmen said they could not confirm any crashes in Yemen, but Air Force records obtained by the Washington Post show the dates match up with official acknowledgments of accidents that occurred in classified locations
Since January 2014, the Air Force has reported 14 crashes of Predator and Reaper drones that either destroyed the aircraft or inflicted more than $2 million in damage. Three of the accidents took place in Afghanistan, but six happened elsewhere in classified or undisclosed sites, a sharp increase from prior years.
The far-flung nature of the accidents reinforces how US drone operations have spread well beyond the established war zone in Afghanistan.
They patrol the planet!
In November, a Reaper drone crashed in the Sahara while returning to a new US base in Niger. At the start of last year, a Predator plunged into the Mediterranean Sea after conducting a secret mission over Libya, a rare tangible sign of US surveillance operations there.
US military drones are also based in Turkey, Italy, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Djibouti, a small country on the Horn of Africa. In addition, the CIA has its own drone bases in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
The demand for US military drones that are capable of conducting airstrikes continues to soar. Last year, Predators and Reapers flew more than ever: 369,913 flight hours, or six times the figure for 2006, according to Air Force statistics.
This as I am being told Obama has cut back on the drone strikes!
The Predator alone logged the third-most hours of any plane in the Air Force, ranking narrowly behind the F-16 fighter jet and the workhorse KC-135 refueling tanker.
Military planners had expected the opposite, that demand for drones would drop as US troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Instead, the Pentagon became embroiled in a new conflict against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, other terrorist threats have flared in Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa, further taxing the US drone fleet.
‘‘We simply underestimated the continued demand,’’ Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work told a defense conference last week in Washington. ‘‘They quickly got sucked up in the unexpected campaign in Iraq and Syria.’’
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Maybe you should take a car home:
"Malia Obama is not your average 16-year-old: Her driving lessons were provided by the Secret Service. When asked who taught Malia how to drive, Michelle Obama told celebrity chef and daytime talk-show personality Rachael Ray in an interview that it was the armed agents who provide around-the-clock security for the president and his family. Mrs. Obama has not driven herself in seven or eight years, she said. She added that driving gives Malia a sense of normalcy, helping her feel like the rest of her friends who are also driving. ‘‘And my kids have got to learn how to live in the world like normal kids.’’
Spoken with all the arrogance of an elitist.
Related:
2 Secret Service agents accused of hitting White House fence
Malia was driving.
Secret Service disrupted White House crime scene
And she was drunk.
Secret Service chief forcefully denies reports of crash
New police video shows Secret Service SUV bump police barrier
Obama’s “new man” is another insider who can cover up the corruption on his watch. The "new guy" lied right off and note how conversation shifted from drunk to did they crash!!!
Also see: Secret Service took a year to fix broken alarm at George H.W. Bush home
Well, you know, change takes time.
Whatta scum.
Related:
Doctors back bid for Reagan shooter’s release
US, Hinckley’s lawyers disagree on use of tracking device
Ankle bracelet for Hinckley rejected
yeah, another lone nut gunman forcing a new look at that long ago event. A Bush would have been president and the New World Order would have had a ten-year head start. Strange how threats have come against Clinton and Obama, but not much against H.W. and W. There were some, but much less serious.
So who do you think all that is sending a signal to?
Better toe the line all the way to the end, or we'll get you later.
I wouldn't open any mail, either:
"Secret Service knows suspect in cyanide probe, source says" by Eric Tucker and Darlene Superville Associated Press March 19, 2015
WASHINGTON — The person suspected of sending an envelope to the White House that may have contained cyanide is known to the Secret Service and has sent multiple suspicious items over the last two decades, a federal law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.
OMG! It's another frame job!
Remember Richardson?
Also see: HEAD of the FBI’s Anthrax Investigation Says the Whole Thing Was a SHAM
Staged and scripted psyops and false flags, folks. That's all.
The official said the suspected sender has previously sent packages with rambling messages and foreign substances. The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The envelope was received at a mail processing center away from the White House for routine screening Monday and initial tests were negative for cyanide. A second test on Tuesday returned a ‘‘presumptive positive,’’ the Secret Service said. Officials are waiting for the results of a third round of testing to determine if the envelope indeed contained the poison.
The US Postal Inspection Service, also investigating the case, referred all questions to the Secret Service. That agency, which is responsible for the safety and security of President Obama and his immediate family, said its investigation into the letter was continuing and it would have no additional comment on the matter.
The website Intercept, which first reported on Monday’s letter to the White House, said it bore the return address of a man who has sent packages to the executive mansion since 1995, including one covered in urine and feces and another that contained miniature bottles of alcohol.
What idiot puts a return address on it?
Suspicious letters often are sent to some of the country’s leading politicians. Some test positive for hazardous substances; others include threats of death or physical harm.
That is where the print ended.
In June 2013, a West Virginia man was indicted on charges of threatening to kill Obama and his family in a letter that included profanity and racial slurs. A federal judge later dismissed the charges after forensic handwriting analysis conducted by the Secret Service showed that 20-year-old Ryan Kirker of McMechen, W.Va., didn’t write the letter.
Two months earlier, letters sent to Obama; Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi; and Mississippi judge Sadie Holland tested positive for the poison ricin. The letters addressed to the president and to the senator were intercepted before delivery, but one letter reached Holland. She was unharmed.
James Everett Dutschke of Tupelo, Miss., pleaded guilty in January 2014 to sending the letters and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
That was dumb.
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So was this:
"White House intruder pleads guilty" Associated Press March 14, 2015
WASHINGTON — A knife-carrying Army veteran who scaled a White House fence and dashed into the executive mansion before being caught took a plea deal Friday.
Omar Gonzalez, 43, pleaded guilty to two federal charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 8 and could face 12 to 18 months in prison under sentencing guidelines.
Gonzalez made it into the East Room in the Sept. 19 incident. The president, the first lady, and their daughters were not home at the time.
After Gonzalez’s arrest, investigators found hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a machete, and two hatchets in his car. A knife he was carrying in his pocket when he was arrested had a blade more than three and a half inches long.
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The answer?
"Spikes OK’d for White House fence" Associated Press May 08, 2015
WASHINGTON — The Secret Service will add a second layer of steel spikes to the top of the White House fence to keep would-be intruders at bay, according to a proposal approved by the National Capital Planning Commission.
The steel ‘‘pencil point’’ spikes will be snapped into place at the top of the fence and protrude outward, according to a diagram included in the proposal submitted for the Secret Service by that National Park Service.
The commission approved the proposal at a hearing Thursday afternoon.
The spikes will be added to the fence along the north and south sides of the White House grounds starting Friday, the Secret Service and National Park Service said in a statement Thursday.
The Secret Service has been studying ways to improve security at the White House since a Texas man was able to climb over the fence and run deep into the executive mansion in September.
Uh-huh. No warning on that one?
The agencies said a preliminary review of design concepts for long-term security changes at the fence is being reviewed, and a final design is expected to be selected this summer.
Who is getting the contract?
In a nine-page summary of the September incident, the government concluded that Omar Gonzalez cleared the fence in a spot where a spike was missing.
A second report from an outside panel recommended that the Secret Service replace the 7½-foot tall fence around the 18-acre White House complex.
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Maybe they need more training, and....
[Well, what the hey…. With multiple mocked-up Oval Offices, Presidential body doubles, “widespread and undisclosed” fake news, and having a pretender for a President in the first place, it makes perfect sense for us to have an entire back-up White House that could be used as a TV set during the next “let’s fool the American viewing public” event.] -- Occurrences
The Globe did protect Petraeus by keeping things out of sight.
