Bring along a cast iron flyswatter...
...or spray starch would bring those little buggers down.
You've heard of Dragonflies? Now we have Dragonspies! Oh no! Run away! The Washington Post reports that people at anti-war rallies are being bugged ... or rather, being watched by bugs ... or something.
Yes, mechanical insect spies and robot bugs are apparently being used by the Bush administration to monitor antiwar rallies. Can you believe it? Surveillance insects on gossamer wings equipped with tiny cameras, flying overhead clicking away at protestors.
No kidding, there really are such things -- micro air vehicles (MAVs). But they're supposed to be used in battle to buzz over enemy territory, because these dime-sized flying robots wouldn't be noticed by enemy troops below.
From the Washington Post, 10/9: "Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.
"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."
Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.
"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "
That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security[..]"
The WaPo article has a picture:
http://tinyurl.com/yqwdst
http://tinyurl.com/yqwdst
So that’s where our health dollars go.
You know, the administration is already using drones to patrol the Mexican border and certain large cities. This project suggests to me that Blackwater can anticipate a strong market for privatized domestic surveillance.
Well, if they're going to spy on us anyway, I'd prefer it be with something at least entertaining.
It all reminds me of the CIA's brilliant Operation Acoustic Kitty. Back during the cold war they implanted sophisticated bugging devices inside a cat. The idea was that the cat would eavesdrop on Soviet conversations from park benches, windowsills, etc. The cat was supposed to just stroll up completely unnoticed and transmit sensitive conversations.
Only it ran out into the street and got hit by a taxi. Five years of effort and millions of dollars were reduced to roadkill just like that.
