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Pentagon now launching ‘spy balloons’ to surveil We The People

The government seems to have a really hard time understanding the 4th Amendment these days.

At one point in our not-so-distant history, Americans spoke about “big brother” as a fictional entity in a technocratic world who would spy on us in order to exploit our consumerism, effectively trapping us in a serfdom of workers and profiteers.

Today, however, it isn’t so fictional.  At least not for the middle class.

Everywhere we go today, we are being watched.  Online, our browsing habits are turned into data points to be sold to the highest bidder, often a multinational corporation, who then use that information to further weasel their way into our subconscious mind.  Our consumer habits are being tracked by our banks as well, in order for these ultra-prosperous corporations to further squeeze the working man.

Then comes the government, whose high tech, (and sometimes low tech), covert observations of the American people are protected by their own enforcement agencies.

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal.

Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois.

Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, an aerospace and defence company.

Here’s the scary part:

The balloons are carrying hi-tech radars designed to simultaneously track many individual vehicles day or night, through any kind of weather. The tests, which have not previously been reported, received an FCC license to operate from mid-July until September, following similar flights licensed last year.

Tactics such as this are a slap in the face to the 4th Amendment, which protects Americans from unlawful search and seizure, and should be immediately reviewed by legislators.

 

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