Governments Around the World Are Using Drones to Spy on the People

Spying on Europe’s Farms with Satellites and Drones

February 8, 2012

BBC News - Farmers who claim more EU subsidies than they should, or who break Common Agricultural Policy rules, are now more likely to be caught out by a camera in the sky than an inspector calling with a clipboard. How do they feel about being watched from above?

Imagine a perfect walk in the country, a few years from now - tranquillity, clean air, birdsong in the trees and hedgerows, growing crops swaying in the breeze.

Suddenly a model plane swoops overhead.

But Europe’s farms cost taxpayers billions of euros in subsidies each year, and EU agricultural inspectors are turning to technology to improve their patchy record on preventing fraud and waste.

Satellites have already been in use for several years, and drones are currently undergoing trials.

Scanning a farm with a satellite costs about one third as much as sending an inspector on a field visit – £115 ($180; 150 euros) rather than £310 ($490; 400 euros), says the UK’s Rural Payments Agency (RPA), which is responsible for disbursing the subsidies in the UK and checking for irregularities.

"The RPA follows up only on those claims where there is some doubt about accuracy, and then only at the specific fields for which the doubt exists," the RPA says. "This saves time, lifts the burden on farmers and reduces cost to the taxpayer."

Satellites can rapidly cover a huge area in detail and quickly return to photograph it again if necessary.

In 2010, about 70% of the total required controls on farm payments in the EU were done by satellites, which photographed more than 210,000 sq km (81,000 sq miles) of land in all.

But they are not infallible. Austria does not use them, on the grounds that the shadows cast by very mountainous terrain sometimes make satellite images inaccurate.

And Scotland, unlike the rest of the UK, decided against satellites "because of the difficulty of getting enough clear weather for flyovers", a Scottish government spokeswoman told the BBC.

Many things in the countryside are constantly changing and when the satellite passes over, "the animals may be in a field or in a barn - you can't count the numbers very well", says Roland Randall, an English farmer and environmental researcher in Cambridgeshire.

"When planners looked at the aerial photo records of our farm they thought we had an additional building without permission, but it was actually a haystack," he told the BBC.

The satellite checks are done partly to produce accurate maps of farms, showing clearly the areas eligible for subsidies.

But farmers these days have to keep their land in "good agricultural and environmental condition" to qualify for subsidies, so images also reveal whether the farmer is complying with the rules on hedges and ponds, say, or buffer strips around arable fields.


Farmers are required to maintain good agricultural and environmental conditions on their land, especially on land no longer used for production. Minimum standards include keeping landscape features such as hedges, ponds, ditches, groups of trees and margins.

A farmer who breaks the rules risks losing 3% of his or her direct payment - and more if it is a repeat infringement.

There have been few prosecutions in the UK based on satellite evidence, says Ray Purdy, a senior law researcher at University College London (UCL) specialising in satellite monitoring.

One case in the UK was dropped in 2001 because a farmer proved that he had planted a linseed crop, even though the satellite image appeared to show bare earth. The sparse young plants had failed to show up against the bright reflection off chalk downland.

This could be the kind of situation where a drone - an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) - would come in useful.

Drones are best known for their role as remote-control killers in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas, but supporters see a role for smaller and much simpler drones in agricultural monitoring. They can get up close and take sharp photographs - and unlike satellites, which always look directly down, drones can get an angled view of their subject.

They are currently being tried out in vineyards in the south of France, to check that "grubbing up" of vines is done legally and ecologically. Wine-growers get as much as 10,000 euros ($13,000; £8,300) per hectare in subsidies for digging up uncompetitive vines - a scheme to prevent new EU "wine lakes" caused by overproduction.

"There has to be 100% control, as it's a huge amount of money," says Philippe Loudjani, an agronomist at the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission's main satellite monitoring hub in Ispra, northern Italy.

"The French are testing to see if the drones need to go up to 10cm resolution - to see what accuracy is required."

Drones are also being tested in Italy, and are already in use on a small scale in Spain's Catalonia region, where authorities say their 25cm and 12.5cm resolution photos are ideal for inspecting the small landholdings with mixed crops that are typical of the Mediterranean.

The EU is hurrying to develop a "strategy for Unmanned Aircraft Systems", which would see the existing very tough restrictions on the use of civilian drones in Europe relaxed.

A discussion paper prepared for a European Commission workshop in Brussels this week, envisages their use not only in crop or farm monitoring, but also terrain cartography, goods transport, monitoring of borders, the fight against illegal immigration and drug trafficking, and intervention in natural or industrial disasters.

"They can also be sent to deliver rescue packages to ship crews in danger at sea," it adds.

However, in the short term it's likely that UAVs will only be widely approved for use within line of sight of an operator and at a distance of no more than 500m, which limits their value for agricultural inspection.

And what about the privacy issue?

Ben Hayes of the campaign group Statewatch worries that Europe is rushing into the use of drones without sufficient public discussion.

"We would accept the argument that there are lots of things they can be useful for, but ... the questions about what is acceptable and how people feel about drones hovering over their farmland or their demonstration - these debates are not taking place," he says.

Ray Purdy of UCL surveyed 202 farmers in the UK, and 428 in Australia - where satellites are routinely used to monitor land use, especially vegetation clearance - and found that only about a quarter in Australia and a third in the UK were against satellite monitoring.

Some farmers voiced concerns about invasion of privacy, but many said remote sensing was preferable to inspectors on their land taking up their time.

A majority in the UK also agreed that the satellites would help to deter fraud.

Rob Allan, a farmer in Warwickshire, said "it's modern life really - I don't think there's anything you can do about it".

DHS to Launch Insurgent-Tracking Drones Inside America

Technology used to hunt enemy combatants in Afghanistan will be used for “non-emergency incidents” within the U.S.

February 9, 2012

Infowars.com - The Department of Homeland Security plans to spend up to $50 million dollars on a spy system that has been used to hunt insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan for the purposes of “emergency and non-emergency incidents” within the United States.

The DHS is seeking four contractors to provide “aerial remote sensing” services, using LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology fitted to drones or manned aircraft that will provide surveillance capability for “homeland security missions,” as well as “management of emergency incidents by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regional offices, joint field offices and by state and local government.”

“DHS believes these airborne images are essential for homeland defense missions, such as planning for National Special Security Events (Super Bowls or a national political conventions come to mind); enhancing border, port and airport security; as well as performing critical infrastructure inventories and assessments,” reports Government Security News, adding that the technology will be used for “emergency and non-emergency incidents nationwide.”

The DHS expects successful contractors to “ensure imagery can be acquired, processed and delivered in 48 hours or less and the ability to support simultaneous missions in multiple geographic locations.”

LIDAR spy technology, which uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light to track objects or people from the sky, has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan to track insurgents. The US military has praised the technology for its proficiency in providing “battlefield surveillance” and being able to easily locate enemy combatants due to it being “especially useful at seeing through foliage.” LIDAR can be deployed using both manned and unmanned aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force “has already deployed an unknown number of LIDAR aircraft to map all of Afghanistan,” reports MSNBC, with the 3-D laser mapping technology also being adapted to work aboard U.S. Special Forces helicopters such as the Blackhawk or Chinook to help hunt insurgents.

According to Raytheon, one of the companies that develops LIDAR, the technology is adept at tracking “people in crowded environments for safety and security,” because unlike traditional surveillance methods, LIDAR is honed to measure characteristics of individuals and keep them tracked within a “grid cell” so they cannot evade detection.

Under the terms of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, the whole of America has been defined as a battlefield, with the government reserving the power to have “belligerents,” including American citizens, arrested and detained indefinitely without trial.

US law enforcement bodies are already using drone technology to spy on Americans. In December, a Predator B drone was called in to conduct surveillance over a family farm in North Dakota as part of a SWAT raid on the Brossart family, who were suspects in the egregious crime of stealing six missing cows. Local police in this one area have already used the drone on two dozen occasions since June last year.

Last summer, the Department of Homeland Security gave the green light for police departments in the United States to deploy the ShadowHawk mini drone drone helicopter that has the ability to taze suspects from above as well as carrying 12-gauge shotguns and grenade launchers. The drone, also used against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, is already being used by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office in Texas.

The DHS has also provided drone surveillance for foreign countries, aiding Jamaican authorities in a botched drug raid that led to the massacre of 73 civilians last year.

A bill passed in by Congress this week paves the way for the use of surveillance drones in US skies on a widespread basis. The FAA predicts that by 2020 there could be up to 30,000 drones in operation nationwide.

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