EPA Spies on Cattle Ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa Using Drones.

[Pony Boy]

EPA Using Drones to Spy on Cattle Ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa

Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is using aerial drones to spy on farmers in Nebraska and Iowa. The surveillance came under scrutiny last week when Nebraska’s congressional delegation sent a joint letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

On Friday, EPA officialdom in “Region 7” responded to the letter.

“Courts, including the Supreme Court, have found similar types of flights to be legal (for example to take aerial photographs of a chemical manufacturing facility) and EPA would use such flights in appropriate instances to protect people and the environment from violations of the Clean Water Act,” the agency said in response to the letter.

“They are just way on the outer limits of any authority they’ve been granted,” said Mike Johanns, a Republican senator from Nebraska.

In fact, the EPA has absolutely zero authority and is an unconstitutional entity of an ever-expanding and rogue federal government. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution does not authorize Congress to legislate in the area of the environment. Under the Tenth Amendment, this authority is granted to the states and their legislatures, not the federal government.

The EPA has not addressed the constitutional question, including its wanton violation of probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. It merely states that it has authority to surveil the private property of farmers and ranchers. It defends its encroaching behavior as “cost-efficient.”

30978

http://www.infowars.com/epa-using-drones-to-spy-on-cattle-ranchers-in-nebraska-and-iowa/

[baja]

The first guy that shoot's down a drone will be a folk hero said one government official;


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pWzVXcF9qIc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Rohirrim]

I've got to figure a way to get out of here.

[Arkie]

A Drone Field Guide (http://www.opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/a-drone-field-guide/)

They are developing a drone that resembles a hummingbird. It can hover in space or fly in any direction with it's tiny video camera. This is a prototype. Eventually they'll be able to make them too small to notice like little gnats.

http://www.opencanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Hummingbird1.png

[baja]

I've got to figure a way to get out of here.

Come to Baja.

No nothin here

[baja]

I've got to figure a way to get out of here.

Come to Baja.

No nothin here

[UltimateHoboW/Shotgun]

Do you hear that sound.....its the outrage of the left. LOL

[Spider]

Yeah clear invasion of privacy ......wasting money and drones on bullshiat ....ditch rider can cover more ground and a better view ...but then a ditch rider would tell the epa to **** off

[barryr]

Do you hear that sound.....its the outrage of the left. LOL

They'd rather wait until a republican is president and then get outraged by it and pretend it didn't happen under Obama's watch. In other words, their typical way of handling uncomfortable subjects since it interferes with their liberal paradigm: republicans are all evil and infringe on rights, while democrats are good, people who are saints.

[El Minion]

They'd rather wait until a republican is president and then get outraged by it and pretend it didn't happen under Obama's watch. In other words, their typical way of handling uncomfortable subjects since it interferes with their liberal paradigm: republicans are all evil and infringe on rights, while democrats are good, people who are saints.

Ladies and gentleman, the Republican Automaton! Be part of the discussion while adding nothing to it but mindless political platitudes that will only impress yourself to continue blathering. Now with reversible ad hominem attacks! :thanku:

They'd rather wait until a democrat is president and then get outraged by it and pretend it didn't happen under Bush's watch. In other words, their typical way of handling uncomfortable subjects since it interferes with their conservative paradigm: democrats are all evil and infringe on rights, while republicans are good, people who are saints.

[cutthemdown]

The EPA has went wild under Obama. They came down hard on Gibson guitars because they were using hardwoods from exotic trees. They want to regulate co2 as a pollutant. Stuff like this shows they have a nice budget to go out and try and thwart business and regulation, and hell a little big brother spying at the same time.

Really water management for farmers could probably be done by the state. Controlled by people who live there who should have a vested interest in keeping water clean.

More state power, get rid of the EPA all together.

[cutthemdown]

The EPA's budget is almost half of what Obama gives NASA. I agree with the liberals, much of our problem right now is revenue. It's not really spending because there isn't a ton of money to increase spending with. It's what Obama spends it on that is my problem. You can see where his loyalties lie.

What would you rather have the feds doing. Trying to catch farmers, a job the states can do, or send someone to Mars, a job the states can't do? I have real differences with Obama and what his vision is.

[Arkie]

The first guy that shoot's down a drone will be a folk hero said one government official;


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pWzVXcF9qIc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

They'll eventually be too small to be shot down, and they'll swarm around farms disguised in plain sight.

http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/021512-insect-drones-lg.png

[elsid13]

The EPA has went wild under Obama. They came down hard on Gibson guitars because they were using hardwoods from exotic trees. They want to regulate co2 as a pollutant. Stuff like this shows they have a nice budget to go out and try and thwart business and regulation, and hell a little big brother spying at the same time.

Really water management for farmers could probably be done by the state. Controlled by people who live there who should have a vested interest in keeping water clean.

More state power, get rid of the EPA all together.

The states have never the ability or the funds to take over the job. As much as the EPA is punching bag for Republican, the function it does makes for a far better and cleaner world then it was 40 years ago. But for some reason, some want to return to the days when rivers caught on fire and Bald Eagles were in endangered.

[Arkie]

States would have the ability and funds if our federal taxes were diverted to the state level. 50 powerful states would separate the power. With technological advancement, the powerful few will eventually be able to control the masses. They will abuse that power when that time comes. It's better to decentralize while we still can.

[elsid13]

States would have the ability and funds if our federal taxes were diverted to the state level. 50 powerful states would separate the power. With technological advancement, the powerful few will eventually be able to control the masses. They will abuse that power when that time comes. It's better to decentralize while we still can.

It doesn't work that way. There is no "fair" to split the funding and when you have challenge that reaches across state lines, it is a federal issue. Also EPA was going to visit the sites/farmer regardless. But instead of sending a single individual to drive out and take a look, they are using technology to reduce the cost and increase productivity

[cutthemdown]

Calif often has stricter rules then EPA so they really aren't needed here IMO. It's ok though not like I will say ELSID wrong for feeling the feds can do things better. Or seeing this as a federal issue. It's ok to disagree. It just further illustrates that real difference between how republicans and democrats think.

[El Minion]

Let's not ruin a good conspiracy theory with the truth. The mass hysteria and paranoia that any government program or activity is to objectively curtail citizen and control property rights is so quickly believed and disseminated, reasoning with such a distrustful populace becomes impossible but they are easily manipulated. Hence the useful idiots voting block.

What is the difference between these conspiracists and Obama is secretly a Muslim, 9/11 truthers, Lunar landing hoax, mini nukes, and Church’s Fried Chicken will make black men sterile, as people believe in one but laugh at the others.

Lie about EPA spy drones thrives in right-wing blogosphere (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-epa-spy-drones-20120619,0,2898522.story)

http://www.trbimg.com/img-4fe0df2e/turbine/la-na-tt-epa-spy-drones-20120619-001/600

By David Horsey

June 19, 2012, 1:44 p.m.

Did you hear the one about the EPA spy drones that are darkening the skies over America’s farms and ranches?

No, that is not a set up for a funny punch line. There really have been reports of drones casting their evil robotic eyes down on the heartland. The joke is that the stories are completely false. They are simply another example of paranoid political lunacy being magnified a million times by the blogosphere and Twitter.

Last week, the Washington Post did a fine deconstruction of this latest fabrication gone wild. The Post identified several cable news reports, multiple blogs and four members of Congress who had spread word that the Environmental Protection Agency was sending aloft the same kind of drones that have been used to pick off terrorists abroad to target ranchers and farmers suspected of violating anti-pollution laws. In this case they were not going to blow up anyone, just take pictures of their nefarious activities.

The EPA denied all of this and, as it turned out, they were telling the truth. There was not a shred of evidence of drone activity. What is true is that, for more than 10 years, EPA inspectors have flown over agricultural lands in small aircraft to make inspections when they have received reports about manure dumped into streams or dirty runoff fouling clean water sources. Some cattlemen in Nebraska complained about the flights, calling them an invasion of privacy. In response, their dutiful congressmen wrote a letter of concern to the EPA.

Anti-government twits on Twitter heard about the complaint and concocted the fiction of spy drones. The story spread instantly on the Internet. When it got to the same congressmen who wrote the EPA letter, rather than questioning the warped version of their own story, they decried the drones on the floor of Congress. From there, Fox News picked up the bogus allegation.

The nation’s keyed-up conservatives were thrilled to have another foul deed to pin on Obama and his Big Government henchmen. For three weeks, the drone tale ricocheted like a pinball from congressional offices to talk radio to cable TV to Twitter to conservative bloggers and back to Congress until sanity intruded and even Fox News had to retract their reports.

Of course, the story will live on, as all of these falsehoods do, and will show up in the future dark musings of radio preachers, in the ravings of right wing conspiracy mongers and in casual coffee shop discussions in small towns from Montana to Kansas. Liberals will get to point at this as yet another example of the Republican Party coming unhinged from the known universe.

Meanwhile, one little detail will go unacknowledged. It’s those grousing cattlemen. One of them is quoted as saying, “We don’t need our own government… flying over us, taking pictures of us, telling us what we’re doing wrong.” Oh, really? Just like we don’t need some government inspector checking on the safety of our food supply or seeing if some industrial plant is fouling our air?

Well, just as I am not at liberty to dump my garbage in my neighbor’s back yard, farmers and ranchers do not have a special right to despoil the water that is shared by other farmers and ranchers downstream. Behind this latest false story is the same old truth: Some people think they owe nothing to anyone but themselves and they are quick to demonize anybody who tells them they are selfish pigs.

[Drek]

The EPA has went wild under Obama. They came down hard on Gibson guitars because they were using hardwoods from exotic trees. They want to regulate co2 as a pollutant. Stuff like this shows they have a nice budget to go out and try and thwart business and regulation, and hell a little big brother spying at the same time.

Really water management for farmers could probably be done by the state. Controlled by people who live there who should have a vested interest in keeping water clean.

More state power, get rid of the EPA all together.

Waterways cross state lines. Therefore the protection of said waterways is CLEARLY a federal matter. What Iowa allows might not be acceptable to Illinois or Missouri. What they allow might not be acceptable to Louisiana or Mississippi. It is the "**** rolls down hill" proverb come to life.

Further, we already require federal regulation of waterways via the Corps of Engineers. Their controls are as essential as anything the federal gov't. does, unless you like the idea of multiple southern states suffering heavy flooding on a regular basis.

This is comparable to arguing that we should let states handle their own defense.

The EPA's budget is almost half of what Obama gives NASA. I agree with the liberals, much of our problem right now is revenue. It's not really spending because there isn't a ton of money to increase spending with. It's what Obama spends it on that is my problem. You can see where his loyalties lie.

What would you rather have the feds doing. Trying to catch farmers, a job the states can do, or send someone to Mars, a job the states can't do? I have real differences with Obama and what his vision is.
1. depends if you live downstream from that farmer.

2. NASA received 0.53% of the federal budget last year and is set to receive 0.48% of the budget this year. The EPA, as you said, gets half of that. So they're looking at less than 0.25% of the federal budget this year.

Meanwhile our defense budget is 38x larger than NASA's budget and 76x larger than the EPAs.

We spend more in a month in Afghanistan (and did so in Iraq) than we do on the EPA in a month, or NASA in two. When we had the concurrent wars going we could have funded both the EPA and NASA off of a little over 5 weeks of our war specific expenses without touching the rest of the defense budget.

We're spending more on the joint F-35 program ($11.4B) than we spend on the EPA ($8.4B) in a given year. That is almost two thirds of NASA's entire budget. That is for the supposed "fifth generation fighter". Meanwhile we just put forward an RFI from Boeing about the F/A-XX sixth generation fighter, with a potential target roll out date of 2020. So we're developing a fighter with a R&D cost of over $11B a year for service years likely to range between 2016 and 2020. 4 years. All total we're going to sink about $600B in this 4 year stop gap.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Let's not ruin a good conspiracy theory with the truth...

http://www.bartcop.com/gop-bs-dinner-0.jpg

[elsid13]

We're spending more on the joint F-35 program ($11.4B) than we spend on the EPA ($8.4B) in a given year. That is almost two thirds of NASA's entire budget. That is for the supposed "fifth generation fighter". Meanwhile we just put forward an RFI from Boeing about the F/A-XX sixth generation fighter, with a potential target roll out date of 2020. So we're developing a fighter with a R&D cost of over $11B a year for service years likely to range between 2016 and 2020. 4 years. All total we're going to sink about $600B in this 4 year stop gap.

If the acquisition is starting in 2020, we would not see new fighter aircraft 2035. And that is if everything goes well. The money is currently not in the budget to begin the planning process or JROC process.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/181408_486163304742519_890056311_n.jpg