| Drone Survival Guide: Beware new breeds of aerial predators!

Drone-spotting: Survival guide informs on new breed of aerial predators ~ RT.

A Drone Survival Guide with hints and tips on how to thwart the “robotic birds” has been published on the internet. With over 30,000 drones expected to be flying over the US by 2030, the Guide urges readers to familiarize themselves with the craft.

In light of the growing number of drones, the Guide advises a number of techniques to evade and scramble drones. The document is available online and has been translated into 17 different languages.

“Our ancestors could spot natural predators from far by their silhouettes. Are we equally aware of the predators in the present-day?” writes the Guide.

It contains the silhouettes and measurements of all of the most widely-used drones, from the ‘Killer Bee’ to ‘The Sentinel’ as well as information on where they are currently operational. It goes on to detail ways you can hide from a drone.

“Most drones are equipped with night vision, and/or infrared vision cameras, so-called FLIR sensors. These can see human heat signatures from far away, day or night. However there are ways to hide from drones.”

Among the tactics it advices for eluding the aerial craft are: hiding “in thick forests,” wearing space blankets to confuse heat sensors, not using wireless communication, and the use of mannequins or human-sized dolls as decoys.

“Wait for bad weather. Drones cannot operate in high winds, smoke, rainstorms or heavy weather conditions.”

Image from dronesurvivalguide.org

As well as avoidance strategies to escape from the craft, the document also gives advice on how to hack into a drone’s systems. The Guide gives the assurance that as long as a drone’s communications are not encrypted then they can be hacked. It describes how to intercept and interfere with the workings of a drone and also details a process called “spoofing”.

“Small, portable GPS transmitters can send fake GPS signals and disrupt the Drones navigation systems. This can be used, for example, to steer drones into self-destruction flight paths or even hijack them and land them on a runway.”

The US’ use of drones for surveillance as well as military strikes has drawn global recognition. Last week the Yemeni parliament passed an anti-drone motion because of the civilian lives lost in the US strikes on Al-Qaeda militants in the country. Pakistan has also condemned the US for its use of the craft, decrying the strikes as an affront to its sovereignty.

Moreover, the Obama Administration has come into the firing line for increasing the amount of drones operating in American air space. By 2030 The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has estimated that around 30,000 craft will be operational in the US.

In spite of assurances of their safety there have been a number of incidents where drones have lost control and crashed. In November of this year two drones came down in two weeks with no explanation as to why they might have malfunctioned.

The first crash on November 12 grounded all drone flights in Central New York, while the second – on November 17 – saw one of the unmanned craft veer out of control and crash into a guided missile cruiser off the coast of Southern California, injuring two soldiers.

A Drone Survival Guide

Image from dronesurvivalguide.org

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| Torture, kidnappings + global drone strikes carried out by US from Germany!

German reports: US “anti-terror” ops based in Germany ~ Deutsche Welle.

Two German media outlets have said US agencies have also run anti-terrorism operations world-wide from bases in Germany. Their joint investigative report asserts that the “secret war” was partly funded by Germany.

US agents arrested suspects in transit at German airports and probed asylum seekers for leads ahead of drone strikes in other nations, according to a joint report compliled by German NDR public broadcaster and the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Their special website [in German] and previews of NDR’s next “Panorama” program allege that torture and kidnappings were organized on German territory and that from US installations in Germany drone strikes were organized “all over the world.”

“Germany is long a component of the American security architecture,” said Panorama. German authorities “often assist,” said the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), adding that Germany had long become a “hub” for America’s “war on terror.”

The researchers’ claims center on the assumption that such operations on German territory are subject to German law, including rules on strict data privacy and parliament’s supervision of the military.

In June while visiting Berlin, US President Barack Obama reassured Germans that the US military was not using bases in Germany as a starting point for drone attacks on African locations such as Somalia.

Two-year investigation

NDR and SZ said the investigative travel by their joint 20-member team led them through all of Europe, to Africa, to the US and through the Internet.

The head of investigative research at the Munich-based Süddeutsche, Hans Leyendecker, said the team’s probe had taken 2 years.

The team’s claims follow headlines that the US had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone, that Britain had operated a listening post in Berlin, and a German parliamentarian’s recent visit to the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow.

CIA oversight from Frankfurt

Panorama said a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility in Frankfurt oversaw that construction of “secret torture jails” in other nations.

And, in one case, said Panorama, “an American intelligence contract firm, which works for US NSA [National Security Agency] and planned kidnapping flights for the CIA, still receives contracts worth millions from the German government.”

Panorama said the “German assistance in the ‘anti-terror’ war” stemmed in part from funding though German “taxes.”

US military bases at Ramstein and Stuttgart in southwestern Germany assisted in guiding American drones used to target suspected terrorists in Africa and the Middle East, but also killed civilians, it added.

The US had a drone training base at Grafenwöhr in the middle of Bavaria equipped with unmanned “Shadow” reconnaisance aircraft, according to the investigative team’s website.

While Germany debated whether to acquire drones, “already 50” drones involved in US training “are flying over the Federal Republic of Germany – almost unnoticed by the public,” it said.

Media feature

The journalistic project, including the release of a book by SZ author Christian Fuchs and NDR journalist John Goetz this Friday, will be followed by a feature evening on Germany’s joint ARD public broadcasting network, which includes NDR, on November 28.

Goetz (right) und Fuchs with their book “Secret War”

Goetz said he had interviewed retired US intelligence operatives and learned that the US Secret Service and Homeland Security Department had “taken into custody suspects at German airports.”

“Retired US-American security people are very chatty,” Goetz added.

Referring to drone operations, Goetz said: “The decision, when and [who] will be executed takes place in Stuttgart.”

Database entries point to Germany

The SZ said the investigative team’s scrutiny of the official US Federal Procurement Data System had revealed 257,910 entries related to Germany.

One online search string “0066 MI” pointed to the United States’ 66th Military Intelligence Brigade, located in the “NSA bases in Wiesbaden and Darmstadt-Griesheim,” said SZ, adding they were the “best-guarded” buildings in Germany.

SZ said the “shear mass of information” created the impression that the United States regarded Germany as a whole as “US base Germany”

The special webside said in total the German government had granted “special permits” to 207 American firms allowing them to undertake “sensitive tasks” on German territory on behalf of the US goverment.

ipj/hc (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

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