Drug shipments, eh? Is that why they are flying over Lakota and Navajo territory and the Grand Canyon? I suspect this is to spy on #ClimateActivists, especially #NativeAmericanActivists.

From 2019: Pentagon testing #MassSurveillance balloons across the US

Mark Harris
Fri 2 Aug 2019 06.00 EDT

"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 #SouthDakota 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 #HomelandSecurity threats', according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, an aerospace and defence company.

"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.

"Arthur Holland Michel, the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York, said, 'What this new technology proposes is to watch everything at once. Sometimes it’s referred to as ‘combat TiVo’ because when an event happens somewhere in the surveilled area, you can potentially rewind the tape to see exactly what occurred, and rewind even further to see who was involved and where they came from.'

"The tests have been commissioned by the US Southern Command (#Southcom), which is responsible for disaster response, intelligence operations and security cooperation in the #Caribbean and #CentralAmerica and #SouthAmerica. Southcom is a joint effort by the #USArmy, #USNavy, #USAirForce and other forces, and one of its key roles is identifying and intercepting drug shipments headed for the United States."

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/02/pentagon-balloons-surveillance-midwest

#Orwell #WarrantlessSpying #AntiProtestLaws
#BigMining #HumanRights #ClimateJustice
#Environment #AntiProtest #MilitaryIndustrialComplex
#SpyBalloons

What's going on in #IndianCountry?!!

Joy Rides into the Stratosphere, and #MilitaryIntelligence: Helium Balloons over #Navajo and #Lakota Nations, Indian Country

"#WorldView also announced a partnership with the military defense contractor #SierraNevada for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, for the U.S. military using its balloons. One of these balloon flights was for the U.K. defense department in the Grand Canyon."

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Sept. 5, 2024

"Joy rides into the stratosphere, and military surveillance, are two of the purposes for the helium balloons over the #NavajoNation, #LakotaNations in #SouthDakota, and most of Indian country, according to the owners of the helium balloons.

"#TheGuardian exposed the helium balloons #spying platforms and the #ACLU in South Dakota warned of this #surveillance. The balloons are capable of video recording vehicles traveling to #protests, and can reveal where the vehicles arrived from. It's spying without a warrant.

"The balloon owners, Aerostar and World View, have U.S. military contracts for recovering payloads, as was the case with World View's experimental payload recovery in the #GrandCanyon for England's defense department. These balloons can also carry out ground surveys.

"Aerostar is based near #SiouxFalls, South Dakota, and World View is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/joy-rides-into-stratosphere-and.html

#WarrantlessSpying #NativeAmericanActivists #AntiProtestLaws #BigMining #ClimateActivists #HumanRights #ClimateJustice #Environment #AntiProtest #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #SpyBalloons

The secret U.S. effort to track, hide and surveil the Chinese spy balloon

Nearly a year later, Biden administration officials say the threat was exaggerated, but U.S. military officials contend that too little has been done to detect high-altitude #spyballoons.

#Chinesespyballoon #balloon
🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna130991

Satellite pictures show
China's spy balloons in Asia
A.I. reveals truth

#bbc #ai #china #spyballoons #haiku #poetry

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-65972168

Der Artikel legt nahe, dass es sich mindestens bei einem der über Alaska abgeschossenen Ballons um ein Freizeitprojekt handelt: "If that is what happened, it would mean the US military expended a missile costing $439,000 (£365,000) to fell an innocuous hobby balloon worth about $12 (£10)."
Noch ein Argument, warum die Militärs nicht immer das letzte Wort haben sollten.

Object downed by US missile may have been amateur hobbyists’ $12 balloon | US military | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/object-us-military-shot-down-amateur-hobbyists-balloon

#balloon2
#spyballoons

Rather to my surprise, my regular front page cartoon in The Westmorland Gazette this week turns out to be about Chinese balloons. I was expecting them to reject this one as it's not *exactly* local to the UK's Lake District

#spyballoons #ufo #aliens #TheTruthIsOutThere

Yo Joe, now do the lack of #rail #safety and why #StrikeBreaking only makes it worse.

#JoeBiden wasting time speaking on #SpyBalloons shouldn't be top #news while #Ohio is being #gassed by #NorfolkSouthern.