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.
[…] It is unclear from the FCC documents whether Southcom’s tests within the US are linked to any active narcotic or counter-terrorism investigations. Also, none of the parties involved would say whether the midwest vehicle data would be deleted, stored or passed on to other federal or local agencies.
“[We would like to know] what they are they doing with that data, how they are they storing it, and whether they are contemplating deploying this in the US,” said the ACLU’s Stanley. “Because if they decide that it’s usable domestically, there’s going to be enormous pressure to deploy it.”
The ostensible focus is narcotics trafficking, but as always, drugs are the government’s red herring – and “homeland security threats” will always be the movements and actions of oppressed people.