STATE, LOCAL
“ INTERNATIONAL
Drones Come Home
Kim Dixon, staff writer
As part of the War on Terrorism,
the United States military and the
C.I.A. have used unmanned aerial
vehicles, or drones, for reconnais
sance missions and to eliminate
targeted Taliban and al-Qaeda mili
tants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ye
men, and Somalia. In a February ii,
2013 article in Time, Lev Grossman
reports that the Pentagon now has
7,500 drones in its fleet. Like some
thing out of a science fiction movie,
these robotic vehicles are armed with
weapons and are operated remotely.
They can also fly autonomously based
on pre-programmed flight plans. As
Grossman put it, drones “represent a
revolution in the idea of what combat
is: with drones the
U.S. can exert force
not only instantly
but undeterred by
the risk of incurring
American casualties
or massive logistical
bills, and without the
terrestrial baggage of
geography.”
But what happens
when drones become
available for domestic use? President
Obama has given the Federal Avia
tion Administration a September 2015
deadline to open the nation’s airspace
to drone traffic. According to a Feb
ruary 15th Los Angeles Times article
by Brian Bennett and Joel Rubin, the
FAA has estimated that within 5 years
of the deadline, as many as 10,000
drones could be overhead. They also
reported that the FAA had issued
1,428 permits to domestic drone
operators since 2007, with 327 listed
as still active. The FAA has solicited
proposals to create six drone-testing
sites.
State and local law enforcement
agencies are likely to be the larg
est customers, using drones to study
crime scenes, for search and rescue
missions, to track suspects, and to
assist in investigations. Grossman
reports that the state of Washington
wants to try using drones for ava
lanche control, the U.S. Department
of Energy would take air samples,
and The Forest Service wants to use
drones to help locate and fight fires. U.
S. Customs and Border Protection has
Russian Meteorite Mystery
“Americans are
great and heedless
adopters of new
techologies”
been using Predator drones to monitor
the Mexican border since 2005. They
currently have 10 and have requested
14 more.
“Drones can carry high-resolution
video cameras, infrared sensors, li
cense plate readers, listening devices
and other high-tech gear,” say Ben
nett and Rubin. And that could be a
real problem. Legislation has not been
passed to determine what information
agencies can and cannot gather using
drones or whether operators may be
held liable for criminal trespassing,
stalking or harassment. Grossman
argues, however, that “There are cer
tainly precedents: the Supreme Court
has ruled that the
police can, under the
Fourth Amendment,
fly an airplane over
your fenced back
yard and check out
whether you’re grow
ing pot back there.
It’s not a giant leap to
imagine them flying
a drone instead.”
Catherine Crump, a
lawyer for the American Civil Liberties
Union, believes “Americans have the
right to know if and how the govern
ment is using drones to spy on them.”
The ACLU has called for updating laws
to protect privacy.
As Grossman says, “Americans are
great and heedless adopters of new
technologies, and few technologies are
as seductive, promise so much at so
little political and financial and human
cost... They give us tremendous new
powers, and they seem to ask very
little of us in return ... Drones don’t
just give us power, they tempt us to
use it.”
Moique Kriesman, staff writer
Several meteorites crashed to the
earth on Friday, February 15th at 9:20
AM. A large meteorite fell near the
Russian town of Chelyabinsk (a city
with a population of approximately
a million people), several fragments
fell into a frozen lake, and several
more fell in Kazakhstan. The Russian
Academy of Sciences reports that the
largest meteorite was estimated to be
about 10 tons.
It travelled at a speed of at least
33,000 mph and created an explosion
equal to about 300,000 tons of TNT.
Phil Black reports in February 15th
CNN article that over 3,000 buildings
were damaged and over 1,000 people
were hurt.
Black
also
reports
that many
people in
Russia
caught the
meteor on
camera
as it shot
across the
sky. It is
common
for Russian
citizens to
install
Meteorite Landing
cameras in their cars for fear of being
pulled over by corrupt police. The
meteorite hit at about 9:20 AM when
many people were driving, so it was a
well-filmed event.
CBS News reports that over 1 mil
lion square feet of glass was shattered
in the city of Chelyabinsk. In such a
cold climate, living without a window
can be very dangerous.
“The windows breaking were from
the disintegrating rocks. The pres
sure waves the rocks produced pushed
the air molecules into the windows.
The air molecules pushing against the
window at great speeds caused the
windows to break. If a window was
strong enough to withstand the shock
wave then the window would oscillate,
however this was not the case because
windows used in regular construction
are not extremely durable. There is a
theoretical scenario that if the pressure
inside the building were large enough
that it could counteract the pressure
produced by the shock wave, then
the window would not have broken
and stayed stable, but it’s not realistic
because humans could not live in an
environment of that high of pressure.
These pressure waves (or you can say
shock waves) were traveling at such
high speeds that windows were pushed
into the houses and buildings. This
is similar to what happened with the
atomic bombs and those shock waves
flattening out structures.” SAID BY
WHO??
The RIA Novosti, a Russian news
agency, reports that some people
in Chelyabinsk smashed their own
windows,
hoping to
be reim
bursed by
the gov
ernment.
The
RIA No
vosti also
reports
that Vladi
mir Zhiri
novsky, a
nationalist
leader,
blames
Amer-
photo via baltimoresun.com ^qj.
the meteorite strike. He claims,
“It’s not meteors falling. It’s the test
of a new weapon by the Americans.”
The incident has sparked a call for
a more thorough monitoring system of
meteors, but NASA spokesman Steve
Cole says that meteoroids like the one
that fell near Chelyabinsk are small,
difficult to spot, and provide little
warning.
HERALD@EMAIL.MEREDITH.EDU
Editor: Amy Hruby — Assistant Editors: Jessica Feltner, Cody Jeffery — Advisor: Dr. Rebecca Duncan
Staff Writers: Lizzie Wood, Helen Kenney, Marzia Nawrozi, Monique Kreisman, Sarah Haseeb, Shanna Alley, Maitlyn Healey,
Emma Johnson, Abigail Gupton, AJ Thompson, Hannah Thornton
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