4 ms·

And after a few years of no threats, they will be re-purposed to "catch pedophiles".

• ihsw 13y ago
  These ships likely have a unit cost exceeding $50M (considering that they're drone blimps), however the corresponding jet airliner JSTARS has a unit cost somewhere north of $250M. They're used as battle management and command&control tools, and the military branches will very likely want to keep them out of the hands of civilian LE departments due to all the expensive equipment on-board. The unit cost of blimps vs rotorcraft is likely lower, especially regarding fuel expenditures, and many LE departments have expressed great interest in all kinds of drone surveillance. I would be surprised if these things weren't deployed in high-threat scenarios in municipalities.
  • revelation 13y ago
    That's wonderful logic except for the fact that the R&D likely cost billions and we are only buying a handful of these things. In fact, in these army projects, the number of final units bought is from experience inversely related to the cost explosion of the project in the R&D department.
• rorrr2 13y ago
  And then Snowden2.0 will leak that they monitor everyone. There will be a short outburst of anger, and nothing will happen. Fascism is gaining its ground one apathetic citizen at a time.
  • legutierr 13y ago
    Do you consider yourself apathetic, or only cynical? I find apathy and cynicism to be close cousins, and equally damaging to democratic government.