As Trump’s shock troops invade Los Angeles, his administration is using every tool at its disposal to attack and surveil the political protests taking place in the city’s streets. That apparently includes the use of a Predator drone, which 404 Media reports was spotted by an aviation tracker as it zoomed over the city.
The outlet notes that, over the weekend, an MQ-9 Reaper flew over the political protests happening in the city. Onlookers suspected the drone’s presence based on public flight data that picked up movements of a mysterious aircraft:
One aircraft with no callsign, making it initially difficult to determine its model or which agency it belongs to, flew above the areas of the protests in Paramount and downtown Los Angeles on Sunday. The data showed this aircraft flying in distinctive hexagonal patterns, and 404 Media observed it fly afterwards to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The existence of the drone appears to have been confirmed by an aviation tracking enthusiast, “Aeroscout,” who came across air traffic control audio that largely corroborates the vehicle’s presence during the protests and riots. The audio was shared with 404 Media by Aeroscout. “TROY703, traffic 12 o’clock, 8 miles, opposite direction, another ‘TROY’ Q-9 at FL230,” an air traffic operator can be heard to say, in apparent reference to the autonomous plane. TROY is a callsign used by DHS, which would have been operating the drone, 404 writes. Q-9 is a shorthand for MQ-9, it adds.
This isn’t the first time that the government has treated its own population like a foreign enemy. In 2020, as George Floyd protests roiled cities throughout the country, Customs and Border Patrol also used a Predator drone to surveil protesters. The use of the drone sparked inquiries by congressional leaders into its legality.
A variety of other aircraft were deployed over LA during the last few days. On Monday, it was reported that an LAPD helicopter had flown over a group of protesters and claimed, “I have all of you on camera. I’m going to come to your house.” Privacy advocates have noted that the existence of facial recognition and other covert tracking tech make such threats possible if not particularly likely.
Trump’s excursion in LA represents a significant escalation from previous federal outings and has little precedent in the modern era. His mobilization of the National Guard, followed by the deployment of U.S. Marines, is an incredible overreaction to a smattering of riots that pale in comparison to your average Super Bowl mob. At the same time, recently leaked documents show that Trump’s DHS head, Kristi Neom, had asked the Defense Department to use the military to arrest “lawbreakers”—an act that, under general U.S. law, would be illegal without the invocation of the Insurrection Act. Trump has also claimed he might arrest California’s governor, Gavin Newsom. Critics maintain that the administration is dancing on the knife’s edge of dictatorial overreach.
Predictably, the police-state style tactics have inspired significant criticism, including from LA Mayor Karen Bass, who said that her city was being used as a “test case” for future authoritarian operations. This is “what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government,” Bass said, during a recent press conference. “I don’t think our city should be used for an experiment.” Bass added that the “chaos” in the city was “started” by “Washington DC” and that “nothing warranted the raids” that had taken place as part of ICE’s operations.
Why has the Trump administration chosen this particular moment to stage a climactic battle in the heart of Liberal America? The government maintains that it’s just keeping the peace in a city overrun by criminals, though critics (like Jon Stewart) have voiced other theories: Could it be that Trump is doing this now because his former “First Buddy,” Elon Musk, accused him of being in the Epstein files last week—an accusation that swiftly gained traction as a result of Democratic lawmakers’ interest in pursuing the matter? Could it be that this latest display of authoritarian stagecraft is really just a flailing and desperate effort to distract from the President’s longtime ties to a notorious pedophile who died during Trump’s last term in office? There is, of course, no way to tell, but onlookers are entitled to their perspectives.
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