If that deployment can save the LEOs of Morton County and surrounding communities some budget because the protesters don't want to mess with the NDNG, fine.
If the NDNG units are not acting as law enforcement, there is no violation of any law (specifically, posse comitatus), and if ordered there for a NDNG mission tasking or maneuvers with the consent of the property owners, no foul. If the protesters don't like their neighbors, well, that happens.
The protesters have cost Morton County over ten million dollars in LEO costs, and have done over a million dollars in damage. If they find an 'unloaded' anti-UAV unit to be a threat, what are they flying that is threatened? The launchers are for surface to air missiles, not indirect fire weapons.
Well, from another source:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/17/national-guard-deploys-missile-launchers-to-dakota-access-pipeline-to-observe-protestors.htmlNational Guard Deploys Missile Launchers to Dakota Access Pipeline to ‘Observe’ ProtestorsNorth Dakota Guard spokesman William Prokopyk told The Daily Beast that the Avenger’s missile tubes aren’t loaded. “These systems have observation capabilities and are used strictly in the observation role to protect private property and public safety,” Prokopyk said.
“There’s no authority to arm them,” he stressed, adding that the two Avengers have been in Morton County—site of the drill pad—for more than a month without incident.
> snip<
Prokopyk said the Guard sent the Avenger because it possesses night-vision equipment that many North Dakota Guard units lack, and because the Avenger has an enclosed, heated crew compartment. “With wind chill here, it’s been negative 45 degrees,” Prokopyk said. “I’m not kidding.”
Prokopyk declined to say whether the Avenger crew at the drill pad is using the vehicle’s night-vision equipment specifically to detect activists’ drones.
Around 200 “water-protectors” from the main Standing Rock protest camp reportedly cut through a fence and attempted to reach the drill pad on Jan. 16. Police and National Guardsmen stopped the protesters from reaching the pad. But the activists got close enough to spot an Avenger.
“Many water protectors made it further around the bend to the east closer to the drill site and were met with police and reports of mace used,” Ziegler wrote on Facebook. “We climbed up the hill on the west side right up next to the launcher.”
The Morton County Sheriff’s Office said three people were arrested during the Jan. 16 protest.
As an aside, the drill pad is for drilling underneath the bottom of the lake to put the pipeline below the bottom of the lake by (reports vary) 40 to 80 feet. The idea is to never have the pipe in the water, but buried well below the lake bottom.
