If you’re worried about black helicopters, you might want to trade in your anti-aircraft gun for a good electromagnetic pulse device.
An Associated Press article from last week states, “Civilian cousins of the unmanned military aircraft that have tracked and killed terrorists in the Middle East and Asia are in demand by police departments, border patrols, power companies, news organizations and others wanting a bird’s-eye view that’s too impractical or dangerous for conventional planes or helicopters to get.”
Besides a possible increase in scrap parts, privacy concerns are a major issue if drones start entering the civilian market. This looks like a possibility because, according to the AP article, Congress wants the Federal Aviation Administration to allow civilian drones in the country’s airspace by 2015. The FAA is supposed to start easing regulations this spring to allow “limited commercial use of small drones for the first time.”
One reason for wanting the drones flying around is to test them, sure, but as the article said, there are a lot of uses for the drones. Odds are good that eventually drones will be flying around the nation, but that doesn’t mean we have to panic – yet.
The FAA is not going to let drones buzz around without any kind of regulation; at least they better not. They have rules about where airplanes and helicopters can fly, and similar rules should be in place for drones. That way if there is an issue or concern over privacy, the accuser has some legal legs to stand on, a large organization owning the drone can be held accountable and we don’t have to
invest in jammer technology. Everybody wins.
An industry spokesman is quoted in the AP article as saying privacy concerns are exaggerated, comparing the use of a drone to someone with a helicopter and a camera. If that analogy actually worked, they’d have a point. The main concern is size. Drones are not small right now, but they can still go places a helicopter or airplane can’t. They’re going to get smaller too; technology tends to do that.
Proper regulations are vital to insuring privacy concerns are dealt with and that the government agency’s using the drones don’t get too much power. Somewhere the American people need to draw a line on what we let the government do, and it seems like that line gets moved far too often, either by going too far or not far enough, depending on your political affiliation.
Anyway, if police and news corporations have their hearts set on the overgrown mechanical tinker toys, they’re going to get them eventually. The question then is how we allow their optimal use without creating a quagmire of issues related to privacy or other legal rights. Drones have proven their use in military situations, so the possibilities of civilian use aren’t hard to see.
The drones will sooner or later find their way into our airspace, that much seems certain. However that doesn’t mean they have to be allowed to roam unchecked and unregulated. The same rules that keep helicopters from landing in your front yard can be used to keep drones from invading our private property or violating civil rights. If the drones are going to be among us, we need to keep them in check, because like with all new technology, they can be used for good or bad.
