The appearance of Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) on the Senate floor in his marathon filibuster notwithstanding, the subject of Predator Drones is becoming an increasingly hot and debatable topic in Congress, in the media, and on the street corner. We Americans, famous for the “Don’t Tread on Me” attitude, have to be a bit wary about this technological marvel that can spy on us or kill us, depending on its mission. Like that old movie slogan tells you, “Be afraid; be very afraid.”
Only the other day there were reports that the pilot of an Alitalia flight coming into JFK saw what he believed to be a drone flying over Brooklyn. The NYPD and military said that the pilot was mistaken but, just as pilots who report UFOs seem more credible, I wonder if this is just damage control. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has spoken about using drones for surveillance in the city in the past, so it makes you think twice, doesn’t it?
For example, would a terrorist action on our soil warrant the use of a drone response? How about another 9/11 type of attack? As we know from the reports we get of drones being used overseas, there always seems to be collateral damage. Yes, you might take out a terrorist commander, but along with him you kill innocent civilians, including children, as well. How can we ever view this as acceptable policy?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Samuel R. Kephart
For national security purposes, Americans are already subject to warrantless wiretaps of calls and emails, the warrantless GPS "tagging" of their vehicles, the domestic use of Predators or other spy-in-the-sky drones, and the Department of Homeland Security's monitoring of all our behavior through "data fusion centers".
Given this toxic mashup of losses of privacy, if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then domestic drones are a superhighway to an Orwellian panoptic gulag.
America's promise has always been the power of the many to rule, instead of the one. Ungoverned drone usage, particularly domestically, gives power to the one.
Domestic drone usage is ill-conceived, elitist, and end-runs our inherent Constitutional protections.
Here are two (2) different videos that anchor my points.
2 - pablo
Excellent post Samuel, thanks.
3 - El Bicho
isn't that a picture of the Emperor from Return of the Jedi?
4 - El Bicho
I don't see what Paul accomplished other than drawing a little attention to himself. Rather than filibuster, why not get a bill moving to limit the executive branch, because if the technology is there, some administration or agency is eventually going to use it on an American citizen on U.S. soil, especially as the tech gets smaller and more refined.
5 - Victor Lana
Yes, El, it is the emperor (who before that was Senator Palpatine).
6 - Dr Dreadful
It's not just the feds as Samuel outlines. Here in San Diego it turns out that the local police have for the past several years been routinely photographing the license plates of all vehicles that pass their patrol cars. The data is then uploaded to a mainframe, thereby allowing the movements of any vehicle to be reconstructed to a fairly high degree of accuracy.
The justification, as always, is that the policy facilitates crime prevention and detection. The police say that the policy makes it easier to track vehicles that are suspected of being used in a crime.
Ironically, this is happening in a city that recently deactivated all of its fixed traffic cameras, partly because of privacy concerns.
7 - roger nowosielski
And San Diego is prosperous enough to have such measures, like the deactivation of the life cams, instituted, and yet . . .
8 - Dr Dreadful
And yet it's that paradigm shift in law and order that's occurred since 9/11. Time was that in order for the police to legally track the movements of private citizens there had to be a reasonable possibility that the information gathered was germane to an investigation.
Nowadays, it seems, any activity or movement that might potentially be germane to any potential investigation is fair game - which, of course, can include just about anything.
9 - roger nowosielski
Of course 9/11 served as the occasion to institute the paradigm shift you speak of. May I refer you to what's rapidly becoming a regular feature of everyday life -- "the state of exception." I spoke more than once on this subject, but it bears repeating.
Here's one link.
10 - Victor Lana
I recently read something that I didn't mention in the article about drones that are like the size of a bird but are able to spy or also dispense a lethal blast. Check out this video about these MAVs.
11 - Clav
I find these last several comments very interesting in that I can remember many an occasion in the not-so-distant past when I and others have been mocked and derided for "being paranoid" whenever we complained about the government gathering data on the population.
Now, even Democrats are worried about a Democratic-controlled government spying on us.
You're right. It's true. They are.
Now, what do we do about it?
12 - c i n d y
WASHINGTON (CNN) --
Drones used to be for wars far from the United States, but they're popping up closer to home.
The Federal Aviation Administration forecasts some 10,000 civilian drones will be in use in the U.S. within five years, possibly used by police to fight crime and by oil companies to keep an eye on pipelines.
Friday's announcement from the FAA seeking proposals from cities, states and universities to create six test sites for unmanned aircraft systems is a step in that direction.
The sites will help officials develop safety standards that will allow the government to fully integrate drones into national airspace by 2015.
The drone industry says they make good economic sense.
...and in other news --
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
The NSA has become the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever.
13 - Clav
Consider this:
Most of the regulars, at least here in the Politics section, are here in large part because of the comments threads and the free-wheeling discussions that take place here. Simply put, the comments threads and the discussions therein are a major component of the attraction this section at least, has for those who participate.
But now, thanks to badly programmed spam busting software, it's become increasingly difficult to post comments and the frustration level has gone through the roof.
So, IT Department: how about fixing the damn thing, huh? It's not like we haven't complained enough about it.
Sheesh.
14 - Christopher Rose
Hi Cindy,
I've unblocked your comments and hopefully the brainfarting spam detector will chill out for you now.
We're migrating to an entirely new platform in the not too distant future and I imagine that is going to change the comments space significantly, but we've not yet been given any details by the site owners.
15 - Dr Dreadful
I do feel that if the guvmint is nurturing some nefarious plan to go all Big Brother on us, they've bollocksed it up a bit by utilizing these contraptions in such a way that they aren't seen as benign.
We don't think of "unmanned planes" or "remote-piloted aircraft" serenely monitoring traffic patterns on the interstate, or surveying long-distance pipelines or power lines. They're not our friends now. They're "drones" - sinister machines spying silently on us and dealing implacable death from the blue.
It surely would have better furthered the plot if their benign applications had been pioneered first, then the technology quietly adopted for military and surveillance use...
Unless fear is a key ingredient of the plan.
16 - roger nowosielski
Pretty astute. A politics of fear coupled with a warning, like showing your hand in a poker game, to show that resistance is futile.
17 - Dr Dreadful
Yeah, but you'd think they'd have learned by now that a fearful populace is a lot less compliant than an oblivious one.
18 - roger nowosielski
Perhaps. Kurt Vonnegut's short story (and a movie) comes to mind: Harrison Bergeron.
19 - Dr Dreadful
I saw that movie many years ago: a young Sean Astin played the title role, IIRC.
20 - roger nowosielski
Yes, and I think it was very well done, compared to the short story which is barely three or four pages long.
21 - Glen Contrarian
The drones are a lot less of a worry than the NSA survelliance facility. If you haven't read the Wired article Cindy referenced (I read it in the magazine several months ago), you should.
22 - pablo
Welcome to the New World Order folks. Oh that's right I am just paranoid. LOL
23 - Dr Dreadful
Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy paranoia, Pablo. That isn't the adjective I'd use to describe yours though. :-)
24 - Pablo
Nor is it that adjective that I would use to describe your politics Dread, naive does come to mind however. :)
25 - Dr Dreadful
LOL. In all the years you've been commenting here, Pablo, I can't recall you employing basic critical thinking in a single one of your arguments, so I hardly think you're in a position to diagnose anyone's naïveté...