How do we benefit from drones without giving up our privacy, civil rights and humanity in the process?
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Drones come in various shapes and sizes and can be and are modified and outfitted for your use of choice and preferences. Main uses fall under 3 categories:
CIVILIAN COMMERCIAL
These Civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), or Drones as they are better known, seem to be everywhere. They sell on Amazon for around $500 to $800. Add a high-definition video camera and you are at around $1.300. Amazon is seeking FAA permission to test a delivery system using Drones for packages up to 5lb, which covers 86% of their products. The 25-mile range of these drones will give them a delivery radius of 2,000 sq.
The low costs and public fascination with drones, coupled with lack of clear regulation, created a potentially “wild west” dangerous climate. One example being the American Airline plane that almost collided with a drone in Florida earlier this year. In addition, police departments have expressed safety concerns claiming that without meaningful and clear FAA regulations, accidents will continue to happen and unknown damages to life and property will occur.
The concern over the simple but complicated issue of air traffic over cities being overpopulated with drones and various other aircraft, is further exacerbated by the bigger issue of what happens to the data and footage drone video cameras capture? Assume an innocent commercial delivery system of consumer products. To get to the customer’s address, the drone will use its camera and GPS, recording and streaming the journey, capturing your activities and image (with advanced technology you will not be safe in your yard or bedroom from these drone prying and recording eyes), if you happen to be in its path. Where is that footage kept? Who has access to it? Will there be software to pick up and report criminal or “suspicious” activity to the authorities? Will the NSA create an army of drones, or piggyback on commercial drones feeds, to spy on all of us in the name of Homeland Security and the War on Terror? Who will decide what to record/keep and what not to? And there goes what is left of our fast disappearing privacy!
MILITARY
Of much bigger concern at present is the use of drones by the military. By one estimate, 95% of targeted killings, estimated at 2000 to 3000 people since 9/11 (outside of Iraq and Afghanistan), have been accomplished using drones (May 29, 2012 report). A substantial benefit is keeping US troops (or any government or group using a drone) out of harm’s way. The serious down side is the erosion of our humanity and the loss of intense personal comprehension and hopefully deterrent effect of the act of killing, associated with violence and wars.
Starting in 2002 the CIA and US Army have conducted remote drone strikes from the US as well as a network of secret bases around the world.
In his film Drones, Rick Rosenthal takes us on an intimate journey into the lives, work and psyche of drone pilots. Set mostly in a claustrophobic drone command trailer (in ironic contrast to the advanced technology of drones, the AC in the trailer does not work, which makes for added stress and tension in the film) in the Nevada dessert, the film exposes us, in real time, to the process, reality and agony of following kill orders and going through with a drone kill mission.
Coming from very different backgrounds, the two pilots, Jack Bowls (Matt O’Leary) and Sue Lawson (Eloise Mumford), are tasked with killing a terrorist who is attending his birthday party with family, inclusive of young children and a baby. In spite of clear and specific orders from their commanding officers (Colonel Wallace played by Whip Hubley and General Lawson played by William Russ), and threats of a court martial and prison, Sue and Matt alternate doubting, arguing, reasoning and fighting each other to prevent the launch of the missile, when Sue finally at the last minute reaches an agonizing decision and takes forceful action with all its associated costs and devastation to everyone involved, on both sides.
The most important take away from this intense movie for us all, is that although the drone pilots are thousands of miles away from their target and the drone they operate is 5 to 6 miles above it, the technology allows them to clearly see their targets up close and personal as well as any other people they will end up killing. Also critical is the fact that although they sometimes refer to the system as a video game, and video game performance contributes to their required training and skills, the drone killing system is very far from being one. This is a unique and new experience for pilots who traditionally did not and do not get an intimate view of their kills (victims) . Now with this technology they do. Since procedure requires them to wait and verify their kills visually, they are forced to live with the consequences of their actions, which often include nightmares and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
HYBRID SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY
And for the icing on the cake:
Police departments, various government agencies, entities and universities all over the country are getting into the drone game. While universities are interested in academics and research, law enforcement is interested in surveillance and crowd control.
Big “unknown” is what’s next for the Police and FBI? Are we going to see predator drones on US soil for their SWAT teams? Will they use drones to combat drug operations, malcontents, survivalists, separatists, the sovereign citizen movement and other radical armed groups or groups that simply protest government actions? Who will decide and who will oversea these agencies and make sure our privacy and civil rights are protected? And most scary, how will we prevent drones from falling into terrorist hands?
We are fast catching up to all those science fiction books and movies where advanced technology and lack of public will and power make privacy a distant memory, and life as part of a security apparatus fueled by fear and suspicion (civil rights be dammed), becomes our very unpleasant and near reality. London is famously blanketed by CCTV, where every move you make is likely observed and recorded. Drone technology makes it that much easier for police and governments to spy on us and record everything we do, and with the sophisticated technology available and being further developed, we are no longer safe even inside our homes and private spaces.
No doubt there are many positive uses for drones, including location of missing, lost or kidnapped persons, delivery of essential items to disaster areas, expansion and ease of commerce and limited controlled military and security applications inclusive of fighting domestic terrorism and violent anti-government groups, to name but a few. However, regulations, safeguards and controls must be created and a monitoring and oversight transparent system must be put in place. We have to make sure we don’t slide into a world without civil rights and privacy, as well as prevent the creation of a desensitized public (even more than we already are) to the horrors of wars due to the use of these remote, effective and efficient surveillance and killing machines.
Photo: Master Sgt. Stanly Thompson /US Air Force Photo2: Whitewater Films /Drones Film Poster
Photo3: Don McCullough /Flicker