Voices
law enforcement. One drone — the
Predator B — can monitor a target continuously for 20 hours, far
longer than any police helicopter
or manned aircraft. And the cost
is relatively cheap: the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
recently purchased new helicopters at a cost of $1.7 million each; a
small drone costs about $40,000.
Drones can provide tremendous benefits: the agriculture industry wants them to treat crops
with pesticides; the energy sector
can use them to monitor infrastructure such as pipelines; and
first responders want drones to
explore dangerous or volatile accident sites. But because of the
heightened capacity for domestic
surveillance, and the addition of
hundreds, if not thousands of additional machines to an alreadycrowded airspace, there are understandable risks — both privacy and
safety — to this new technology.
We need a robust public debate
about the moral, ethical and legal
consequences of domestic drone
use in the same way our country
grapples over these issues when
we target terrorists abroad: who
may operate drones, for what use,
for how long, and with what privacy and civil liberties protections?
ROBERT
FRIEDMAN
HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
And, while all domestic drones are
currently “unarmed,” will this restriction be maintained? A deputy
police chief in Texas recently noted that his department is considering using rubber bullets and tear
gas on its drone.
Although many planes have already left the hangar — the FAA
has issued over 300 temporary
licenses to operate drones — it’s
not too late for the agency to put
in place sensible privacy and civil liberties protections to
While
keep pace with an era
all domestic
of vast proliferation.
drones are
Whether t H