Huffington Magazine Issue 5 | Page 31

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