When drones entered the public conscience, they instantaneously became inevitable. These days, they are coming to a town near you.
The Seattle Police departement is 1 of 50 organizations in the country that has been granted permission from the federal government to start using drones. They are going to be utilizing the Draganflyer X-6, which is equipped with surveillance cameras with infrared capabilities.
According to Seattlepi, not everyone is ecstatic about this:
A handful of Central District residents yelled at angry protesters, saying they wanted civil discourse. That didn’t stop the interruptions, but some had their questions answered through the chaos.
“I’m not really surprised that people are upset,” American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman Jennifer Shaw said. “It’s a frightening thing to think that there’s government surveillance cameras flying overhead.”
The idea that drones will prevent crime is not realistic. So the real benefits would be in finding existing criminals, help keep police officers out of trouble and to save on many in area’s where drones can be used instead of people or oil guzzling helicopters. Outside of that, there can’t be any real benefit for Americans. There were not votes on this and domestic use of drones has not even been mentioned in the debates.
That’s right, drones are flying overhead and mainstream debate about the issue does not even exist.
As Linda Lye says in sfgate.com:
“When law enforcement has dangerous and powerful tools in their arsenal, they’ll use them,” Lye said. “The invitation to abuse this tool is enormous.”
The government owns our airspace and the rights of states are of little concern. With technology outpacing our law books, corruption at the highest levels of power is inevitable.
What will you do when a drone fly’s overhead? Will it be time to test the sling shot or will that result in grave consequences?
