Is This A Good Idea : Science Channel

January 03, 2012

There are a lot of folks up in arms about Predator drones these days. I'm not talking just about al-Qaida operatives trying to hide out in Pakistan, or the Iranian regime, which recently claimed to have brought down a U.S. robotic surveillance aircraft of a different make, the Lockheed RQ-170 Sentinel, that it said had intruded upon Iranian airspace. (U.S. officials, in contrast, say the drone apparently malfunctioned and crashed, and suggested in this ABC News story that the one displayed proudly on Iranian TV was just a mock-up created for propaganda purposes.)

No, I'm talking about Americans who worry that robotic spy aircraft may be used to keep tabs on them, inside our borders -- that is, if they're not already snooping around at high altitude over Anytown, U.S.A., transmitting high-resolution video images that are being perused thousands of miles away in some windowless government office with no name on its door. Now, there was a time when I might have considered such Dronephobia, for want of a better term, as strictly the province of those who wear tinfoil undergarments, drink only distilled rainwater and keep a careful watch for black helicopters landing in their backyards. But that was before this recent Los Angeles Times article regarding what may be the first time a Predator drone has been utilized to make a domestic arrest of U.S. citizens.

Predator Drones in Use

As the article explains, the sequence of events started when Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke showed up at a local farm armed with a search warrant to look for six missing cows and, by his account, was chased off by three men brandishing rifles. Janke called in reinforcements from other local police agencies and the state highway patrol, but he knew the gunmen -- suspected to be members of an anti-government extremist movement -- could be hiding anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread. As a result, he also sought help from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, who provided him with the services of one of the eight Predator B drones that they normally use along the U.S.-Canadian border to search for smugglers and illegal immigrants. That evening, while the sheriff watched on a monitor, the Predator cased the farm from 10,000 feet up for several hours, supplying both live video and thermal imaging that reportedly showed people lying in wait with long rifles. The police waited to act until the next morning, when the drone spotted several of the suspects near the edge of the property, apparently unarmed. A SWAT team then swooped in and arrested them without having to fire a shot. (They also reportedly found the six missing cows.)

That might sound like a blessedly bloodless resolution to what could have turned into another Waco or Ruby Ridge. But the article note s that two federal agencies, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, also have been using Predators for domestic surveillance, and that the drones have been used at least two dozen times previously by local law enforcement in North Dakota within the past six months.

"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them."

Well, that's reassuring. But as it turns out, local police departments both here and in other countries have been using unmanned aerial vehicles for a while. Back in 2006, according to this Technovelgy.com article, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department began experimenting with the SkySeer, a miniature lightweight UAV with a 6 .5-foot wingspan that collapses like a kite so it can be stored in a shoulder pack. Not long after that, as this 2007 BBC News story details, British police began deploying larger drone aircraft armed with night-vision gear and video cameras to scour the nighttime streets for "anti-social behaviour and public disorder" and have continued to do so for several years now. (In 2010, Merseyside police used a UAV to make the first-ever drone-assisted arrest of a car thief. The Miami-Dade County Police Department has purchased its own drone -- not a Predator, but a Honeywell RQ-16 T-Hawk -- which it plans to deploy 10,000 feet over Florida, to gather intelligence for police SWAT teams. In a situation similar to the North Dakota stakeout, police in South Carolina recently used a small drone to gather intelligence about a house in which an armed man had barricaded himself, according to this Wall Street Journal article.

Federal Aviation Administration Restrictions

The only reason, in fact, that police departments aren't already using UAVs extensively is that the Federal Aviation Administration has been concerned about the potential for midair collisions in domestic airspace. But according to this November 2011 L.A. Times article, the government agency plans in January to release new proposed regulations that would clear the way for police drones. The Times reports that one UAV manufacturer, California-based AeroVironment, has been testing a miniature remote-controlled helicopter, the Qube, that fits in the trunk of a car and can be controlled with a tablet PC.

Police chiefs see the drones as a huge plus. They not only can keep suspects under surveillance from aloft without putting officers on the ground in danger, but they're also far cheaper than manned helicopters, so a lot more of them can be deployed. Additionally, their sensing equipment and cameras are far more perceptive than human eyes would be, and they can work longer hours.

This potential proliferation of robotic eyes in our skies has a lot of people worried. In fact, it's an issue that unites groups on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, from ultra-conservative New World Order conspiracists and Second Amendment zealots to hippie peaceniks and privacy advocates. For example, the right-wing blog America's Watchtower warns of a coming dystopia in which

... the drones are routinely flying over American cities and spying on Americans under the justification of stopping potential crimes. I am talking about a future where the military is charged with policing the American people BEFORE a crime has taken place.

On the left, the American Civil Liberties Union recently published this report warning that

The prospect of cheap, small, portable flying video surveillance machines threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities.

Weapons Aboard Unmanned Arial Vehicles

Some dronephobes look at the CIA's and the Pentagon's use of Predators equipped with missiles as high-flying assassins against terrorists and worry that, as police UAVs proliferate, the cops will start arming them as well. In the U.K., as this 2010 Wired article details, law enforcement agencies have been looking at outfitting drones with various next-generation nonlethal weapons, such as directional speakers that produce an intolerably intense beam of sound and high-intensity strobe lights that would disorient suspects and interfere with their balance so they can't run away. In Montgomery County, Texas, police are planning to deploy a ShadowHawk drone, purchased with a $300,000 federal grant, which could be armed with a "stun baton," basically a gun that fires bean bags to disable a suspect, according to this local TV news story. Think Robocop with wings.

So what do you think? Is allowing police to use drone aircraft a good idea, or is there too much potential for abuse? Post your opinion below. Don't be shy -- nobody's watching you from above. At least not yet.

Image Credits: Erik Simonsen/Getty Images | David Bathgate/Corbis |