WASHINGTON – Unmanned aerial vehicles—drones—have been used by the military to allow soldiers to be miles away from U.S. attacks on enemies abroad. But drones are increasingly being used within the U.S. for law enforcement, search and rescue and rescue missions and research.
As of February 2012, the Federal Aviation Administration had approved only 313 certificates for drone operation inside the U.S., but the Government Accountability Office estimates the private and commercial drone industry will grow to nearly $90 billion over the next decade. According to the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which includes “the drone act”—lines of legislation regarding domestic drone use—the FAA must oversee the integration of drones into national airspace by September 2015.
There is great potential for drones; they are cheap to purchase and operate relative to piloted aircraft, and they can be flown into conditions too dangerous for humans.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the drone lobby, issued a memo titled The Benefits of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Saving Time, Saving Money, Saving Lives that outlines benefits of drone integration into society, including environmental research and disaster mitigation.
At a conference Jan. 15, AUVSI Executive Vice President Gretchen West said drones were flown near the Fukushima power facility, an area too dangerous for pilots due to high levels of radiation, after a devastating nuclear reactor leak in 2011. They can also be used, she said, as tools in search and rescue missions. Mesa County, Colo., spends $25 per hour operating drones during such missions, compared to hundreds of dollars per hour for conventional planes and helicopters.
These tactics are widely supported by Americans, although the support wanes when they are told about the privacy issues that drones raise.
Drones were created as surveillance and artillery tools for the war arena. Therefore, they can come with cameras that take color and infrared photos and video, and at gigapixel quality. Even drones not designed for espionage have cameras, as images need to be relayed back to operators piloting the aircraft on the ground.
Among the concerns raised by privacy advocates about drones is that the vehicles circumvent most conventional methods of privacy. Drones can see over security walls and fly over long driveways. Infrared cameras can see through trees and roofs, able to pinpoint the location of someone inside their home.
Drones can remain in the air for hours or even days, and they can be networked together. If a drone is tracking a car in a quadrant of a city, it can hand off surveillance duties to another drone as the car drives out of range.
Images taken by drones can be run through facial recognition software, allowing operators to identify civilians anywhere, including at political gatherings and other places where anonymity is paramount.
None of these capabilities are unique to drones; any piloted aircraft has the capability of performing all these duties. However, the costs associated with deploying piloted airplanes and helicopters serves as enough of a deterrent that enforcement and surveillance agencies only do so in extreme circumstances. The cost-effectiveness of drones allow for the constant monitoring of citizens.
Of the 313 drone certificates issued in the U.S., all of them are held by government agencies, and many by local, state and national law enforcement. Though, there are hardly any rules outlining to any degree of clarity what evidence can and cannot be collected by a drone and whether a warrant must be obtained to collect it. The first arrest with evidence collected by a drone took place in North Dakota in 2010—a warrant was not obtained by law enforcement before the drone flew over private property and took pictures.
