It's Full of Eyes: Drones at Home Coming Soon
When the boys came home from World War II, the US changed forever. An economic boom, a baby boom, new technology, new ideas, new ways of looking at the world and our place in it. Something similar is about to happen, once the boys come back from Afghanistan... "boys" meaning Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), known by most of us as drones.
Drones aren't likely to inspire the next baby boom, but they're a perfect example of a classic route of technological innovation -- namely, from the research labs and hobbyists to the military and thence to commercial and mainstream usage (a development path similar to some other quirky experiments over the years, such as the Internet). Already, the drone market is worth nearly $6 billion, and expected to double over the next ten years.
Potential for positive innovation? Considerable. Already, domestic drones have been used as farmhands, for search and rescue operations, by filmmakers and realtors, and even by Sea Shepherd to protect whales. Corporations have used drones to monitor the extent of oil spills, while the "Occucopter" gives hacker journalist Tim Pool a bird's-eye view of the Occupy Wall Street action. Other proposals on the table include automated FedEx deliveries (but if they name their drones "Storks", I'm not signing for any bundles).
Until recently, the FAA had allowed only hobbyist use of RC planes and UAVs, technically prohibiting the aforementioned businesses -- but in practice, the agency had largely turned a blind eye toward drone applications, with organizations such as AUVSI and RCAPA left to (successfully) police themselves. With the rapid growth of the drone market, however, the FAA stepped up enforcement and drew up a program of regulations and certifications... one that focuses less on innovative private sector applications, and more on bringing military-grade surveillance and assault to law enforcement agencies.
Drones such as these have seen extensive use by customs and border patrols, who have on occasion loaned their Predators to more local agencies (for example, to confront cow thieves). The FAA's official drone authorizations have mostly gone to the usual suspects in the world of defense contracting -- the Honeywells, the Raytheons, etc. -- with very few if any private sector recipients. For many, such a bias toward state defense and law enforcement only serves to escalate existing concerns about privacy.
We know that our daily existence is already riddled with cameras. Nearly everyone that we meet is carrying a smartphone or tablet, ready to record anything of interest and submit it as the next viral video... or as evidence. Drivers are becoming accustomed to cameras installed at intersections to enforce traffic rules. Nearly every business and parking area has security cams generating 24-hour surveillance data.
But the idea of a sky full of drones at home is alarming, in an Orwellian not-too-distant future sort of way. Who can truly be comfortable with the idea of remote-controlled eyes in the sky, providing the human operators with a videogame-like disconnect from the humans on the screen? Or, for even more of a disconnect, consider the more sophisticated drones which have sufficient AI to coordinate persistent surveillance, and even make the decision to open fire.
So what's really wrong with maintaining a close eye on entire areas where criminal activity is suspected? Known gang hideouts, rough neighborhoods, boroughs afflicted by sporadic rioting, cities with unprecedented high crime rates... nations governed by candidates who prevailed with a strong "law and order" platform... the scope widens with uncomfortable ease. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ACLU outlines a "nightmare scenario" whose steps from yesterday's reality to a future surveillance state are too easily envisioned.
Still, the opposition to drones has been surprisingly bipartisan. The co-chairmen of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, Democratic Rep. Edward Markey (Mass) and Republican Joe Barton (Texas), sent a letter to the head of the FAA (pdf), conceding the practical use of drones but warning of "invasive and pervasive surveillance without adequate privacy protections... the surveillance power of drones is amplified when the information from onboard sensors is used in conjunction with facial recognition, behavior analysis, license plate recognition" and any number of other tech, including thermal imaging and WiFi sniffers.
Meanwhile, stalwart Internet rights defenders at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have launched an initiative to question drone-using law enforcement agencies, and the responses from some agencies have been surprisingly reassuring. The bad news is that a vast majority of those questioned have chosen not to answer at all, or at least not yet.
On the other end of the political spectrum, legislation to curtail and regulate drone use has been proposed by Republicans such as Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Rep. Austin Scott (Georgia). Granted, both congressmen sketch out "exemptions for border patrols, and emergency use by law enforcement or national security authorities," as Scott states. But Sen. Paul makes no bones about protecting individuals from police state abuses. "Americans going about their everyday lives should not be treated like criminals or terrorists and have their rights infringed upon by military tactics."
The ACLU's recommendation for reasonable privacy comes just as we read about a loophole in Air Force regulations which allows for "incidental" imagery taken of private citizens and private property (pdf) to be examined to see if it could be useful for any existing investigations or initiatives -- without any specific warrant issued to legitimize the surveillance. The government doesn't need a warrant to see what anyone else could see, of course, and if anyone could be using a drone then it's not different from taking a video on the street with your smartphone.
On the other hand, very few smartphones have built-in firepower, unlike many currently active UAVs. When mistakes occur with a smartphone, the worst that can happen is a lost job or a ruined marriage. Bad enough, for sure, but that's nothing compared to what can happen when mistakes occur with a drone. Even the mainstream news sources regularly report on civilian casualties, friendly fire attacks upon allies, and any other examples of collateral damage -- which inevitably leads the critical viewer to wonder how much worse the truth may be.
Military UAVs benefit from a shaky technical loophole. When you're waging a war that you don't want to call a war, the presence of actual soldiers puts you in a tricky position. The presence of drones, on the other hand, allows you to simultaneously downplay your "incursion", while reaping the political benefits of not putting any of our boys (and girls) at risk . Even those who question the ethics of remote robotic assassination must concede that the more of our servicemen we bring back alive, the better.
When the UAV boys come home, the same kind of reasoning applies to the domestic arena. Law enforcement is the first employer of these unmanned veterans, for everything from simple evidence-gathering surveillance to full-on SWAT strikes in dangerous environments. We've examined the potential of surveillance, but what happens when the drones bring weapons skills learned in Afghanistan to the home front? In other words, what happens when The Other becomes Each Other?
Nobody wants policemen to die in the line of duty, so it simply makes sense to send in the drones instead. Of course, nobody wants civilians to die, either. But all too often, there's a grey area between a criminal, a suspect, and a civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the more of a disconnect one places between the human end and the automated end of law enforcement, the less hesitation there may be between shooting first and asking questions later.
Perhaps this is straying into the realm of paranoia; perhaps the only real physical threat from drones would be if one accidentally fell on you. There's certainly enough to worry about if the only shooting that UAVs did was with cameras. And even then, we might be able to breathe a little easier if the cameras were allowed to point in every direction.
Personally, I'd like to welcome our robot flyboys back home with plenty of new jobs, with a variety of fresh and forward-looking ideas about how to put their skills to work. If the FAA keeps steering them towards military careers, just think of all of the lost opportunities. From the farm to the skies of Hollywood, drones have already proven that they don't have to be a threat to life and liberty.