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How Are We Using Drones in the US?

By Robert Smith, J.D.
Professor, School of Security and Global Studies at American Military University

Drones have dramatically changed the playing field of modern warfare. The use of drones, from battlefield surveillance to surgical strikes on suspected terrorists, has allowed the American military to fight to terrorism in ways unimagined just a decade ago. However, since this ongoing campaign has no traditional borders it raises the controversial and constitutionally troubling issues of the domestic use of drones. If drones were only used against terrorism or to patrol the border to stem illegal immigration, the rationale would arguably be more defensible.

Surveillance and the EPA

In February, President Obama signed a bill opening U.S. airspace to thousands of these unmanned aircraft. I daresay few of us expected to discover that the Environmental Protection Agency is using them to monitor feedlots – which raise privacy issues of the highest magnitude. In this case, one might rightly ask on what statutory authority is the EPA relying upon to conduct this aerial surveillance? What other agencies are already using them, and what level of political and legal oversight are occurring?

The Use of Drones in Civilian Airspace

Will this type of surveillance, no matter how reasonable the stated rationale, serve to upset the core component of the American psyche? Will this potentially change the political psychology of Americans? There are dozens of universities and colleges, law enforcement agencies, and other government entities, awarded permission to fly drones in civilian airspace on what is termed an “experimental basis”. For example, a drone was used to help arrest a U.S. citizen in Lakota, N.D., and a rancher accused of refusing to return a herd of cows that wandered onto his land. “There’s no stopping this technology,” said Peter Singer, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and perhaps the country’s foremost authority on drones. “Anybody who thinks they can put this genie back in the box – that’s silliness.”

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