Defense Dept. Wants One Nation, Under Drones

For all of its emphasis on drones, the humans in the military are quite busy these days – preparing for our drone-filled future. Drone fighters will soon replace regular fighters, and sports broadcast computers are helping to analyze all the video they’re bringing home.

The Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are pressuring the FAA to fly drone surveillance planes over the United States. Let that one trickle in. Two government agencies responsible for overseeing war and countering terrorism, respectively, want to use robotic planes to monitor domestic activity.

The FAA is reluctant to have more crap zooming around the troposphere. They say the unmanned planes, which range in size from model plane to efficiency apartment, will crowd the sky and cause accidents. This concern is lent credibility by the sheer number and diversity of organizations already interested in using drones: state police want to catch speeders, local cops could use drones to track fleeing criminals, tornado experts want to send them into ‘the eye of the storm’ for data collection, and meteorologists need the military-grade technology to feel important.

What’s most concerning about this story — which is also, tellingly, never addressed by the AP — is the DOD and DHS’s intention for the drones. Considering Homeland Security’s flagrantly dismissive attitude toward civil rights and the military application of these planes (which are routinely mounted with artillery in Iraq and Afghanistan), there’s some serious cause for concern here.