By the way, what is a drone?

Technically, called unmanned aerial vehicles, drones are small, ultra-light, slow-flying airplanes without human pilots.  Think of your next door neighbor’s hobby of flying remote controlled model planes in his back yard.  A drone is similar.

Their development goes back several decades, but their military use really took-off during the war in Afghanistan when they were successfully used not only for surveillance missions but also to target and kill Al Qaeda terrorists.

Local law enforcement recognized the surveillance benefits of drones right away and have been using them to get information on a variety of activities.  For instance, the Department of Natural Resources can watch for poachers from the sky and catch them in the act of killing animals—all recorded in great images.  Drones are equipped with high resolution, digital cameras that can take remarkably clear and detailed photos/video of all of us.

It’s one thing for police to launch these aircraft to find and follow criminals and terrorists—it’s another thing for police to use them for spying into your back yard.

Does this happen?   Yes!!

It happens enough that ten states, including my own of Minnesota, have introduced legislation prohibiting law enforcement from using drones for routine surveillance or to gather evidence against U.S. citizens.

Is there a precedent for this?

Certainly—the 4th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits any “unreasonable searches and seizures” of citizens by law enforcement. Exceptions to this law are when police obtain a search warrant signed by a judge or have a reasonable suspicion that they need to act quickly (don’t have time to get a search warrant) to prevent imminent danger.  Otherwise, they are prohibited from searching or even looking over the fence into your back yard in order to spy on us.

The proposed legislation would act in the same way but includes the use of drones to search for or seize evidence (in the form of photos).  One other exception is the use of drones to counter the high risk of a terrorist attack.

The intent of the legislation is to keep police from conducting routine surveillance on innocent citizens or groups—let’s say they’re meeting privately to demonstrate or protest something.  Proponents argue that the tool (drones) is able to get a “bird’s eye view”—something that humans can’t do—to reveal incriminating activities on the part of dangerous people and that drones also have the huge benefit of not putting the lives of police officers at risk.

Where should we draw the line?

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Is that legacy “beating” us now?

After 9/11, the White House and Congress (both parties) passed sweeping legislation which gave our investigatory agencies new powers of intrusion into our lives.  Most people felt these new laws were necessary to discover intelligence and information that terrorists could use against us.  I’m certain that in many instances, the new laws and procedures used by U.S. security agencies worked as the Congress intended.  They also created a massive new system of counterterrorism with huge budgets and more people.

This concerns me because:

1.  The fear that we all felt after 9/11 caused us, as a country, to give our own security agencies more power  to probe into our personal lives much easier.  As an example, the restrictions on wire-tapping and other means of gaining private information were relaxed under the idea of “warrantless surveillance.”  All these laws still remain on the books and are used by the government.  How do we know they won’t be used against innocent citizens under the guise of investigating terrorism?

Think of the internment laws used against innocent Japanese-Americans during the heightened fear of WWII.  In retrospect, we are all embarrassed by these actions and can see clearly how fear drove the Congress and public to enact laws that went much too far in combating internal security risks.

And think of how intrusive and scary the IRS can be…these new laws give the U.S. security agencies a lot more power.

2.  The “War on Terror,” by definition, will go on indefinitely.  Does that mean these intrusive laws will be on the books indefinitely? Have we given-up significant portions of our privacy for ever?  These rights of privacy are uniquely American and I hate to see them compromised.  They protect us from a too-powerful government.  The new laws allow more warrantless surveillance tactics–could these be used against innocent people rather than terrorists?  Who defines what a “terrorist” is?  Will this go on forever?

So, in a way, has bin Laden achieved something more than perhaps he even intended?  Have we Americans given-up our democratic rights of privacy and civil liberties because of the fear he caused?  I hope we never see another attack on our shores, but if that happens will we pass more laws giving-up even more of our privacy?

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