Monday, December 9, 2013

Posted Elsewhere, about Drones

I posted this on RobertaX's comments, and everyone is posting on the Amazon drones the last couple weeks.  Her topic is how hijacking a remote drone is still a felony, and she is completely right about that.

"I don't want domestic drone normalization.  People get used to seeing commercial drones they'll have less issue with government drones.  When a cop shoots you, you have a man there.  When a drone shoots you he is totally anonymous.  And that individual was playing a fancy video game.

Just because they can doesn't mean they should."

I kinda have a problem with this, but I am still thinking on it.  Our cops could end up being faceless, t-shirt and jeans wearing, untanned Gamerz.  Someone that may have texted in a similar situation in Call Of Duty, "OMG!  Totally pwned that n00b!!!!1!!11!!!eleven"

'Who shot this guy?'  'That policeman!'
'Who shot this guy?'  'Some robot.  I'm sure the gov't will tell us the operator's name if we ask.  They'd never hide that would they?  It was really a team of technicians.' 

In some weaselly cases there is no way to really know who decided to pull that trigger, so not only is the gov't employee safe from physical consequences at the time of the action, they are another layer removed from other legal consequences by retaining anonymity. 

Bad guys have already tried using drones in an offensive and abusive manner.  I don't want bad guys with the limitless wallet of gov't doing it, too.  I want the gov't to protect me from such.

Drones being common is another ratchet of the faceless surveillance state, corporate or government, that we are conditioned to grow accustomed to.  Red light cameras, then license plate scanners, then a plethora of armed drone minders, all for our protection.

Sometimes I don't like living in the Future, and want to be left alone.

2 comments:

Roberta X said...

Well -- my main thesis is that shooting down and looting a commercial delivery drone and stealing what it was carrying is immoral and wrong.

Drones *are* coming and I would just as soon the .gov didn't have a monopoly on them.

As for gamer-kid police, they're not raising cops in jars even now and the view from behind the windshield of a patrol car isn't especially different from watching it on a screen. (Or through night-vision goggles in some 'stan.) In my opinion, the time to worry about "dehumanizing distance" between patrolman and other citizens has already come and gone.

Anonymous said...

NJT - Agreed.
Let's go back to 1950, except with all civil rights + modern technology.

Yeah, that probably won't happen.
:-(

gfa