Living Here

It is a well known fact that drones are simply unmanned, remotely controlled, flying robots that can be used as:

• A harmless hobby for personal amusement; as an instrument of community good for search and rescue
• As an observational platform for various forms of legal and illegal surveillance
• Or as a lethal or non-lethal weapons delivery systems.

So one could conclude that it’s the planned use of the drone and the drone policy formulated by a municipality that determines whether it is good idea, or bad idea for the the Police Departments, in the Communities around Geneva Lake, to join the drone craze, being highly promoted by the Homeland Security Department.

A warning to all these Protective Service Departments should be heeded.  Although the city may be adding a drone program with good intentions and for all the right reasons, this program could easily turn into a ‘Trojan Horse’ of privacy infringement, civil liberty abuses, and a violent weapons system that would compromise the moral integrity of the police departments and the leadership of municipalities around the lake.

Some ‘abuse’ of citizen rights has already occurred, (as evidenced by the NSA’s unethical data collection of all electronic communication, by the 2001 Patriot Act, and by the National Defense Authorization Act which abolished Posse Comitatus, Habeas Corpus and “due process,”) and by authorizing warrantless searches and the “indefinite detention” of American citizens all at the discretion of the president. In the name of counter terrorism, the American government is already something of a surveillance state. It collects all electronic phone and email communications, purchases said records, Google histories, and is secretly requiring our computers, Smart TV’s and Smart Phones to be equipped with two-way cameras and microphones to become additional tools for the NSA. But none of this government surveillance compares to what surveillance drones will be capable of executing once drones are routinely equipped with high-powered infrared cameras, laser radar and powerful acoustic detection equipment.

Many of today’s law enforcement drones are already equipped with an array of non-lethal weapons like tear gas, smoke bombs, pepper spray and rubber bullets to be used against anyone the government chooses to designate as worthy opposition. Tomorrow’s nanodrones may be virtually invisible; so small they will be able to administer immobilizing drugs, take DNA samples, or carry out open warfare all on their own. Incredibly, the genius inventor and patent holder of the drone was Nikola Tesla. He predicted the destructive potential of drones “destroying all of humanity” in his 1898 patent #613,809, but hoped their positive potential would bring about “world peace through mutually assured destruction.”

Tesla’s first drone invention, “a drone torpedo boat” was presented and rejected by the Navy in 1898. The citizens of today have been made so fearful of terrorism that they are more than willing to potentially sacrifice their freedom for the promise of more security. Ben Franklin spoke to this issue when he said, “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”