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Psst! Wanna use a drone?

What this op-ed piece on The Drum on ABC Australia's web site reveals about drones - and the cost of getting to use one - is, to say the least, more than troubling.

"Thus far, drone surveillance has largely been the preserve of the US military and the CIA, and closely associated with another military and security concern: killing.

If you live in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen, you may feel that once-innocent skies are now watching you - Predator and Reaper drones, the arrogant weapons of a foreign empire, aloft at 25,000 feet.

That they are piloted from facilities inside the United States tells you that whatever they are doing in your skies - and whoever they are here to kill deliberately, accidentally or incidentally - it is not worth an American life.

Pakistani novelist Mohammed Hanif has warned of the psychological damage of "living in a place where these death machines hover 24/7" and of a generation which will grow up seeking revenge.

Search the net and you will find Yemeni youth tweeting drone sightings, Pakistani students propagandistically claiming to have built their own radars, and shocking phone footage of men's and women's bodies lying by burning cars, reported to be the aftermath of a strike.

This is the context against which drones are now coming to Western skies, ready for a wide variety of uses, from research to rescue, to things more sinister.

Here, fears are for privacy: the fact that, whether we will allow it or not, drones have the potential to be tools of constant and perpetual surveillance.

If that sounds alarmist, consider that a fully-equipped drone now costs as little as $2,000. Compared to manned aircraft, they are much cheaper to fly - some operating for as little as $3.36 an hour.

Their capabilities are also rapidly expanding. The Insitu Scan Eagle and its 'imaging payload', for example, can now circle a target for a full 24 hours. That seems quaint compared to Lockheed Martin's Stalker drone (inaudible above 400 feet) which can now stay aloft for days: recharged in flight, by laser."

 


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