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Poll: Catching criminals is fine, but don't use drones for speeding tickets, Americans say
Go ahead and use drones to track down criminals, to combat illegal immigration or for search-and-rescue missions. But to issue traffic citations?
No way, say Americans.
A recent Monmouth University poll showed there was overwhelming support for using unmanned aircraft in a variety of circumstances, but routine police work was not one of them.
Fewer than a quarter of the 1,708 adults surveyed last week said they would OK the use of drones to issue speeding tickets. Sixty-seven percent said they opposed the idea, and 10% had no opinion. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points (view a PDF here).
Compare that with the approval ratings for other drone applications: illegal immigration (64%), rescue missions (80%) and locating criminals (67%). The poll also indicates that 64% of Americans would be concerned about their privacy if U.S. law enforcement agencies began using drones with high-tech cameras.
Under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, which President Barack Obama signed in February, the Federal Aviation Administration is charged with developing a plan “for the safe integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015.”
The act is in response to the strict FAA regulations on drone use. It loosens those restrictions, allowing many government agencies to get swifter FAA permission to operate the unmanned aerial vehicles. It also allows any "government public safety agency to operate unmanned aircraft weighing 4.4 pounds or less," if certain criteria are met.
The FAA has authorized drone use for dozens of entities, including more than 20 universities, the U.S. military, local police forces, the FBI, NASA and the U.S. departments of Agriculture, Interior and Energy.
Drone uses vary greatly, according to an FAA document issued in March that outlines how drones will be used in six test ranges.
Not only can their objectives encompass everything from surveillance to searches to air quality testing, they can take many forms. Wingspans range from 6 inches to 240 feet. Weights run the gamut from 4 ounces to 16 tons.
"One thing they have in common is that their numbers and uses are growing dramatically. In the United States alone, approximately 50 companies, universities and government organizations are developing and producing some 155 unmanned aircraft designs,” according to the FAA.
The agency says it will select the test ranges in late 2012, with the first location becoming operational in 2013. The FAA currently has a test site at New Mexico State University, which it’s been using since June 2011.
There have been few incidents with domestic drone use, aside from an accident this month when a $176 million Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk went down in a marsh outside Salisbury, Maryland.
Outside the U.S., however, there has been widespread opposition to American reliance on drones to take out terrorists. A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that the U.S. was the only country among 20 surveyed that approved of using drones to kill extremist leaders in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Sixty-two percent of Americans approved of the strikes. The only country with an approval rate rivaling the U.S. was Britain with 44% (47% disapproved). Approval ratings for the other 18 countries ranged from 5% in Greece to 38% in Germany.
A separate Pew survey in Pakistan showed equally ardent opposition, with 58% of those surveyed saying the strikes were unnecessary, 58% saying they are conducted without government approval and 93% saying the attacks kill too many innocent people.
In an April letter to the FAA’s acting administrator, Michael Huerta, the chairmen of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus said they had numerous concerns about how the drones would be used.
While lauding the benefits of deploying drones in U.S. airspace – including for “spotting wildfires and assessing natural disasters” – Reps. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, and Joe Barton, R-Texas, said “there is also the potential for drone technology to enable invasive and pervasive surveillance without adequate privacy protections."
“Many drones are designed to carry surveillance equipment, including video cameras, thermal imagers, radar and wireless network ‘sniffers,’ ” the representatives wrote. “The surveillance power of drones is amplified when the information from on-board sensors is used in conjunction with facial recognition, behavior analysis, license plate recognition or any other system than can identify and track individuals as they go about their daily lives.”
The congressmen closed by asking several questions. Among them: How does the FAA grant temporary licenses? Who has been certified in the past? Have any applications been denied, and if so, why? Is the public notified about where the drones are used? Who operates the drones? What data are collected? How does the FAA plan to make its drone use transparent?
The American Civil Liberties union also chimed in last year, saying that as drones become increasingly cheaper, law enforcement would ramp up its use of the technology, according to the December report, “Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance: Recommendations for Government Use of Drone Aircraft.”
In the report, the watchdog group said drone usage should be limited to instances in which police believe they can collect evidence on a specific crime. If the drone will intrude on someone’s privacy, police should be required to obtain a warrant. There should also be restrictions on storing images of people, the ACLU said.
If the FAA cannot ensure people’s privacy, Congress should take action, the report demanded.
“The deployment of drone technology domestically could easily lead to police fishing expeditions and invasive, all-encompassing surveillance that would seriously erode the privacy that we have always had as Americans,” attorney Catherine Crump, one of the report’s co-authors, said.
In February, as the Senate considered HR 658 (the would-be FAA Modernization and Reform Act), the ACLU warned that Congress was trying to “fast-track domestic drone use” at the expense of Americans’ privacy.
In addition to concerns that unmanned aircraft crash more frequently than their manned counterparts, the ACLU said nothing in HR 658 addresses the “very serious privacy issues.”
“This bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected," wrote senior policy analyst Jay Stanley.
“We don’t want to wonder, every time we step out our front door, whether some eye in the sky is watching our every move.”
Overheard on CNN.com: Unmanned drones ignite domestic surveillance debate
Speed limits are B.S. That's why there are traffic jams. That and people don't drive in the right lane even though they are driving the speed limit and not passing or turning. Speed limits are made up. Yes I know they are "the law" but the law is a funny thing I had a government person click through disclaimers without telling me about them and just clicking past like 3 of them to register a business.. I guess the law doesn't apply to the government.
Police should be pulling over people holding up traffic driving the speed limit in the right lane, not passing anyone or turning left. There you can get a million tickets and I would say good job po-lice you didn't screw up your priorities for once... Do you people realize who pays you? Harassing the people that provide your paycheck isn't good business.
why not? taste of your own medicine.
Blatant further totalitarian behavior; and to add insult to injury they use a pathetic excuse to justify such actions. "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein
Don't drone me, bro!
Drones should be so restricted as to be almost singular in their use. Border patrols, certainly. Looking for people or drug smuggling away from populated areas, sure. Anti-terror operations targeting specific individuals by agencies that have a warrant in hand, sure.
Patrols over our cities...like with police helicopters...no way. If government can abuse something, it will. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. You know it, Congress knows it. I believe pretty much everyone does...only it's the elephant in the room that no one wants to notice. To repeat:
Drones should be so restricted as to be almost singular in their use.
Police should be pulling over people holding up traffic driving "the speed limit" in the LEFT lane, not passing anyone or turning left. There you can get a million tickets and I would say good job po-lice you didn't screw up your priorities for once... Do you people realize who pays you? Harassing the people that provide your paycheck isn't good business.
Speeding in the left lane is just as bad as not passing...wouldn't you say?
If the Drones can find a domestic terrorist in the Tea Party, then I'm in favor of flying them!
so how long until the government starts putting cameras in our bathrooms? the only thing these things should be used for in the US is border patrol and finding forest fires in remote areas....
Yeah...one of the last episodes of Harry's Law" had Kathy Bates shooting the thing down with a shotgun! Hilarious! On a serious note, aren't the spy cams that are at most intersections more cost effective??? I should certainly think so!
Drones are the perfect Tool for creating a Big Brother 1984 Totalitarian Fascist Police State. I'm sure that most people would be fine with just that and I'm sure many people don't even understand what I said in the previous sentence. An Uneducated fearful population is easy to control and manipulate. War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. How could George Orwell have known that this is what we would become?
Face it folks, techology is now our worse enemy. We will be under martial law and probably already are with the changes to the partiot act. It was not just for the illegals in this country. If you think this is BS. Take some serious looks around. Now the FAA wants legal drones flying around our air space which is already congested. How many will be falling from the skys in 2013? And possibly taking commercial flights down with them with X amount of soles on board?. Maybe time to look at other Countries to habitate.
You patriots support the use of drones around the world, what make you immune? Welcome to the jungle you little monkeys!
Uh...enemy (aka people that hate us)..citizen..I think that's the difference.
I would like to know what defines 'criminal'. The term has become so loose and flexible that protesters are considered ;low level terrorists' and fall under the NDAA detention laws. What is a criminal in 2025; a family using too carbon so the drone blows up their house in an attempt to drive out the 'terrorists?
Use drones against the American people? Why? You don't think they're expecting anarchy do you?
Drones makes sense to fight illegal immigrants crossing borders, fighting radical rag head terrorists but not for traffic enforcement. That's one area that local law enforcement can handle...