A MQ-9 Reaper drone takes off in Fort Drum, New York. (Tech Sgt. Ricky Best / U.S. Air Force Handout)
Alana Semuels, The Atlantic: The Drone Economy
The unmanned-aircraft industry could help to revive a struggling region. But what are the consequences?
SYRACUSE—Every other Tuesday, a small crowd forms across the street from the Hancock Air National Guard base here, a few hundred yards from where big letters proclaim this the home of the 174th Attack Wing. They are protesting the National Guard troops on the base, who control the Reaper drones used in military operations overseas.
“Ban Killer Drones,” their signs say, and the protesters wave them as cars rush by on a busy road.
“It’s murder by remote control,” Jason Sperry, a 33-year-old veteran from Syracuse, explained when I asked him why he was protesting.
Opponents have long had qualms about the use of drones in battle, but now activists in central New York have something else to worry about. The region is trying to make itself a hub for drone technology, seeking federal and state money to expand the range of companies that research and build unmanned aircraft and the devices that allow them to communicate with each other. It’s a proposal that makes some uneasy in this liberal area of a liberal state, as they worry that as the nation becomes more accustomed to drones—and more economically dependent on that industry—fewer people will oppose their use in war and in commercial applications that intrude upon Americans’ privacy.
WNU Editor: I live just across the border in Quebec, and we have huge open spaces available for drone research and testing .... and the same debate is raging.
2 comments:
Chucking rocks, firing arrows, and everything else is death by remote control.
The distance from your enemy does not determines the correctness of your actions, but why you are enemies in the 1st place.
Same protesters staged temper tantrums outside sub bases.
They have moved on with their faux outrage.
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