Drone Industry Fears Privacy Could Derail Them

Constant Aerial Surveillance a Harder Sell Than Expected

With government agencies across the spectrum as well as private industries looking into the idea of cheap surveillance drones for all kinds of domestic uses, it looked like Americans were going to have to resign to full scale, 24-hour aerial surveillance.

Yet when this was pointed out to American civilians, it didn’t set nearly as well with them as expected, and now politicians are scrambling to re-write the laws, which in this case means having laws at all, governing the new technology.

This has drone companies in a panic, fearing that actual limits on their use and a major public backlash could mean drones aren’t going to be the boom industry inside America that they were anticipating.

They are appealing to politicians’ sense of national pride now, instead of worrying about the public itself, insisting that America’s lead in drone technology could be in jeopardy if Congress doesn’t lay off and let them grow completely unregulated.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.