Drone Use in the U.S. Raises Privacy Concerns

(CBS News) - Unmanned aerial vehicles, a key weapon in the hunt for terrorists overseas, are coming to America. In February, President Barack Obama signed a bill that opens U.S. airspace to thousands of these unmanned aircraft. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the  House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, thinks the FAA was dragging its feet on allowing domestic drones. The passed legislation will put 10,000 drones in the sky by 2017.


(CBS News)

Rep. John Mica was one of the politicians instrumental in creating the TSA. He who wrote the legislation, then claimed the program was hijacked by bureaucrats and then mushroomed.[1] Isn't he a bureaucrat?

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Congress Passes Bill to Open US Skies to Unmanned Drone Flights

 The Qube fits in the trunk of a car and is controlled remotely by a tablet computer.[1]

(AP) A bill to speed the nation’s switch from radar to an air traffic control system based on GPS technology, and to open U.S. skies to unmanned drone flights within four years, received final congressional approval Monday.

The bill passed the Senate 75-20, despite labor opposition to a deal cut between the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House on rules governing union organizing elections at airlines and railroads. The House had passed the bill last week, and it now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The bill is “the best news that the airline industry ever had,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said. “It will take us into a new era.”

The FAA is also required under the bill to provide military, commercial and privately-owned drones with expanded access to U.S. airspace currently reserved for manned aircraft by Sept. 30, 2015. That means permitting unmanned drones controlled by remote operators on the ground to fly in the same airspace as airliners, cargo planes, business jets and private aircraft.

Currently, the FAA restricts drone use primarily to segregated blocks of military airspace, border patrols and about 300 public agencies and their private partners. Those public agencies are mainly restricted to flying small unmanned aircraft at low altitudes away from airports and urban centers.

~Condensed version of the article. To read the full article, continue reading.

War Evolves With Drones, Some Tiny as Bugs

(NY Times) The Pentagon now has some 7,000 aerial drones, compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago. Within the next decade the Air Force anticipates a decrease in manned aircraft but expects its number of “multirole” aerial drones like the Reaper — the ones that spy as well as strike — to nearly quadruple, to 536. Already the Air Force is training more remote pilots, 350 this year alone, than fighter and bomber pilots combined.

Large or small, drones raise questions about the growing disconnect between the American public and its wars. Military ethicists concede that drones can turn war into a video game, inflict civilian casualties and, with no Americans directly at risk, more easily draw the United States into conflicts. (Read article)

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Now our weapons will fulfill the desire to be like a bug on the wall. The Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) is the new challenge for the battlefield of the future.


(Video link)