(NEW YORK) MintPress — Drones, which are formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, dramatically transformed the battlefield in Afghanistan and Iraq, but their use has been extremely limited in American skies. Until now.
Earlier this year, Congress, under pressure from the U.S. Department of Defense and manufacturers, ordered the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to give drones, greater access to civilian airspace by 2015, although a group of 22 lawmakers last week introduced a bill that would require a warrant before they could be used by law enforcement for surveillance.
Still, police departments in cities as large as Miami and as small as Mesa County, Colo. are already putting them to use, seeing them as the next cool tool.
That has civil rights advocates alarmed, and the city of Buffalo, N.Y. wants to be the first in the country to ban drones.
A group of activists and community leaders went to City Hall earlier this week to have their say in front of the Common Council Legislation Committee.
“You guys have an opportunity to make Buffalo the first drone-free city in the United States, and I hope you take that seriously,” John Washington of Occupy Buffalo told lawmakers.
“Drone manufacturers will push this hard on you and other elected officials. They will say that one of the reasons for drones is fighting crime,” said Charles Bowman of the Western New York Peace Center.
“We don’t need drones in the city of Buffalo. We don’t need further militarization of our police department,” he added.
Threat to privacy
Citizens of Buffalo are not alone in speaking out against the specter of drones patrolling the homeland.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a statement saying, “U.S. law enforcement has been expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance purposes. This type of routine aerial surveillance in American life would profoundly change the character of public life in the United States.
“Rules must be put in place to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this new technology without bringing us closer to a ‘surveillance society’ in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded and scrutinized by the authorities,” it continued.
Even more alarming, according to the ACLU: “Drone manufacturers are also considering offering police the option of arming these remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers and tear gas.”
Jennifer Lynch with the Electronic Frontier Foundation contends that many police departments plan to use drones to photograph public gatherings, just as they do with helicopters.
“With the advent of facial recognition and the ability to store images for a long period of time, it becomes really worrisome when you have a drone hovering over that sort of situation,” she said. “And it’s not clear what sort of legal restrictions would prevent that activity.”
Lynch and others say that now is the time to pass legislation to limit drone use by police before it becomes commonplace.
On Wednesday, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) released a draft of a bill that would require private drone operators to inform the government of any data collected by drones and would require law enforcement to “minimize the collection … of information and data unrelated to the investigation of a crime.”
Vested interests
The public outcry has alarmed the UAV industry. There are thousands of small companies in the field, and after years of selling their wares to the military, the companies are eager to depict the next generation of domestic drones as friendly.
They are increasingly placing ads pitching drones to law enforcement. One comes from AeroVironment, a California-based company preparing to sell smaller drones. In the video, cops pull the drone out of their vehicle’s trunk, assemble it and use it to monitor an armed suspect.
Using the drone’s camera, the police then see that the suspect is setting up an ambush. But thanks to the aerial surveillance, they outmaneuver him, cut him off and take him away.
Fighting back
Earlier this month, Occupy Buffalo and the WNY Peace Center proposed legislation to the Council prohibiting the use and purchase of all drones in the city.
“Drones present an unreasonable and unacceptable threat to the rights of individual privacy, freedom of association and assembly, equal protection and judicial due process,” it reads.
It continues, “Drones present an unreasonable and unacceptable threat to public safety in the air and to persons and property on the ground due to limitations in drone vision, capability to avoid other aircraft and adequate control.”
The legislation asks that drones not be purchased, leased, borrowed, tested or used by any agency of the city of Buffalo.
“I will be thrilled if Buffalo will be the first in the nation to go down on record we are against drones,” said Lesley Haynes, a social activist and retired social worker during this week’s hearing.
“I think it would be a really nice thing for Buffalo,” she said. “I would be proud to know Buffalo was leading this.”