Free Talk Live

In February of this year, Congress passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, with its provision to deploy fleets of drones domestically.

See related stories within too. The algorithms that enable drone swarms is advancing EXTREMELY quickly. In the next couple of years, the number of advances in technology, deployments, use cases, and awareness of drones will be intense. In 5 years, they will be part of every day life. You will see them everywhere.

Not just one or two drones. SWARMS of drones. Tens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions (potentially if the cost per unit is small enough)?

In the span of just three years, we have seen drone surveillance become openly operational on American soil.

In 2007, Texas reporters first filmed a predator drone test being conducted by the local police department in tandem with Homeland Security. And in 2009, it was revealed that an operation was underway to use predator drones inland over major cities, far from “border control” functions. This year it has been announced that not only will drone operations fly over the Mexican border, but the United States and Canada are partnering to cover 900 miles of the northern border as well.

Apparently the drones are not only used to bomb civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan now the establishment have found another use for them , to spy on Americans , it is no surprise that the government turn against its own citizens , if you thought that your government is their to protect you and that giving up some of your freedom will bring you security , then think again ..who is going to protect you from the tyranny of your own government , the same government that have been massacring civilians with the drones in your name can turn against you any time ...

It seems a little known provision in the 2005 bill authorizing the use of Predator drones along the U.S. border allowed other agencies to borrow the drones for, “interior law enforcement support.” So, now the same MQ-9 “hunter/killer” drones used for CIA assassinations in Yemen and Pakistan are being used to track down stray cattle in North Dakota… no joke.

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

Flying drones are starting to go down in price, to the point where they might soon be affordable. More than that, manufacturers might soon be marketing drones to the private class, as 'personal drones."

The liberty activist might soon have some news tools for the modern arms race.

"Perhaps the idea of spy drones already makes your nervous. Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the notion of an unblinking, robotic eye in the sky that can watch your every move. If so, you may want to click away now. Because if the Army has its way, drones won’t just be able to look at what you do. They’ll be able to recognize your face — and track you, based on how you look. If the military machines assemble enough information, they might just be able to peer into your heart."

Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

An Air Force simulation says researchers are at work on killer robots so tiny that a group of them could blend into a cityscape.

Science writer John Horgan's feature on the many ways drones will be used in coming years is interesting throughout, and terrifying in the passage where he describes an effort to build micro-drones that are, as the U.S. Air Force describes them, "Unobtrusive, pervasive, and lethal."