Unmanned drones could soon be buzzing in the skies above many U.S. cities, as the federal government appears set to green-light the technology for local law enforcement amid widespread privacy concerns.
The Federal Aviation Administration was scheduled Monday to announce the rules of the sky for these newly licensed drones at dozens of sites across the country. In doing so, the government is taking a tool that has become synonymous with U.S. counterterror warfare in countries like Pakistan and Yemen -- and putting it in the hands of U.S. law enforcement.
Unlike some of the drones used overseas, these will not be equipped with missiles.
They are to be used purely for surveillance. But that alone has raised serious privacy concerns on Capitol Hill and beyond.
"Our Founding Fathers had no idea that there would be remote-control drones with television monitors that can feed back live data instantaneously -- but if they had, they would have made darn sure ... that these things were subject to the Fourth Amendment (protecting individual privacy),"
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, told Fox News.
Drones have already been employed domestically. In what was described as the first case where an unmanned drone was used to arrest an American citizen on U.S. soil, a North Dakota SWAT team reportedly borrowed a Department of Homeland Security drone to monitor Rodney Brossart -- who was involved in a 16-hour standoff at his North Dakota farm over six cattle that had wandered onto his property and which he claimed as his own.
The SWAT team apparently used the drone to make sure it was safe to arrest him, though his lawyer has since claimed Brossart was subjected to guerrilla-like police tactics and had his constitutional rights violated.
