
A week after the Boston bombings killed three and injured more than 180, the drone industry is using the tragedy as a marketing tactic, arguing that drones could have been key for capturing the attack on camera and alerting those responding to the scene.
Michael Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), has emerged in the wake of the Boston bombings with a message to Americans that his industry’s products — unmanned aerial drones — could provide the security the nation was looking for the day of the attacks.
“UAS [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] could be an important tool in the tool kit for first responders in the event of an emergency,” he told U.S. News and World Report. “Whether it is in response to a natural disaster or a tragedy like we saw in Boston, UAS can be quickly deployed to provide first responders with critical situational awareness in areas too dangerous or difficult for manned aircraft to reach.”
The domestic drone industry represents the exact opposite of what civil liberties advocates on both side of the political aisle stand for: the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizures, which would almost certainly be eroded with the widespread use domestic surveillance drones.
The AUVSI has plenty to gain with a boom in the drone industry. While a nonprofit itself, it represents the companies that manufacture and market unmanned drones for domestic and overseas use. Its industry already claims to serve more than 7,500 members of Congress, government organizations and industries, according to its website, and “is committed to fostering, developing and promoting unmanned systems and robotic technologies.”
A key component of its mission’s success is advocacy, done so through government officials, media and regulators, according to its website.
A question of timing
The timing chosen by the AUVSI and the ensuing argument between pro-drone and anti-drone Americans mimicked the gun control conversation that followed the Sandy Hook school shootings in Newtown, Conn. When Democratic lawmakers attempted to frame the tragedy to highlight the need for gun control, Second Amendment advocates, including lobbyists of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), accused Democrats of using the tragedy to further their cause.
Now the shoes are largely on the other foot. While public opinion regarding drone use isn’t black and white, nor a partisan red and blue issue neatly splitting Republicans and Democrats, civil liberties advocates are accusing the AUVSI of using the Boston bomb attack to push their agenda of principle and profit.
Before the AUVSI made its statement, Executive Director for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Shahid Buttar, cautioned Americans to be wary of arguments made by the industry that drones are the answer to solving such acts of terrorism.
“I do fear the events in Boston, that someone will say, ‘If we would have had a drone over the finish line we would be able to track back the footage and see who it was. It will not surprise me when it happens,” he said.
His comments were published in the Wisconsin Reporter just one day after the marathon bombings, along with a warning that Americans should not accept American civil liberties as another casualty of a tragedy that had already taken the lives of three people and wounded 180 more.
“We have traded our liberty for the appearance of security, and we now have neither,” he said. “The question is, will we remember the values on which our nation was founded in order to recover them or will we hurdle down an abyss?”
His comments referred to the Patriot Act, enacted by President George W. Bush in 2001 following the 9/11 terror attacks of that year, and which gave federal agencies the authority to tap telephones, track Internet use and break down barriers preventing agencies from sharing information. Traditionally opposed by those on the left, it was nonetheless renewed by President Barack Obama in 2011.
Public opinion split
It’s estimated that by 2030, there will be more than 30,000 drones flying in America’s skies. Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a Freedom of Information Act request seem to confirm that trend, revealing a government already mobilizing to use the technology for domestic surveillance.
Opposition to the drone boom has come from all directions. Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul pushed the issue to the forefront of public debate in early March when he carried out a traditional filibuster on the Senate floor for nearly 13 hours, time he dedicated entirely to the issue of drones.
While touching on the CIA use of drones overseas in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, Paul also questioned the constitutional conundrum it creates when used to spy on American citizens, and whether the U.S government had the authority to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil using drone technology.
He received support from other Republicans senators, including Florida’s Marco Rubio, but also received opposition in his own corner from Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who criticized Paul for questioning a program they considered necessary to prevent terrorism at home and abroad.
Ted Poe, a Republican congressman from Texas, was the first to introduce the Preserving Privacy Act in July 2012, under the premise that America should not sit back and watch the government fill the sky with drones.
“The right of a reasonable expectation of privacy is a constitutional right. Any form of snooping or spying, surveillance or eavesdropping goes against the rights that are outlined in the Constitution,” he said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner in February 2012. That bill has made little progress.
Despite the split it opened in the Republican party — and the nation in general — experts claim there’s no holding back the industry, to the delight of the AUVSI.
“There’s no stopping this technology,” Brookings Institute Drone Expert Peter Singer told CBS News. “Anybody who thinks they can put this genie back in the box … that’s silliness.”