Research Paper On Drones

Drones: Not Fit for the Military
Once a science fiction movie idea, now they are slowly becoming reality; seen more often in everyday life. A drone is an unmanned aircraft or ship guided by remote control or onboard computers. Drones for recreational use are strictly regulated. Unless your drone is less than .55 grams then it needs to be registered with the Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA). The most recent spike of drone usage is because of recreational use. Or in other words for fun and pleasure. People use drones for things like racing, taking pictures of hard to reach places, and for other entertainment. In fact, drones are so popular that small and large businesses are beginning to take interest in them including the military. The
“The Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into the development of tiny drones inspired by biology, each equipped with video and audio equipment that can record sights and sounds” (Researchers). The ideas range from drones that look like common hummingbirds to drones that look identical to maple seeds with their natural helicopter like shape (Researchers). With technology like this there would be no such thing as privacy. It is possible to have a drone fly by your ear and you half heartedly wave it away as if it were a fly, when in reality it’s a micro sized drone spying on you. The reason why micro-sized drones would be such a problem is because “to a drone everyone's a suspect because drone technology makes no distinction between the law-abiding individual and the suspect. Everyone gets monitored, photographed, tracked and targeted” (Whitehead). ““Stanford Law's Ryan Calo notes, under current law,“citizens do not enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in public, nor even on the portions of their property visible from a public vantage”” (Healy). Indeed this is true but if a drone is micro sized or close to it the police force or the military could easily infringe on that law without anyones knowledge. If this technology was also integrated into the police systems it would completely destroy many of our rights and laws that deal with our privacy like the Fourth Amendment
This is a very good argument though not very realistic. A war cannot be fought, and most definitely not won, with drones alone; no matter how many drones are used or how sophisticated they are Sullivan. Drones are easily shot down and eventually have to go back to a base or landing station to be repaired. It is often mentioned also that for every hour a drone spends in the sky it has to be repaired when it comes back down the same amount of time. This realistic idea highly contradicts the commonly used argument that one day drones could be on the front line instead of Americans because eventually American soldiers will have to fight. Drones have a very long way to go if the military wants them to be the face of the U.S army and the army needs a lot more money to do