Good The Safety, Ethical, And Legal Concerns Of Drone Technology Critical Thinking Example

A drone is the unmanned aerial vehicle that is controlled by the use of global positioning based commands programmed into a computer (Jarvis 2014). In United States, drones have been in use by the military and other government agencies for the purposes of intelligence surveillance since the September 11th attack. Following President Obamas directive to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to open the airspace to drone by September 2015, debate has raged on the safety, ethical, and legal concerns that the eventual use of drones by civilian and law enforcement personnel will bring to the lives of the American Citizens. The proponents of the use of drones argue that they could be of more use to the American citizen than the harm that is projected (Horgan 2015).
The drone technology is very attractive in the sense of its applicability. The ability of the drones to provide real-time intelligence concerning disaster like fire outbreaks can make the firefighter’s department response quicker and hence save lives and property. The researchers are spearheading the campaign for the drones further argue that the drones could be useful in the rescue of lost people and especially children. Their ability to perform surveillance could be applied in the monitoring of rivers that have flooding tendencies such that people could be warned early in advance before the occurrence of the calamities that have claimed lives and millions worth of property. On the commercial front, the technology of drones could be used to survey and map specific archeological sites such that explores will not have to use a lot of resources to locate certain minerals of interest. Security wise, the drones could be used safely to monitor the dens of the dangerous polar bears and use the information to advise the general public against going close to them. There are practically so many surveillance benefits that the drone technology could be used for the benefit of the American citizen.
Despite the above discussed benefits that could be drawn from the drone technology, there has been fears that the technology could be too much in regard to their safety given their applicability in almost every other aspect of human life. Those arguing against their eventual launch into the open airspace argue that it would be too risky to allow different civilian owners to fly their drones without any central control (Wood 2014). The research institutions that are pioneering the safety use of the drones reports that their use have contributed to several incidents including collisions some of which have ended up damaging the drone altogether. The federal aviation administration requires that institutions and individuals alike should have certificates to fly their drones, but incidences have been reported where drones were spotted in the commercial airspace posing a danger to commercial flights. The FAA acknowledged that they could not establish the owners of the drones(Craig 2015). There is a real reason to worry if the regulating body admits its incapacity to regulate the drones at the time when they have not even been launched officially for the general public use. Collision with passenger airplanes could have diverse effects and as such, a lot of regulation policies have to be put in place.
There are sentiments about the invasion of privacy that the use of drones will bring along. Propositions that they are used for journalism purposes as well as for security purposes by the security agencies creates fear that the freedoms of the first amendments will be much violated by these users. The FAA issued a statement that the security agencies will have to get warranties to do surveillance using the drones. However, this position cannot be trusted as the design of the drones takes different shapes and sizes and as such member of the public may not even notice that they are being monitored. The FAA has not provided any guidelines on how it will regulate the institutional use of drones while taking care of the privacy of the American Citizens. The people in the media industry argue that the drone technology will help them cut unnecessary expenses that they use to collect images of breaking news and the traffic jam updates. While it is true that the drone technology will save a lot of costs, surveillance cameras along the streets of America would still serve the same purposes as the drones fitted with cameras. In fact, the usage of the cameras captions could be cheaper while providing some income from the sale of the content captured and transmitted to media houses. The only justifiable use of drones in journalism will be in covering incidents that would otherwise be risky such as calamities like floods, fires among others
There are the legal complications that may arise out of the use of drones by civilians and institutions alike. Though they are unlikely to create disturbances in terms of the noise that they make while flying over personal properties, an individual would be worried to spot a drone in the premises that are legally theirs. The researchers argue that the drone technology may evolve to the extent that they will be able to detect the presence of other drones near them and send the information back to the control room. This could be used by property owners to sue on claims of trespass especially when the drones are being flown at the height that is within the property owner’s use. The ethical, safety and legal concerns are to some extent valid though at this stage, when we do not have the regulating framework for the drone operation, it would be hard speculate extent of applicability of the concerns. The envisioned benefits of the drone technology would be far much useful to the American citizen that it would be detrimental to their fundamental rights.

Works Cited

Craig, Whitlock. "Close Encounters: As Small Civilian Drones Get More Popular, the Near Misses Stack up." Washington Post, The 6: Newspaper Source. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Horgan, John. "The Drones Come Home." National Geographic 223.3 (2013): 122. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
"Integration of Drones into Airspace: Selected Legal Issues." Congressional Research Service (2014): 4-10. Print
Jarvis, John. "U.S Drone Use Hovers on Boundaries of First, Fourth Amendments." Gateway
Journalism Review (2014): 12 -15. Print
Wood, Collin. "Sharing the Skies." Government Technology (2014): 32-35. Print.