Monday, December 22, 2014

DRONES: Coming to your neighborhood....whether you like it or not!

I'd like to personally thank whomever invented drone technology and made it available to the general public. No, not really. Admittedly they are great for capturing real-time video of public outdoor venues and scenery that look really cool form the air. But when they do a buzz-by over your house, it's a different story completely. I've always said that life requires a healthy balance of all things. I now present a potentially unhealthy imbalance. (See video below)

This afternoon I was minding my own business whilst washing both cars outdoors. I was scrubbing away, breaking a sweat when all of a sudden I hear what sounds like a swarm of bees. Well, that can't be, I thought...or at least hoped. Then I looked up and fixed my eyes on the origin of the noise. Shazam, there it was. A familiar looking four prop drone buzzing 100 yards or so over my head. Granted we live in a relatively remote neighborhood so I did not think this altogether unusual. But then suddenly it stopped directly overhead and paused. It was loud enough to be annoying and hovered long enough to be concerning. Odd even still was the fact that it suddenly returned on the exact trajectory it had arrived. A nosy neighbor perhaps?

Inevitably, you go down the path of, if it comes again, how am I going to get it out of the sky. Can I throw things at it? Can I shoot water at it? A BB gun maybe? Even a toy drone with an HD camera scrambles our sense of property and privacy rights. What constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy anyway? Already there have been recent stories of close calls between airplanes and various types of drones within their flight path. Does that concern you? It should.

Unfortunately like most abrogation of privacy rights, a public outcry to impose restrictions often comes too little, too late. It is true that Google Maps already has high definition photos of our private property. But this is much more intrusive and potentially much more dangerous. We simply do not know who owns and operates these drones. Anyone with even the slightest awareness of current events can easily put the pieces together. 

I'm afraid Pandora's Box has already been opened to the swift dissemination of our private information across the web for the whole world to see. Time to pull down the window shades. Oh, and if your wondering what's next, just Google "f-35 xray vision" and "infrared detection devices" which will most likely become drone add-ons in the future. At least in those days we will no longer need window shades.

So much for privacy!

But hey, I'm a nice guy so let me help you out with your purchasing decisions:

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