If you think drones are bad enough, the military industrial complex is already working on the second generation.
This video (or more accurately, the part I want you to watch, which starts at 4:46) ran a few days ago on the Atlantic, and the author was duly freaked out. It depicts a world in which no one (or at least no ordinary person) will be safe from constant surveillance and the possibility of immediate execution.
The one bit of good news if you listen to the video carefully, this is all vaporware. It sounds like General Dynamic and its brethren are pumping to get stuff like this funded (or more accurately, the missing bits). But I wonder if the authorities understand what a Pandora’s box they will be unleashing. A more troubling use of the drone that killed the presumed bad guy in the picture is to carry small payloads of toxic chemicals. One of the reasons the concern over WMD in the wake of 9/11 was so overhyped was that it is not trivial to deliver a toxic agent in a manner that it will be in high enough concentrations and disperse adequately. But little drone swarms could go into crowded areas (subways? airports? Davos?) and do lots of harm. If I were part of the military, I’d want to be sure I also had the defensive technology for drones in place before I unleashed more of these critters.
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/the-coming-world-of-killer-mini-drones.html#4CCDMDOkmmW7svC4.99
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