Drones Everywhere

Have you seen the film Sleep Dealers?

My experience yesterday with a drone reminded me of this excellent dystopic science fiction film:

 

My beautiful hiking area was invaded last night by a large and very noisy drone. The drone operator – a middle-aged guy driving a sports car – was quite polite when I couldn’t stop from myself from stating that I hate drones.

He asked why. I didn’t want to bore him with the litany of problems associated with their use so I simply said, politely, that they were a ubiquitous threat to privacy, a right believed by many to be enshrined in the very concept of self-sovereignty.

The drone guy very civilly argued back that he had the right to fly anywhere he liked in a federal aviation approved space.

He could be right. I don’t know.

I left hoping his drone wouldn’t terrorize the ravens who fly through that area at sunset calling to their dispersed family members to come join them in their collective journey back home (the location of which is a mystery to me).

I called the park the next day and spoke to the park representative. Drones are apparently an escalating problem and the park operators absolutely don’t want the drones, but also don’t know the complexities of the law.

I don’t have the time right now to research drone legislation but I guess ultimately drones will be everywhere not protected specifically by law.

Will I have to endure drones the way I endured second-hand smoke in restaurants and college hallways? I don’t want to live in a society where drones permeate all public spaces, even natural set-asides and other parks and utopic enclaves.

I cannot live in such a society. It will be far more fascistic than envisioned by George Orwell.

It will a panopticon of surveillance executed by mindless and likely well-armed drones.