Truman National Security Project

Truman Security Fellow Robert Friedman in the Huffington Post:

One was called in by law enforcement in North Dakota to use thermal imagery in determining whether three suspects were dangerous. Florida officials want them for security surveillance at this year’s Republican National Convention. And Virginia’s governor recently declared it would be great if they were flying over his state. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that up to 30,000 new unmanned aircraft systems–or drones–could be launched inside the U.S. in the next decade.

The conventional notion of drones in the public consciousness conjures up images of stealthy devices swooping down from the sky to take out terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. The Obama Administration’s widely-reported increase in the use of drone strikes has been accompanied by a healthy public debate about the moral, ethical and legal implications of these tactics.

Read the entire article here.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Truman National Security Project or Educational Institute.