Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone….
In the spring of 2010, I drove right along the border from Douglas, Arizona over to El Paso. Somewhere near the Arizona/New Mexico border I saw something that appeared to be a drone, although it was at very high altitude. I assume these have been deployed as part of the increased border security force that has been ramping up over the past two or three years.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this greatly reduces privacy compared to other means of surveillance. Where’s the bogeyman here; is it in the technology or the buzz words?
I do have concern regarding the potential effect of unmanned aircraft on aviation safety in already crowded skies, although it may not even equal the risk of bird strikes.