UAVs are one of the most controversial technological developments of the new millennium, and they still have yet to become widespread in the civilian world. Governments, particularly that of the United States, have touted their potential for national security and public safety. The main concern of civil liberties activists, however, is that they can be used in a manner which invades privacy. Just like any other technology, UAVs have the potential to be used both for positive goals, as well as by malicious forces for less than noble goals. One of the primary utilizations of this technology by governmental forces has been for the enforcement of national security. In this respect, it quite possibly has provided intelligence and strike capabilities …show more content…
UAVs provide a unique set of advantages in this role, primarily offering the opportunity to conduct a mission with a lighter footprint than a full-scale invasion of a country. This has been clearly evident in the difference in the style in which combat has been conducted between the Bush and Obama administrations, since UAVs have become a much more prominent part of the military …show more content…
The most pressing issue in terms of protecting the general public, which the FAA is attempting to tackle before the widespread introduction of UAVs in US airspace, is how to avoid crashes. UAVs have the reputation for an enormously high crash rate, much higher than that of manned aircraft. A number of statistics have been collected on the subject, and the results vary widely between showing that UAVs are 30 to 300 times more likely than manned civilian aircraft. The graph on the right, based on statistics from the US Department of Defense from 2002, expresses just how wide the gap is between the two types of aircraft when used in a military role. Naturally, the vast majority of these incidents, whether civilian or military, don't receive a large degree of media coverage due to the fact that typically no humans are injured. In the context of operating many of these devices at low altitude in populated areas, however, this is a very troubling potential issue. The majority of UAVs designed to operate domestically are relatively small and weigh around 50 pounds, but can still inflict quite a bit of damage if they simply fell out of the sky. Just imagine the effect of dropping a 50 pound weight off the top of a ten-story building in any major city, and you can easily understand the potential effect of UAV malfunctions on