According to government estimates, 30,000 drones could be buzzing overhead within the next decade. These drones will operate out of at least 110 military bases located in 39 states around the country. Ordnance is already being stockpiled, pilots and crews are being trained and airspace is being cordoned off.
These drones range from small surveillance planes weighing a few pounds to armed airships carrying thousands of pounds of equipment and armaments. Under development is a new generation of micro air vehicles (MAVs) that are no larger than insects and capable of entering homes and workplaces undetected to photograph, record and even kill.
Hundreds of drones are already deployed over the US, with local law enforcement agencies acquiring their own drones as well. And these are just the drones we know about.
According to an ABC News report, “Drones can carry facial recognition cameras, license plate scanners, thermal imaging cameras, open WiFi sniffers, and other sensors. And they can be armed.” The precise technological capabilities of these drones, developed by defense giants such as Northrop Grumman at a cost of billions of dollars, are a closely guarded state secret.
Nevertheless, the surveillance potential of today's drones makes the spying carried out by the dictatorships of the last century look like child's play. Everywhere one goes, everything one says, everything one does–even within one's home–can now be surreptitiously observed, recorded, and collected in huge government databanks being secretly constructed by the Obama administration.
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