After reading the title you might be expecting a horror story of sorts. And it is. Just not the one you are thinking.
Less than a year ago I deleted my personal facebook and twitter account. I no longer wanted to put personal information under my name on the World Wide Web, for everyone to see (and use). Now it appears that the Dutch government is in the possession of so-called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or in colloquial speech Drones.
The U.S. UAV, the Reaper, has been employed in a number of warzones like Iraq. Aircrafts like these can fly for up to 16 hours without a pilot. Well, actually there is a pilot, but he is thousands of miles away sitting behind a couple of computer screens. In the U.S., these ‘vehicles’ are also employed by national and state security services. The tracking of moving targets is practiced by tracking civilian cars at home.
These drones are not only equipped with heavy explosives, but they also carry top-of-the-notch camera equipment. When the Dutch government decides to employ this technology for at-home security, our privacy will be further infringed.
It bothers me even more that these remote controlled airplanes make the emotional distance between the ‘pilot’ or ‘desk soldier’ and their targets even larger. When not risking your own life, it seems easier to risk (and end) someone else’s. Of course, I haven’t received any training to do this job, but looking at it on TV almost makes it seem like a computer game. It scares me.
Another thing that scares me about the drones is the fact that they run on computer systems alone. As we all know, computer systems can be hacked. Just imagine these drones flying over a major city, someone hacking into the system and subsequently bombing an entire city.
Drones, to me, are an advanced weapon of terror and the use of them raises quite a lot of moral and ethical questions.
