Lauren's Blog: Insanity: Drone Hysteria and Bans Put Lives at Risk
https://lauren.vortex.com/2024/12/19/insanity-drone-hysteria-and-bans-put-lives-at-risk
Is this happening around the world, or is it only here in the USA that
everything appears to be going totally nutso? Seemingly all at once,
politicians of both parties look and sound like they've given up all
pretense of being educated human beings and are behaving like
infantile idiots with political agendas. Oh boy, what a mix.
Logic? Forget about it! Pandering to fear and nonsense? That's the way
to win elections!
We don't have much clearer examples of this than two simultaneous
situations involving drones.
First, as you probably know by now, there has been a hysterical panic
in New Jersey and surrounding areas about supposed swarms of
mysterious "drones". All evidence to date is that this is entirely
nonsense, fed by clickbait social media, opportunistic mainstream
media, and politicians in both parties out to seize an opportunity to
score political points from people's ignorance about technical
realities.
So far, other than legal hobby and commercial drones that are
routinely in the air -- there are something over a million licensed in
the U.S. -- people have been reporting as "mystery drones" various
shaky, blurry images of stars, helicopters, and airplanes (maybe the
green and red flashing lights and the white strobe lights give them
away, huh?), plus all manner of other completely ordinary stuff that
most people just never notice most of the time. And you have
politicians like Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer irresponsibly trying
to ram a new surveillance bill through the Senate to protect us from
this nonexistent threat -- Republican Senator Rand Paul blocked him.
When we have to depend on Rand Paul to be the sensible one, we must be
in The Twilight Zone.
Politicians in both parties including Trump have been making all
manner of claims feeding the drone hysteria -- based on nothing real,
and calling for shooting down the supposed "drones" if they "can't" be
identified, putting the lives of pilots and passengers on ordinary
plane flights at risk. People have been shining lasers at planes -- a
criminal offense -- again risking pilots and passengers.
The whole thing is totally nuts. It's reminiscent of a notorious panic
in Bellingham, Washington in 1954, when people started noticing
ordinary manufacturing defects in car windshields and mass hysteria
broke out with people fearing it was nuclear radiation or some other
kind of attack. I'm not kidding. Google it.
The drone panic wasn't helped by the sluggish reaction of government
agencies to speak clearly to the issue, but the fact that there were
no collisions between supposed drones and other air traffic spoke
volumes about the ridiculous nature of the entire situation. The FAA
has now issued some temporary drone flight restrictions in various
areas of New Jersey, to try calm things down even further. But if
agencies had gotten ahead of this issue early on, the information
vacuum might not have been filled with so much ridiculous nonsense.
One of the best new videos I've seen explaining the current drone
hysteria is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAWCIfs0ER4
I strongly recommend that it be widely viewed.
Meanwhile, the political hysteria over Chinese drone maker DJI's
drones as a claimed national security risk -- with absolutely no
evidence of this being presented -- has reached a bizarre and
dangerous inflection point in Congress.
DJI holds a very large majority of the U.S. drone market not just for
hobbyists but in the absolutely crucial areas of law enforcement,
search and rescue, other public safety groups, agriculture, utilities,
and many other areas of society. The reason is simple -- these groups
have not found practical competing products from other manufacturers
that meet the quality, reliability, and service support levels that
DJI routinely provides. DJI drones are used in myriad areas to
directly support the protection of human lives and property, keeping
critical infrastructure operating, and an almost endless list more.
Still, some politicians in both parties keep screaming at the top of
their lungs that DJI's drones must be banned, no matter how many lives
are lost or hurt in the process. Again, there is zero evidence that
has ever been presented that these drones are a security risk, and DJI
has bent over backwards to demonstrate that they do not threaten
security. But trying to logically argue with politicians who have
their own agendas (e.g., by pointing out to them that a foreign power
could just buy satellite surveillance photos -- they don't need to
"spy" through commercial drones!) is like debating a moldy sponge. All
you get for your efforts is a rotting odor.
It was thought that the current defense appropriation bill might push
through a DJI ban. This was likely to include DJI drones, cameras,
audio equipment, and other products -- either import bans alone, or
more likely import bans combined with telling the FCC to prohibit
their use of U.S. radio frequencies, which could also in theory -- but
probably not in practice -- block use of these DJI products already
received and in routine use in the USA.
Instead, with so many crucial public safety and other groups opposed
to the ban, the final language puts off a ban for a year, and says to
avoid the ban DJI must get an appropriate national security agency to
certify that their products are not a security risk.
Proving a negative is always, uh, challenging. But worse -- and this
is something straight out of Putin's Russia -- the language does not
say which national security agency should do this or require any of
them to do it. Franz Kafka would love this. Putin would smile.
It's possible that the next administration will be more receptive to
logical arguments about why DJI products should not be banned, and if
the ban moves forward DJI is virtually certain to litigate through the
courts, as well they should.
But the sheer irresponsibility of politicians wanting to ban such
crucial products based on zero evidence and a lot of wild-eyed
political posturing is nothing short of disgusting and irresponsible.
So here we are. Blurry photos of stars and planes are being touted as
terror drones, with politicians more than happy to latch onto the
panic for their own purposes. Actual drones crucial to a vast array of
industries and to saving lives are at risk of being banned by
politicians who scream "national security" without evidence.
Yeah, I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the USA it
sure looks like we've fallen off the deep end of sanity.
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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