“We are moving to an increasing electronic society where our movements are going to being tracked.” Mary Cummings. (35 minutes 11 seconds in the video)

I recently watched this very interesting and terrifying video on drones. My definition of a drone is anything that is flown without a person in it. This can include unmanned aerial vehicles that have people operating them or autonomous drones. A current use of drones that have operators is the military used to target opposing forces. There is a camera on the drone that allows the operator to see what the drone sees. That’s terrifying enough, but the more terrifying idea is the one shared from Mary Cummings at the start of this article. HOLY MOLY that’s terrifying!

Think of everything you’ve done in your life? Likely you’d like a few of those to be left to the past. For example, I “broke the law” the other day by jaywalking or riding my dirt bike down the road. Now you might have said “Well you should have not have done that”, solely because you don’t like it or “It’s the law”. The problem with laws is that every law, once broken, must have some consequence. In debating the legality of homosexual marriages with a friend she assured me that it was “wrong” and that she thinks it shouldn’t be legal. Her argument was that it was already illegal! That’s very small thinking. This same friend also shared with me the multiple men she had lived with and had premarital sex with, yet she was making moral argument against homosexuality! WOW. To point out to her the ridiculousness of all her arguments I said “There are places where premarital sex is punishable by death. It’s the law.” She was not phased by that and was apparently convinced that the USA had perfected laws. WHAT!

Going back to my thoughts before the rant about my friend, what things do you do that might not be completely legal? How does that make you think about what other things that are “legal” might you disagree with? One of my personal favorite debates to have with people is about smoking.

Around 31 minutes, the video shows a whole city which can be zoomed in incredibly close. You can see things as small as 6 inches and they store all that data. And that’s just now and what they are telling “the public” unclassified. Think of in the future. “They” will be able to videotape the entire earth. This will undoubtedly provide some sense of safety for many people. I cannot argue that it would definitely have helped when my dirt bike was stolen the other day. A drone would be able to show exactly what vehicle and person stole it. Then they’d be linked to current face scanning technology and find the person nearly instantaneously. That would be great except for the lack of freedom it leaves! It would assure that those in power, however they got there, would be able to wield ultimate power, based on their definitions of right and wrong. I’m sure you all will agree that most of us don’t like being directed to do anything by another person.

We are continuously moving forward at a quickening pace and there are amazing and wonderful things happening every day. We need to be vigilant though that we don’t become (more) like sheep and more controlled each day. How much does the following quote by George Orwell fit with the people you know in your life?

“Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.” George Orwell – 1984

We must carefully guard our freedoms before we do worse than lose them, we will give them away.