The Double-Edged Sword of Drone TechnologyTony Cartalucci As the NSA builds an omnipresent surveillance network across the planets surface tracking each and every one of us, ranking us autonomously into various threat categories with the most dangerous brought to the attention of human operators fleets of drones can endlessly circle overhead with the ability to strike us down at any moment. Such a society is technically already here. While drones are not killing Americans on American soil, they are killing Americans on foreign soil under just such a premise. While the justification today is terrorism and the villains easily hated by most Americans and their deaths just as easily shrugged off, this can and already is being incrementally changed. The centralized nature of telecom and the current monopoly the state holds over drone technology ensures that this nightmare only gets darker. The Solution Even the Odds The civilian use of drones goes beyond their use by police and non-military government agencies. News teams both corporate and alternative are increasingly turning to drone technology to cover events as they unfold. In Bangkok, Thailand, during protests seeking to oust Wall Street proxy Thaksin Shinawatra, alternative news agencies used drones not only to cover events from unique and compelling perspectives, but to gather intelligence on the strength and disposition of police loyal to the regime. With this information available to all on YouTube via drone footage released of clashes filmed from above, better strategies could be developed against the regime, saving time, energy, and even lives. Drones are being deployed agriculturally by independent farmers to give them a better idea of how their crops are fairing and insight on how to better manage their fields with the resources they have or may require. MITs Technology Review, in an article titled, Agricultural Drones, stated: Drones can provide farmers with three types of detailed views. First, seeing a crop from the air can reveal patterns that expose everything from irrigation problems to soil variation and even pest and fungal infestations that arent apparent at eye level. Second, airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the infrared as well as the visual spectrum, which can be combined to create a view of the crop that highlights differences between healthy and distressed plants in a way that cant be seen with the naked eye. Finally, a drone can survey a crop every week, every day, or even every hour. Combined to create a time-series animation, that imagery can show changes in the crop, revealing trouble spots or opportunities for better crop management. This out-of-box capability may already be helping farmers today, but the hackability of drone technology means that these automated camera platforms may soon be helping in other, bigger ways. DIY Drones Asking for drones to be regulated or otherwise outlawed will only result in the technology remaining solely in the hands of those abusing it most. Instead, activists fearing a dystopian future where drones prowl the skies and strike us down without warning and with absolute impunity, should commit themselves to democratizing drone technology in other words taking ownership over it and ensuring no monopoly of any kind can be had over it. People have already been developing their own drones as part of personal projects, at universities as school projects, or part of technological collectives known as makerspaces or hackerspaces. The concept of DIY drones is gaining momentum as the technology used to construct and hack automated or semi-autonomous aerial platforms becomes cheaper and easier to use. There in fact exists an entire community online,DIYdrones.com, that provides a good cross section of the increasingly impressive results hobbyists, makers, and hackers are achieving. The website also serves as an invaluable resource for those seeking to build their own projects. While many commercial kits offered to farmers today serve as advanced imaging systems, hackers could potentially augment these drones with the ability to do everything from managing pests, pulling weeds, and checking hydration, to providing security alerts and even automated harvesting that puts not a single footprint or tire track upon fields. Other applications could include painting, maintenance, meteorology, and even constructionin both rural and urban settings. Balance of Power Before the need even arises to create fleets of locally produced and armed drones, a fully educated population that has successfully democratized drone technology will already pose a counterweight to the unmitigated use of drones by monopolies. Awareness alone will limit the impunity these monopolies currently enjoy today. However, with an increasing number of people capable of producing their own drones, countermeasures to armed drones and their abuse will increase as well not only within any given country, but between countries as well. The monopoly the United States enjoys today will be hindered first by other nations developing their own drone programs, and then by the expansion of civilian uses and an increasingly educated and technologically competent population. For those that fear and detest the use of drones by governments and corporations as an extension of their monopolies, greed, and ambitions to control others, the battle should not be to un-invent drone technology, but to disseminate, distribute, and democratize it to provide the ultimate check and balance. Sentinels created by and for local communities could be used for security and weather observations today, but the ability for them to be transformed into self-defense systems tomorrow would be an ever-looming threat hegemonic powers would have to enter into their calculus. The watchers can be watched, the trackers can be tracked, and the executioners can be eliminated but only if drone technology can be embraced and democratized, not feared and allowed to remain monopolized. When we do grant ourselves the ability to watch, track, and eliminate the drones sent to watch, track, and eliminate us, we may find the balance of power such an ability achieves makes actual confrontation entirely unnecessary for it was the ancient Chinese warlord Sun Tzu who said best, The greatest victory is that which requires no battle. Tony Cartaluccis articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at Land Destroyer Report, Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg. Read other contributed articles by Tony Cartalucci here. 