Drones to be armed? Civil-liberties defender sounds alarm

An organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world has issued a warning about the possibility raised by one surveillance vendor that it could arm its drones with tasers.

It is the Electronic Frontier Foundation that reports Axon, which is a taser and surveillance vendor, has proposed a “solution” to school shootings.

The company’s strategy is for a “remote-controlled flying drone armed with a taser,” EFF reported.

But it warned, “For many, many reasons, this is a dangerous idea. Armed drones would mission-creep their way into more every-day policing. We must oppose a process of normalizing the arming of drones and robots.”

The organization said in an online position paper, “Police currently deploy many different kinds of moving and task-performing technologies. These include flying drones, remote control bomb-defusing robots, and autonomous patrol robots. While these different devices serve different functions and operate differently, none of them – absolutely none – should be armed with any kind of weapon.” – READ MORE