For some odd reason when drudge posted this article on spy drones that will be used by civilian law enforcement it caused a huge stir among people. But I don't see the big deal. People tend to have this aversion to UAVs in general equating the technology with danger. I see this a lot inside the hobbiest UAV culture where some remote-contol hobbiest call them dangerous (apparently more dangerous than an ape with a remote control.. but I digress). But allow me to focus on the article from drudge and peer inside this "flying eye in the sky!" boogeyman a bit.

1. Law enforcement already has the abilty to linger in airspace above any city. This is called a helicopter. Many police  departments in the US began to use helicopters for law enforcement after returning Korean War soldiers saw their usefulness in transporting wounded troops from the battlefield. This role was expanded to include enforcement, specifically the ability to track suspected criminals.

2. News helicopters. We have more than our share of news aircraft floating above us. How many times have to see aerial video on the TV? This is not new, in fact use of cameras in aircraft is very old.

3. Other aircraft - look up. Chances are good if you live in a urban area that you'll see an aircraft. Are they spying on you? Maybe. But most likely no, you are not that important.

4. Satellites - nuff said

5. Cameras are everywhere. You can't walk down the street in most metro areas without being on a camera. Simple matter of modern life. But that's a whole other topic thats been beaten to death already/

So what is new with this? Why the aversion to a technology that could be used to help society? The cost of a small UAV is pocket change compared to say a multi-million dollar aircraft that has must be flown by a trained crew and is relatively more expensive to maintain. Why not free these existing aircraft up for transporting accident victims, while leaving the survelliance to an inexpensive UAV?

But in the end I think we're going to see a lot more of these kind of issues regarding the use of autonomous vehicles and robots in general. People are scared of them for reasons older than written history. The unknown scares people. We need to educate people and let them know that people are still in control. Just because a robot appears to think for itself that simply isn't true. Every action is determined by the software/hardware that powers it. There will be mistakes of course. But that's because clothed apes create them, not because of some inherent Evil Inside(tm). Combine that with a distrust of authority prevelant in today's society, the arming of simple robots for warfare, sophisticated survelliance equipment, and television and you get fear. This fear could be useful, if used to promote wisdom in our choices of robotics. But it could also be damaging if innovation is shunned for the reason of fear alone.