King Bob McDonnell, governor of Virginia, incredibly told
WTOP Radio on Tuesday that unmanned police drones covering Virginia’s skies
would be “great” and “the right thing to do.”[1]
McDonnell likes the idea of drone technology apparently because it would allow
law enforcement to be “more productive” and “cut down on manpower,” and most incredibly,
because “we use it on the battlefield.” Is McDonnell equating Virginia to a
battlefield?
The biggest question here is why exactly McDonnell thinks
that military technology can and should be brought into the “civilian sector”,
as if the two “battlegrounds” were two different fronts in the same war.
It is the pinnacle of irony that a Republican politician who
portrays himself as a political pragmatist[2]
while attempting to court the political favor of the tea partiers of the state[3]
would even think to favor such an idea, an idea which makes me shutter with the
images of 1984 and the other famous dystopian
novels.
Whether or not these fears and anxieties are completely
warranted, the potential for this military technology to erode civil liberties
and individual freedom was even recognized by McDonnell in the same radio interview.
McDonnell noted that “Obviously, at some point, certain operations may need to
address civil liberties concerns.”[4]
Just as obviously, McDonnell has not resolved his own internal conflict between
his former life as a military officer and his current life as the conservative
governor of Virginia.
So as to clear up any confusion that McDonnell may have,
Virginia is not a battlefield and does not require military technology to
increase law enforcement “productivity.”
There will unfortunately be crime in any society worth living
in, crime being on one level an outgrowth of individual freedom. But I am
willing to trade crime for unmanned military drones zipping above my head in
the name of productivity. If history has taught us anything it’s that
technology in the hands of government, regardless of who’s in power, can and
will be used against the people, criminal and noncriminal alike.[5]
This is not to argue against the progression of technology
or its use by government. It is however to argue that the technologies that
government uses should be carefully monitored and controlled.
No comments:
Post a Comment