Every breath you take, Every move you make
by Tom Sullivan
I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.
As other states across the country, North Carolina is looking at ways to implement legislation that would allow drone use in the state. The FAA is still attempting to define how they might safely share the skies with other aircraft. Equipped with a GoPro camera, small drones seem like nifty tools for photographers and hobbyists. But given the growing surveillance state revealed by Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, it is natural that civil liberties groups –
and even the T-party – are wary of their use by the government against civilians. It didn’t help that one of the sites chosen for early testing in the state belongs to the private security company formerly known as Blackwater.
This morning, the Winston-Salem Journal begins a 3-part series on how drones have been promoted in North Carolina, and by whom.
Imagine: You’re having an open-invitation BBQ in your own backyard. Friends can bring friends. Anyone can come. Thanks to newly enacted legislation, local and state law enforcement agencies are allowed to show up, too, without a warrant, to spy on you with drones.
It seems an unlikely scenario. Yet, a staff attorney at the state General Assembly’s Research Division, confirmed that it could happen. At a BBQ, “a Moral Monday planning session at a friend’s house” or “a conservative Tea Party gathering.”
Barry Summers, an Asheville-based activist, had attended earlier committee meetings on the legislation. As he described it, he was the only civilian in the room. The rest – the players – tended to be industry, military, ex-military, and Booz Allen (Snowden’s former employer). And, of course, ALEC wants to Open the Sky for Innovation and
Entrepreneurship. Over the summer, the North Carolina legislation was slipped quietly and anonymously into a must-pass budget bill:
The drone legislation was never the subject of a debate in the House or Senate.
The standalone drone bill – House bill 1099 – passed unanimously in the second hour of a marathon four-hour session in the House in June. Next, it died in the Senate before appearing in August, not as a standalone bill but as a section of the lengthy $21 billion budget bill, which contained more pressing items, such spending on education, Medicaid and roads, for example.
When asked, several sponsors of the language did not respond to questions. (One sponsor earlier denied it had passed after voting for it.)
Other local reports that the police video Moral Monday rallies where no arrests were made have angered civil liberties activists. Even the local T-party president:
“I think there’s a transparency issue,” she said. “If they are taking these pictures in a public place we have a right to know where are they being stored, who’s storing them, why aren’t they being destroyed. I think these are legitimate questions we need to ask.”
The Winston-Salem Journal asked principal sponsor Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston, about privacy issues:
Asked by email whether he and other supporters of the drone legislation “espouse the notion that people should not have an expectation of privacy when having an open-invitation gathering at their home — when having, for example, a backyard BBQ to which anyone is invited?” he said: “They could do no more with a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) then they can do with the help or Cessna. … If folks feel we need additional language next session, then we can always adjust for absolute clarity.”
I know I feel more secure now.