Sunshine Girl in Red

On March 6, Republicans and Democrats watched as Senator Rand Paul filibuster 13 hours in Congress against the use of drones killing Americans on American soil who are being charged with a crime, without first being found guilty by court. Rand Paul in a speech at CPAC 2013, said that his filibuster was not just a speech about the use of drones but also was about constitution rights. So what is all the buzz with these drones, are they really that big of a deal?

Unknown to most Americans is the mass amount of domestic drones being introduced, as well as the mass amount of drones licences, but there are inadequate regulation on their use in the United States. The FAA modernization and reform act of 2012, says that drones will become more prevalent in the next two years. As of February FAA announce there may be as many as 30,000 drones in less then 20 years, which will be operate by both public, private and commercial. American airspace is already started, as of 2007 the FAA granted 1428 drone licences to police, university and state transportation.

Although drones have played a part in the war in the middle east, one can imagine the problems that drones could enhance the governments ability to monitor citizens in public places and on their own property. Our privacy law has not been able to  keep up to pace with our advance technology. Drones have become popularized worldwide as a result of the drone strikes that Obama administrations produced in tribal areas of  the middle east, one particular in Pakistan. These strike have been condemned internationally partly because the definition of "combatant"  which has been expanded to include any military age male in the region of the strike. There were also strikes made on american born members of AL-Qaeda, which created a law suite backed up by the 5th amendment and the 4th amendment, along with the prohibition on extrajudicial death warrants. Proving that there have been few attempts by our administration and congress to ensure the protection of our constitutional rights.

In January of 2013 Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that, armed unmanned drones will be a feature of U.S. counter terrorism effort abroad for years to come along with possible home defense. The issue I see with that statement is that in the Congressional report from January 2013 we do not see any preparation for the legal rules of the use of drones whether it be privacy rights or consumer rights. This is where Rand Paul filibuster comes back into the picture, Senator Paul, is reminding the president and other elected officials that we need to be aware of the problems that drones will be creating and what rights we have as Americans citizens.

I do believe that God has blessed us with incredible means of technology. I also believe that America need to stay current with technology and protocol, but to do so we need President Obama and our elected officials to deal with issues of privacy, safety, and law.