A county north of Houston has set the trend in American drone policing by taking delivery of a set of squat, remote-controlled helicopters called ShadowHawks. These can be weaponized to fire Tasers or beanbags at people – although the manufacturer, Van Guard Industries, claims that they’re strong enough to carry a shotgun. Which is comforting.

Possibly because when police drones spray you in the face with pepper spray, it doesn’t make as good a meme.

Arguably the mindset here is exactly the same as that which motivated American use of drones in the military – that using drones in risky situations keeps people out of danger. Except whereas the military tends to interact with other people with guns and things, the police tend to interact with American citizens, whose safety should be as great a concern, if not greater, than that of the cops.

And this is ignoring the huge invasion of privacy that would come about if American towns were fitted with flying, remote-controlled, camera-equipped helicopters. Which can shoot tasers. Although, predictably, there were efforts made by Tommy Gage, Montgomery County Sheriff, when the drones were first unveiled:

We’re not going to use it to be invading somebody’s privacy. It’ll be used for situations we have with criminals.

Which is vaguely reminiscent of that time when the Pentagon said that they’d only use military drones for spying on pirates, and wouldn’t weaponize them, and then armed their flying helicopter robots to start to firing on Islamists in Somalia.

Yay surveillance states.

[Source: MCM]