We have all heard about unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, which play a major part in the war in Afghanistan.
The ethical debates about their use in military contexts are nothing compared to whats coming: the possible use of drones not by the military, not in intelligence gathering, not by police but by journalists.
For the military to target a military target without risking the life of a fighter pilot seems to be not ethically questionable, but ethically preferable.
Drone use in a civilian context is a very different matter. And if its not here yet, its coming. There is already a Professional Society of Drone Journalists.
There is also www.dronejournalism.org.
The potential challenges to privacy are frightening. Oh, and by the way, put out of your mind the image of a drone carrying a bomb, that is, a large vehicle several feet long filled with sophisticated computer equipment.
Students at the Missouri School of Journalism hold a drone in their hands barely larger than two hands. A basketball looks larger. Drones can be virtually imperceptible, not because theyre thousands of feet in the air, but even if theyre only a couple of hundred feet in the air.
The possibilities for snooping on citizens are almost limitless.
There is good news, however. The current edition of Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists, reports on the intense, if adumbrative, discussions now taking place in journalism circles about the ethics of drone use by journalists.
First of all, it is clear that in some contexts drones could be useful and entirely non-controversial; for example, to fly over earthquake or other disaster areas which people cannot reach. The possibility of learning, via drones, the true nature and dimensions of disasters seems, at least at this stage of the ethical debate, to be very positive.
Second, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) has not approved the use of commercial drones as yet. No doubt, debates on the ethics of drones will occupy not only journalists but lawmakers in Congress, corporate executives and other potential users of drones.
Twenty-nine states have already sought to regulate drones in their respective airspace.
Legislators in Texas, for example, have proposed a bill making it a crime to capture images of someones property without their permission, reports Quill.
Third, journalists engaged in the drone debate are far from favoring their unrestricted use. There are ethical (and legal) limits to privacy that must be respected even without drones.
Among the issues now under debate are scenarios like this:
Should a person in a public place be expected to know that a device could be recording them from 400 feet above, or should journalists take efforts to inform people they might be recorded [by a drone]?
Fourth, and perhaps most important, the debate over the use of drones by journalists is beginning before the technology is in use. Technology always wins; ethicists usually play catch-up, trying to impose ethical limits on technology after the fact.
Here, although drone use is widespread in military contexts, it is not yet in use in commercial contexts; and even their use by police is, at best, in its incipient stages. There is time for the debate. Dont laugh, but right now, Quill reports, in order to fly drones without having an exploratory license from the FAA, journalists have to work under a hobbyist regulatory system developed in 1981 for model airplane pilots. Clearly, the debate will advance beyond that.
But make no mistake, technology always triumphs. Notions of privacy may change once commercial use of drones becomes a reality. The time for the debate is now.
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
