Welcome to the United Drones of America
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The NSA has been getting fat and lazy lately, and it hasn’t bothered killing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to keep us ignorant for our own protection. But due to that no doubt temporary oversight, Motherboard via MuckRock was able to publish a June 2014 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) list of drone applications. According to that list, pretty soon we'll see more drones than the Russian mob has seen stolen credit card numbers.
The usual suspects
More than 700 different organizations have applied for a Certificate of Authorization that allows them to launch their own flying mech monkeys for any number of reasons. Many of these applicants are folks we expected:
•NASA, undoubtedly for Mars mission simulations where it crashes drones into Virgin Galactic R&D centers to gauge the potential of remote-detonated Semtex on private-sector competition
•The NSA and some other law enforcement agencies because … well, the list is too long and frightening for me to write down
•Various military branches because they need to spend their billions somewhere, death from above seems to be their preferred meth of fighting terrorists, and Halliburton is fresh out of solid gold urinals
But weirder candidates appear, too, foreshadowing the coming drone infestation that’ll darken our skies like mechanical locusts. For example, a couple of universities turn up, likely to advance their federally funded research/boondoggle. Also, nothing livens up a kegger like sitting on the roof, chugging Bud, and strafing freshman.
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http://www.infoworld.com/article/2833625/cringely/welcome-to-the-united-drones-of-america.html
Not particularly well written, but it gets the message across.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/every-organization-flying-drones-in-the-us
= new reply since forum marked as read
