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#ArmedDrones and Ethical Policing: Risk, Perception, and the Tele-Present Officer
Christian Enemark, June, 2021
"On 29 May 2020 a #PredatorClassDrone diverted south from its routine patrol of the US–Canadian border and then circled in the sky above the city of Minneapolis for around three hours. Public protests were under way there following the killing of George Floyd by local police officer Derek Chauvin four days previously. The remotely controlled aircraft, operated by US Customs and Border Protection (#CBP), carried no weapons, but it had a mounted camera for transmitting video footage of events on the ground. It was reportedly deployed to Minneapolis to 'aid in situational awareness' at the request of 'federal law enforcement partners.'
"Later, however, thirty-five members of Congress criticized this use of a military-grade drone to surveil protesters inside the United States, arguing that such surveillance could be unduly intimidating and could have an unwelcome 'chilling effect' on participation in public life.
"The deployment for a law enforcement purpose of such a large drone (capable of bearing heavy payloads and flying at high altitudes for long periods) was nevertheless exceptional. Usually, in the United States and elsewhere, a 'police drone' means a small, short-range, multirotor aircraft of the kind produced by civilian manufacturers and widely available commercially. But the use of these drones has generated concerns about the intrusiveness of police surveillance and its impact on individual privacy and freedoms, too. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, police agencies in several countries used drones equipped with cameras (and sometimes loudspeakers) to monitor and enforce public compliance with social distancing rules. Sometimes, this prompted accusations that aerial surveillance in locked-down societies was breaching people's privacy rights and exacerbating a 'police state' atmosphere. The intrusiveness and privacy implications of (unarmed) drone use is an important and well-canvassed ethical issue on its own. It arises in the context of numerous other technological developments with policing applications including, for example, closed-circuit television, long-range audio sensors, and online financial transaction monitoring.
"In this article, however, the focus of attention is the potential use by police of small drones equipped with weapons as well as cameras, and the concern for human rights extends to the right to life which underpins ethical principles restraining police use of force. During the last two decades, armed drones have been extensively deployed over foreign territories, mainly by the US government. Drone strikes involving guided missiles have been carried out as part of armed conflicts in, for example, Afghanistan and Iraq. In this war paradigm, principles of military ethics (which underpin international humanitarian law) are applicable and these traditionally afford a broad moral permission for killing. By contrast, in non-war situations, where state violence is instead wielded within the peacetime paradigm of law enforcement, a more stringent morality based on human rights is applicable. According to several analyses of foreign drone use, the intentionally lethal use of armed drones 'outside armed conflict' is likely to offend those rights, because the conventional restrictions on using force for law enforcement purposes are difficult to satisfy.
"In a domestic context, too, a drone-based targeted killing carried out by a government would likely be an abuse of human rights in the form of an extrajudicial execution. However, even if the violent use of a drone to perform a punitive law enforcement function is impermissible for this reason, it remains to be considered whether an armed drone could properly be used as part of a state's protective (policing) effort to enforce the law. When former US president Barack Obama insisted that none of his successors should 'deploy armed drones over U.S. soil,' he was probably envisaging large (Predator-sized) drones launching Hellfire missiles with deliberately deadly effect. This differs, though, from a scenario in which a police officer's intention is not (or not solely) to kill and where they are using a drone armed, for example, with weapons not designed to be lethal. In such circumstances, it is worth asking: how (if at all) might the use of an armed drone satisfy the ethical principles that guide police use of force? And when (if ever) might it be morally permissible for police to use an armed drone against a criminal suspect or to protect public safety?
"This article explores such questions by first describing the utility of drone technology for police purposes and then outlining the ethical principles that traditionally guide and restrain police use of force. These principles inform the subsequent discussion of ethical challenges an officer is likely to face when remotely controlling an armed, camera-equipped drone. Drone use promises to reduce police exposure to danger, and this seems likely sometimes to yield the benefit of reduced risk of harm (caused by fearful officers) to criminal suspects and innocent bystanders. Weighing against this benefit, however, is the increased risk to the latter associated with any perception problems experienced by distanced police officers, as well as the risk that police remoteness might make public cooperation with policing efforts more difficult to achieve. At the time of writing, there have been no reports of armed drones being violently deployed by police anywhere in the world. Even so, as the next section shows, the requisite technology already exists, and some corporations, legislators, and non-government organizations have begun to anticipate the advent of police drone weaponization."