Drone over NYC, FBI Investigating!

[Blankity Blank]

RAMd®d wrote:

What the drones are doing that is stirring up the pot is that they are visible to the public.

No. Helicopters are visible to the public, but they are manned. The pot stirring is that they could easily be misused, pervasive, and covert. A cop drives down the street, nobody cares if he sees criminal activity (except the criminals). Odds are he won't be peeking in somebody's bedroom window.

What people fear is spying, and they equate constant surveillance with loss of privacy, and expect privacy, even in public. Knowing your every move is watched tends to creep people out.

Thinking that your every move could be watched tends to do the same.

Equally important is that continued survaillance, in both public and private settings, carries with it a degree of presumption of criminality/guilt/suspicion. The tenet of presumed innocence is eroded to a degree that becomes dangerous in both practice and in the implications for what the next 'logical' steps may be; we're now too far down the infamous slippery slope.