Hear the word “drones” nowadays, and your likely to conjure images of unmanned war-machines raining fire and chaos upon unsuspecting targets in a remote
mountainous al-Qaeda stronghold.

Certainly, much controversy has surrounded the use of the unmanned vessels in the War on Terror and the potential implications for counter-terrorism and warfare.

But what about the drones that may potentially hover within our own airspace? What if the person behind the remote control is in fact your own neighbor? Your friend?

(Unmanned surveillance vehicle, courtesy of bbc.co.uk)

               That is exactly the question that Google head Eric Schmidt raised in a recent interview with the Guardian. Expressing his concerns over cheaper, smaller unmanned surveillance bots, he posed this:

“You’re having a dispute with your neighbor…How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?”

               Schmidt evidently is far from alone in this concern. Idaho’s Gov. C.L. Otter signed a recently-passed state law confining the use of unmanned drones to solely police and other public officials, to prevent privacy violations by citizens upon each other.

               We may even have to start worrying of prying eyes overhead from PETA, who has announced its plan to purchase its own private fleet of drones to monitor for signs of illegal activity among hunters in the United States.

               That the line between public and private is becoming more and more blurred is becoming more apparent by the day. Nonetheless, it has to be somewhat unsettling when the intrusive eyes we have to watch for from above are not those of Big Brother—but from the shady neighbor down the street.