A similar dynamic has played out over the past month in New Jersey, where a spate of reports of mysterious low-flying aircraft has provoked all sorts of outlandish theories. Some have claimed that the aircraft are enemy drones launched by an “Iranian mothership” off the coast; others, that they are US federal drones searching for the radiation signature of a dirty bomb smuggled into the state.
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People have good reason to be paranoid about drones, said Neil Richards and Ryan Durrie on MSNBC. Quite apart from the potential threat they pose to national security and air traffic, there are strong privacy issues at stake with devices that are, among other things, “flying high-definition video cameras”.
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There are more than 1.7 million drones registered for commercial and recreational use in the US, said Max Boot in The Washington Post, and it’s clear the country needs to do more to guard against their improper use. In November, the FBI arrested a Tennessee man who was allegedly plotting to use a drone loaded with explosives to attack Nashville’s power grid. In October, Arizona authorities charged a teenager with planning to use a drone to bomb the Phoenix Pride festival.