A lot has happened since I last reported on my surveillance drone. My fleet has grown to three drones: in addition to the DJI quadcopter, I have a Bixler Sky Surfer equipped with a GoPro camera that can send a live video feed back to a base station. This is what’s called FPV, or “first person view” that allows you to see the world as if you were in the drone....

....After my first drone post I was introduced to Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and founder of DIY Drones, the organization that developed the Arducopter, Arduplane, Ardurover, and other Arduino-based autonomous drones and cars. Arduino is an open-source board that’s very popular in the robotics community that serves as a digital interface between various real-world processes. The Arducopters have a controller that includes a full autopilot that allows you to plan missions for your drone by simply clicking on a series of waypoints on Google Earth. If you’ve got it set up correctly, you can send the drone off to any set of GPS coordinates you specify and then have it fly back to you, without any pilot input....

...It’s pretty clear to me that we have not begun to think through the political consequences of living in a world where sophisticated drones can be operated by lots of other countries besides the United States, and by private individuals within the US.