This is the VOA Special English Technology report.
Late last month for the first time, President Obama publicly confirmed the American use of drone strikes in tribal areas in Pakistan. He answered the question on the subject during a Google (video conference) with people around the United States.
President Obama: “I want to make sure that people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise, precision strikes against al-Qaeda and their affiliates. And we are very careful in terms of how it’s been applied.”
(Debate) continues about how many people including civilians have been killed in those drone attacks. Drones are technically known as unmanned areal vehicles or UABs, these aircraft, however, are not just used for (air strikes) and they are not just used by governments. Human rights activists and environmental groups and journalists are increasingly using drones in their work. Drones can fly above news events to (capture images) that reporters may not be able to get close to on the ground. Matt Waite is a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Students in his drone journalism lab are exploring different uses for drones in (news reporting).
Matt Waite: “Drone journalism is an idea. It’s last for a year old at this point. The first instance I saw was a labor protest in Poland where a man had a remote-controlled helicopter and he put a camera on it and he flew it up and got just a view of the protest from the air and you could see police moved in the position to a kind of block the protesters around.”
A video on Youtube shows images captured by the so-called (robot) captor. A group of citizen journalists in Moscow used a similar drone camera to record protests during Russian (parliamentary elections). And Professor Waite noted a recent environmental case in the United States captured by someone flying his remote-controlled airplane.
Matt Waite: “He spotted a meat packing plant that was polluting a nearby creek that ran into a nearby river. He had images of a river of blood flowing out of meat packing plant which was against the law and environment regulatory authorities were alerted to it.”
Andrew Sniderman is a cofounder of the Genocide Intervention Network. He wrote recently in the New York Times that drones could to be used to collect (important information) in conflict areas like Syria. Professor Waite also imagines many other uses for drones.
Matt Waite: “I thought every hurricanes and tornado and fire and, eh, you know, kind of mass disaster that I ever covered as a journalist. But, wow, that would be amazing to have as a tool.”
Drone use in the United States is now rare because of (federal restrictions) on air space. However, Congress just passed the bill designed to ease those restrictions by 2015.
And that’s the VOA Special English Technology report written by Erick Simms. I’m Steve Ember.