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Eric Schmidt: Regulate Civilian Drones Now
An anonymous reader writes "Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is urging lawmakers to regulate the use of unmanned aircraft by civilians — and quickly. He posed this hypothetical situation to The Guardian: 'You're having a dispute with your neighbor. How would you feel if your neighbor 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 went on to bring up military and terrorist concerns. 'I'm not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratize the ability to fight war to every single human being. It's got to be regulated... It's one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they're doing, but have other people doing it... it's not going to happen.'"
he wants drone legislation to create a barrier to entry to compete with whatever Google will be offering. realtime google maps? etc
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Eric Schmidt (in a 2009 interview)
"In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you," Schmidt said at the 2010 Techonomy conference, arguing that there were dangers to having complete anonymity online and that governments may eventually put an end to anonymity. "We need a [verified] name service for people," he said. "Governments will demand it."
This is the first time Schmidt has ever made an argument in favor of privacy (as far as I know).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."