LAKOTA, N.D.—The use of unmanned aerial drones, the deadly accuracy of which helped revolutionize modern warfare high above the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, is now spreading intrigue and worry across the plains of North Dakota.

Amid hundreds of hectares of corn and soybeans, far from the closest town, a Predator drone led to the arrests last year of farmer Rodney Brossart and five members of his family. The drone was called in after a dispute over a neighbour’s six lost cows escalated into a 16-hour standoff with police.

It is one of the first reported cases where an unmanned drone assisted in the arrest of a U.S. citizen on his own property. It was also a controversial sign of how drones — in all shapes and sizes — are beginning to hover over American skies.

Far from just the menacing combat aircraft bearing Hellfire Missiles and infrared cameras, Unmanned Aerial Systems, the preferred term in the industry, now include products so small they fit in the palm of your hand and can look as innocent as remote-controlled hobby airplanes.

They can quickly scout rural areas for lost children, identify hot spots in forest fires before they get out of control, monitor field crops before they wither or allow paparazzi new ways to target celebrities. The government has predicted that as many as 30,000 drones will be flying over U.S. skies by the end of the decade.

But can drones fly in domestic airspace without crashing into an airplane? Can they be used in a way that doesn’t invade privacy? Who’s watching the drone operators — and how closely?

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a policy paper last year titled “Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance,” warned: “All the pieces appear to be lining up for the eventual introduction of routine aerial surveillance in American life — a development that would profoundly change the character of public life in the United States.”

It put Rodney Brossart front and centre in the debate over the burgeoning use of domestic drones, and the threat they may represent when authorities are given the ability to watch everything from above.

“I’m not going to sit back and do nothing,” Brossart said recently, sitting in the shade outside his small house where farm equipment, trailers and the top half of a school bus sit in the yard in various states of disrepair. As drone use expands nationwide, he’s worried. “I don’t know what to expect because of what we’ve seen.”

Groups ranging from the Electronic Privacy Information Center to the American Library Association have raised concerns with the Federal Aviation Administration about the implications of opening up U.S. airspace to drones, as have Representatives Edward Markey and Joe Barton, co-chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus.

But the federal government has been quietly expanding their use. Even as the wars abroad wind to an end, the military has been pleading for funding for more pilots. Drones cannot be flown now in the United States without FAA approval. But with little public scrutiny, the FAA already has issued at least 266 active testing permits for domestic drone operations, amid safety concerns.

Statistics show unmanned aircraft have an accident rate seven times higher than general aviation and 353 times higher than commercial aviation.

Under political and commercial pressure, President Barack Obama’s administration has ordered the FAA to develop new rules for expanding the use of small drones domestically. By 2015, drones will have access to U.S. airspace currently reserved for piloted aircraft.

“Think about it; they are inscrutable, flying, intelligent,” said Ryan Calo, the director of privacy and robotics for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. “They are really very difficult for the human mind to cleanly characterize.”

While drone use in the rest of the United States has been largely theoretical, in eastern North Dakota it is becoming a way of life.

Drivers near the Grand Forks base say they often see the U.S. Customs Predator B (the B indicates it is unarmed) practicing “touch and go” landings. A local sheriff’s deputy talked of looking up from writing reports in his patrol car one night to see a drone quietly hovering over him.

Don “Bama” Nance, who spent 20 years in the U.S. Air Force before retiring, now cuts the grass on the base golf course. “They’re always overhead on the third hole,” he said.

The Grand Forks base has been flying drones since 2005, when it switched missions from flying tankers to unmanned aerial systems. So, too, have the storied Happy Hooligans of the North Dakota Air National Guard, which has flown drone missions in Iraq and Afghanistan from its base in Fargo.

And use is growing. Predators operated by Customs and Border Patrol completed more than 30 hours of flight in 2009 and more than 55 hours in 2010, mapping the flooded Red River Valley areas of North Dakota and Minnesota. In 2011, the Predator B flew close to 250 hours in disaster relief support along the northern border.

The Grand Forks base, which now has two Predators flying, expects to have as many as 15 Northrop Grumman Global Hawks and six to eight General Atomics Predators/Reapers. That will add 907 personnel to the base.

“Where aviation was in 1925, that’s where we are today with unmanned aerial vehicles,” said Al Palmer, director of UND’s Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research, Education and Training. “The possibilities are endless.”

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Still, not everyone is enthusiastic about drones. When the Air Force proposed expanding restricted air space near Devils Lake to conduct laser training with drones, there were fears it would interfere with commercial and general aviation. Nevertheless, the FAA approved the airspace expansion late last month.

Between the base and Grand Forks, Arnie Sevigny flies his own silent drone protest: a raggedy kite shaped like a jet fighter.

“No camera. No invasion of privacy,” Sevigny joked. “What do you need a drone for anyhow? They use the satellites they already have to see the head of a dime in your hand.”

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