Working hand in hand, these two nations developed the Hunter and Pioneer UASs. The
Pioneer was originally adopted by the Navy and was used effectively in the Gulf War to spot
enemy fire for the delivery of munitions. It also operated in a surveillance function for the
Marines during the 1994 Balkan conflict and in Kosovo in 1999 (Newcome 2004, 97). These
battlefield successes heralded the drone as an effective combat tool, and it was during the 1990s
that unmanned aircraft received significant media attention (Sanders 2003). Success on the
battlefield and newly found public attention led a variety of interested parties to explore using
UASs outside of their traditional military applications.
New scientific endeavors marked the transition of unmanned technology to the scientific
sector, a development that led to great advances in military capabilities as well. Research in the
1990’s focused on enabling the unmanned vehicles to stay airborne for periods over 24 hours and
above 50,000 feet, on using new materials in the construction of the craft to make them lighter
and stronger, and on harnessing solar power to propel the aircraft for indefinite periods of time
(Newcome 2004, 118). NASA and the AeroVironment Corporation developed the solar-powered
Pathfinder and Helios aircraft in the late 1990’s. These UASs exemplified the technological
advances being made at the time but were hindered by inefficient photovoltaic cells (DeGarmo
2004). Fully autonomous flights that included take-off and landing were pioneered, and for the
first time the new Predator drone was outfitted with a laser-guided antitank missile, making it
capable of patrolling, spotting, targeting and attacking at once (Newcome 2004, 110). With the
advent of such technologies, it became clear that UASs in combat could lessen the need for
manpower and put fewer soldiers in the line of fire. As the functionality and reliability of UASs
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grew, the potential for their use in civilian and non-military government sectors became obvious.
Modern unmanned aerial systems would soon receive new widespread attention when the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) changed the nature of war and their role in the
ensuing conflicts grew. In this new age, the war waged was one against terror, illusive and
cunning, difficult to track and impossible to eradicate. Al-Qaeda and their Taliban supporters
soon met the force of the United States military response to the provocation of 9/11. Among the
arsenal were newly retrofitted Predator drones equipped with Hellfire missiles. The first notable
event in the new era of drone warfare occurred when a remotely controlled Predator drone
located, tracked and fired a hellfire missile on a car, killing Abu Ali al-Hirithi, al-Qaeda’s top
operative in Yemen and one of the planners of the 2000 USS Cole bombing (Yoo 2011, 58). This
notable strike was but the first of many UAS strikes that characterized military operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2002, the CIA conducted a strike against Afghani warlord Gulbiddin
Hekmatyar, who shortly after joining forces with the Taliban was killed by a drone (Yoo 2011,
59). In 2004, a “mysterious explosion” below Pakistani airspace killed Pakistani Taliban
commander Nek Muhammad shortly after a drone was reported in the sky (Williams 2010, 874).
This success in South Waziristan led to a Predator drone strike against Haitham al Yemeni (May
2004), a high-ranking Al Qaeda weapons expert, another strike against Egyptian-born number
three in Al Qaeda, Abu Hamza Rabia (Dec 2005) and a strike against al-Zawaheri, Al Qaeda’s
number two operative, which missed its target destroying three buildings, eighteen civilians,
including five women and five children enraging the Pakistani population (William 2010, 875).
The UAS targeting of enemy leaders and opposition troops has become a common
practice in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of war since 2001. The New America Foundation
(2013) estimates that since 2004, 420 drone attacks have killed between 2,000 to 3,200 militants
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including 275 to 360 civilians. Miniature versions of larger UASs now inundate the field so
extensively that “(n)ow there are thousands of small, unarmed aerial surveillance drones being
used by troops on the ground—so many, in fact, that it is difficult to obtain an accurate estimate
of their number” (Sharkey 2011, 229). These small UAVs can be deployed by hand and operated
with an Xbox controller through a visual headset that allows troops on the ground to gain
actionable intelligence at their command. While always somewhat controversial, uproar over
drone assassinations reached new heights in October of 2011 when a lethal strike in Yemen killed
Anwar Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and Muslim cleric accused of conspiring to carry out terrorist
attacks against America (Cloud, Flieshman and Bennett 2011). In the first known case of the U.S.
government killing a U.S. citizen with a UAS, “the raid also killed a second American, Samir
Khan, who had produced virulent, English-language online propaganda for Al Qaeda” (Cloud,
Flieshman and Bennett 2011).
Following the designation of the FAA by Congress to draft rules for civilian UAS
integration into the national airspace, the months previous to this paper have witnessed increased
drone coverage in the media. In April 2012, in the first ever event of its kind, an American
citizen was arrested with the assistance of a UAS. When six cows wandered onto Rodney
Brossart’s 3,000 acre North Dakota farm, Brossart and his family chased police off of his land
with high power rifles, believing they were entitled to keep the cows (Koebler 2012a). The
ensuing 16-hour standoff ended when the Grand Forks SWAT team used a Homeland Security
UAV to locate Brossart on the large farm and assist in his capture. Arrested for theft, criminal
mischief and other charges, Brossart, who was sure UAV assistance in his capture was illegal,
recently learned in August of 2012 that the charges against him would not be dropped (Koebler
2012b). Since the SWAT team did have a search warrant and the drone was used only for
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surveillance, “District Judge Joel Medd wrote that ‘there was no improper use of an unmanned
aerial vehicle’ and that the drone ‘appears to have had no bearing on these charges being
contested here’” (Koebler 2012b). The case could be in litigation for a long time if appellate
courts decide to hear the case. (The Fourth Amendment issues that could be considered in this
case are examined later in this paper on pages 21 – 25.)