Typically, our domestic drone-fueled fears revolve around the prospect of the expanding surveillance state. We're afraid, and justifiably so, of police using drones to peer into our personal space. As such, reports of police precincts operating drones rile up both Redditors and civil liberties defenders who fret that the sky will soon be buzzing with cameras.
But at least some of them will be harassing the police, too. Watch above as Team BlackSheep lands a drone on top of an unsuspecting truck and proceeds to antagonizes the French police with a Discovery quadcopter while a bemused press looks on and snaps photos.
The video is played for laughs, but the stunt has attracted some ire from drone hobbyists. On the YouTube boards, Jesse Cole writes, "This fucking shit right here is going to destroy the hobby. One incident with a crash or hitting someone and boom there are laws all over it and nobody is allowed to fly drones anymore."
But it's a pretty typical move for BlackSheep, which pushes the boundaries with drones to demonstrate what a society full of them might look like. They're the group that buzzed the Statue of Liberty with a drone and posted the video on YouTube to prove it—exposing serious security holes in the process.
Raphael Pirker, the TBS leader, once described the group's mission to Visual News by saying "Part of what we do is just stir up controversy- just to show what can be done with these drones… I see it as within three or four years time the drones will be actually be flying around normal aircraft."
I suppose it could be argued that TBS was making a point that not all drones are going to be on the side of police, that law enforcement will have to contend with aggressive hobbyists and drone antagonists as well. But it mostly just feels like an unmanned middle finger to an outmoded authority.