In Turkey, protesters use drones to watch police, ushering in new era of counter-surveillance

Protesters in Turkey are flying tiny drone aircraft to watch the police and keep an eye in the sky on their current situation. The resulting video is changing the nature of protest and asymmetrical warfare, in Turkey and elsewhere. Situations like the unrest in Istanbul often result in a lock-down of airspace, disallowing the use of news helicopters to cover the action. Laws governing the use of small, remote-controlled drones, however, lag severely behind, and may continue to. No-fly zones are justified in the name of safety and air traffic control, but do those same justifications apply to a 5-pound hunk of plastic? And 5 pounds is on the heavy side. For instance, the forthcoming MeCam drone is absolutely tiny, and streams its video to smartphones in real-time. Governments are fond of the question: Why do you mind us watching, if you have nothing to hide? As both the size and price of this sort of technology decreases, it very well may reverse the roles of citizen and ruler.