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South African mining corporations may use weaponized drones to control workers (privacysos.org)
1 point by scarmig on June 12, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



I'm going to be a bit optimistic and say this might not be as bad as it sounds: nearly always large mass actions involve some side-violence, which results in a policeman getting a black eye or something, and is used as an excuse to bring in massive state violence to shut down the action.

A drone, however, is both inaccessible to demonstrators and, even if somehow damaged, doesn't really provide a casus belli for strategic retaliatory violence. Even the surveillance aspects aren't a real change from the status quo: in the States at least, every worker involved in a contentious labor issue has a full dossier on them about their living situation, social media presence, work hours, personal opinions, voter registration, friends and connections, put together independently by both management and unions. Being involved in a strike, of course, would definitely have been recorded.




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