Hey tinfoil hatters, we'll never see armed drones used in America. NEVER!!!

[intaglio]

29. No they don't

Satellites provide wide area scans and are pretty useless for the 1 meter resolution you need for the most of the jobs I mentioned. Some satellites can do 1 m resolution but they are rare and usually used by security agencies - they remain pretty much useless when there is cloud cover.

Helicopters can do the work as can light aircraft but they are horribly expensive both for purchase and in operation. This restricts them to being used in reaction to events - not to detect them. They and some aircraft are used for things like reflection IR scanning for illegal crops (do not grow hemp, for fibre of course, without a good overhead screen and accept the loss of yield). Additionally you cannot have manned aircraft of any sort working too close together and with fewer for an area your detection ability goes down rapidly. Drones can be programmed for such close coordination flying. Remember also that not all "drones" are large and could be operated from small vans or boats.