This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, July 30, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

The use of drones in domestic law enforcement is on the rise, as police see new ways to scan our yards, streets, sidewalks and

homes for suspected criminal activity. So where does it end? Walter Olson is a

senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies, he comments.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has said that he welcomes the possibility of using drones as a tool in the quiver of law enforcement within the

United States.

Rand Paul on the other end of that spectrum has introduced legislation

that would require a warrant before police make use of drones in a capacity as a routine matter of law enforcement.

And you've discovered that we already have

been

and it's resulted in arrests.

It has. The Minnesota or Minneapolis Star Tribune reported last week that a

North Dakota farmer had been arrested after a drone had photographed

stuff that was a standoff with police. He was accused of having cows that

belong to a neighbor. It's a fact pattern that doesn't matter very much because

we're going to see a hundred other fact patterns. They're going to be environmental cases.

There are going to be people growing marijuana and their property are going to be child welfare cases.

And you see this already overseas in Britain, for example, where there have been arrests based on

drone law enforcement.

And the law enforcement community

sees big, even revolutionary sorts of advantages from this.

It allows them to do all sorts of stuff.

...