WASHINGTON – According to the Los Angeles Times in an article published Tuesday, new unmanned drone planes could be used domestically soon for both law enforcement and agricultural sector officials, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. 

The drones are currently used to fire missiles by the American military in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other areas where terror suspects are allegedly hiding. But civilians are also killed in sizable numbers as collateral damage or the result of errors at times leading to strong backlashes against the United States. 

Police would use the buzzing drones to spy on residents with the hopes of gathering evidence on suspected criminals, like a police chopper but remote controlled.

Farmers would use the drones to pump pesticides onto fields from above, and utility companies also would like to use them to probe oil, gas, and water pipelines. 

Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association, said it’s only a matter of time before drones are in U.S. skies despite the uneasiness and invasions of privacy they may cause for the population. 

Homeland Security has been quiet on the subject but has said that they’ve been used already at times, mostly to support disaster relief efforts. 

This summer, however, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik, currently with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection UAV program, told a congressional subcommittee that a third drone was being added to an arsenal of two that already fly over Texas to patrol the US/Mexico Border.

Earlier this year, Russia Today also revealed that the military is investing $23 billion into new drone crafts, and that the U.S. has added bases to fly the planes in and out of across the world. A friendly fire strike gone disastrous in April killed two American troops mistaken as Taliban insurgents, and a September strike in Yemen killed two American citizens alleged to have ties to al-Qaeda. 

Following that strike, Republican Congressman Ron Paul told an audience during a televised GOP debate that “now we know American citizens are vulnerable to assassination.” A passing of the National Defense Authorization Act’s latest provision this week, coupled with a reinforced drone arsenal, could create such executions to be carried out stateside, by-the-books.

Small drones are being manufactured in the thousands, however, and AeroVironment Inc. has created a drone helicopter for police monitoring and intends on sending 18,000 of them to law enforcement agencies once the crafts have clearance. Those drones, reports the Times, weigh barely five pounds and could be controlled by a tablet computer.

As the realm of drone-filled skies becomes a reality, Americans could be experiencing a police state that they never could have imagined, either, although it is not known if strikes would be allowable within the U.S. 

According to a report this year from Britain’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, US drone strikes have killed nearly 400 civilians in Pakistan alone, and that the CIA has launched 291 attacks by the report’s publishing in August — eight percent more than the Central Intelligence Agency had admitted to. Casualties in all, adds the UK’s Bureau, are at least 40 percent higher than what the U.S. has reported.

Both major parties have shown support for drones being deployed in the U.S.