The Environmental Protection Agency is using killer drone aircraft to spy on innocent farmers in America’s Heartland, according to the Daily Caller, Fox News, and Tea Party congressmen. “Send In The Drones: Obama Spies On America” screamed an Investor’s Business Daily editorial.
Just one thing. It isn’t true.
The EPA does use aircraft to inspect huge agribusiness operations in the Midwest, but they’re conventional small planes with pilots in them. The agency has been doing that for a decade, starting in the G.W. Bush administration. EPA teams aren’t up there to peek at the farmer’s daughter skinny-dipping in the stock tank, they’re looking to see if huge lagoons of animal waste are leaking into the watershed.
And Republicans wouldn’t mind having surveillance drones of their own; ask Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell. Just don’t try using drones to enforce traffic laws.
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