Don Shift Sends: Fun and (Mostly) Legal Things You Can Do with a Drone

Let’s look at some specific, non-felonious ways you can use your drone in a rule of law, or mostly rule of law (MROL), situation. It’s 2026, the second year of Joe Biden’s second term. The old guy isn’t looking so good, and neither is the United States. Nevertheless, you’ve got to get to grandma’s house. You and the family are traveling on the beltway around the city when traffic comes to a halt. Ever since the war and cyberattacks, the cell network hasn’t been so good and naturally with a couple hundred cars in a three-lane linear parking lot you’ve got a single bar. How do you find out if this traffic jam is from a wreck or something else?

Sure, in the 2020s we can see traffic jams on our phone maps and get updates from various apps on whether or not it’s a crash, a protest, or Godzilla, but that’s not always gonna be the case. As above, cell networks can be saturated, you may have bad reception, or the incident may not be reported. Why crane your head out the window or do that little turn on to the shoulder to try and see past the other cars? This isn’t 1989 where you have to hope that the radio mentions your route at the top of the hour.

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) can give anyone who can program a VCR a god’s-eye view of the world. Flying has long been a superpower, so why not easily obtain this one? Simply consider how much more information and awareness can be garnered by an aerial, look-down perspective. Just like radios, drones are force multipliers. The more information, the better your decisions and outcomes can be.

Drones can maneuver around and see over visual obstructions without line-of-sight limitations. They aren’t restricted to observations from a static location, as an observer in a high tower or on a hill is. Nor are they bound to an eye-level view from the ground that a person is. They can go behind obstacles, fly over buildings, and fly very low to inspect behind things like fences. They can easily inspect dangerous or denied areas.

Drones are small and light enough to be part of anyone’s traveling contingency kit. In our scenario, since traffic isn’t going anywhere fast, you have your boy hand-launch the drone. In a minute it’s two hundred feet up and a quarter-mile away. What’s that on the bridge? A “FJB” banner? A pro-Palestine protest? A warning from the cartels? Who are those people on the roadway? Is that a car accident or was it an IED?

Overseas, vehicle convoys and foot patrols often had drones monitoring them. You too can have that ability which probably 99% of the population won’t have. Thanks to the ability to have a pocket air force, this scenario is entirely plausible and very cheap to implement. Even a $300 drone with a short range can become an eye in the sky that lets you see beyond obstacles and around corners.

Maybe you have a gang or group of people who seem up to no good on the street. A drone could be sent to give these people a once-over. Maybe it’s just Hank, Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer drinking in the alley or perhaps its something worse. The drone can monitor as necessary or even harass a group of nogoodniks. Is that commotion at the big intersection a half-mile away a car accident or a street takeover “sideshow”?

Joe Dolio of Tactical Wisdom wrote about his experiences mixing in a protest and being actively surveilled then pursued by Antifa security. Thankfully, due to good spy craft, a change of clothing, and actively monitoring their comms, he was able to avoid them. Why approach a protest on foot or try to infiltrate it when you can launch a drone? The drone can cover more of the crowd and see more because it’s looking down instead of trying to peer through bodies, than someone on foot. The drone could be operated from a concealed location that would either keep the pilot safe or permit a rapid exfil from the area. Here are some of those roles:

Recon a traffic jam: Is there a way around? Are there other hazards? Is this a trap? Especially in unfamiliar areas, you could rapidly identify unobstructed escape paths/detours.

Protest recce: Who are these people and what is their cause? Are they armed? Is the roadway physically blocked? Are they marching on your neighborhood/in your direction?

Travel overwatch: Fly the drone above your vehicle as it travels. Scan for ambushes or pursuing vehicles. Look ahead for obstacles. Have a drone cover your foot patrol.

Civil unrest: Why leave your home undefended to scout when your drone can do it? Fly over to the nearby shopping center to get tabs on looting.

Home defense: Don’t penetrate your perimeter to checkout a threat. Send the drone to investigate and locate any attackers. Use a drone to clear hiding spots.

Foot travel: Instead of adding extra miles by walking, scout out those routes or points of interest with the drone (assuming this won’t give you away). This will take less time and people.

Domestic: Did the kids go missing? Send up the drone to look for them. Remotely check in on the livestock.

Power outage: Can’t drive around to see how widespread it is? Launch the drone to see how far the darkness extends.

Personal: Are you lonely? Go fly the drone outside your neighbor’s dining room window and imagine you’re sharing a meal with them. After dinner, go visit the single girl next door and imagine she’s undressing for you! Oh hold on, there’s a knock at the door…

To categorize, here’s where these suggestions fall:

Reconnaissance

• Intelligence gathering
• Defensive reconnaissance to look for threats to a static position (halt/defensive position, property, neighborhood)
• Scanning the route ahead of a vehicle, convoy, or patrol
• Scouting terrain, routes, places, or buildings for trouble

Surveillance

• Static property surveillance from dynamic angles without physically sending a person
• Increase the distance, angles, and areas of observation beyond that of a ground-based human observer
• Maintain visual contact with groups or subjects of interest
• Determine the identity, composition, intent, equipment, and activity of groups/subjects of interest

The drone in these cases is being used in two main roles: 1. A new perspective (aerial), and 2. Covering more ground with less people. Drones are force multipliers. They’re the equivalent of up to several extra bodies that can be sent out to gather intelligence. Not only are you seeing the world from a bird’s-eye view, you and your defensive team don’t have to leave the perimeter. Of course, none of this is to say that from time to time you won’t need to send humans out for HUMINT or interdiction.

One man alone can’t cover all the ground or perform all the duties, so why shouldn’t he leverage technology to his own advantage? I’ve used my own small drone when hiking/off-roading simply to check things out that I either could or didn’t want to physically access, like flying down a cliff or up over a steep rise. Now, I have a pretty boring life, but Dan from Third Harmonic on Substack had a very interesting article about when he deployed a drone to check out a sketchy vehicle while out shooting.

You don’t need a specialized drone for any of this. A micro-drone <249grams doesn’t require FAA registration (as if you were doing that anyway) or RemoteID. Some of these models can reach 400 feet in altitude and up to a quarter-mile (or more) range all in a package that easily fits in a pack or vehicle. So for a few hundred bucks, why not get a drone?

Don Shift is a veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and author of the non-fiction book Poor Man’s Air Force: A guide to how small drones might be used in domestic unrest or low intensity conflicts, as well as the Suburban Defense/Rural Home Defense series, all available on Amazon. Visit www.donshift.com.