Perhaps most disconcerting, however, is that the most valuable purpose of drones is to inflict harm on targets without putting the human who’s operating them at any risk whatsoever. That’s the crucial point that Bob McDonnell’s comfortable claims obscure by casually conflating safety and efficiency. Here’s the logical breakdown: nobody wants to see more police officers getting hurt or killed in the line of duty; yet that doesn’t mean we all ought to do whatever can make police safer. The legitimacy of policing hinges on the moral authority of our shared humanity. If locals can’t meet and interact with their police on a face-to-face level — whether peaceably or in the midst of crimes — then citizens are put into a relationship with the law and the citizens who uphold it that’s too unequal to sustain in a free society. (Option two: stop sustaining a free society.)