Military resources, such as The National Guard, get called up for disaster relief all of the time. I think I'd rather drones helping people in these scenarios than what they're primarily used for.
Also, I don't think UAVs are the best option for mass surveillance. I mean, there's cameras on every corner, phones in every pocket, etc. There's enough cameras to spy on people, you don't need to stick a very expensive drone that will last only a couple hours/days and not be able to peek in houses as well as someone's webcam.
I'm not sure how I feel about this bit though.
> an unnamed mayor asked the Marine Corps to use a drone to find potholes in the mayor's city
I mean. Is it helpful? Yes. Is it a really good way to find potentially dangerous potholes? Probably. It just seems... excessive.
I agree for these kinds of UAVs, but ARGUS [1] blimps are probably super effective and worrisome.
It can even make the potholes first by firing off a few missiles
Maybe he's trying to figure out if he can use a DHS grant to buy "OMG TERRORISM" drones, that just happens to look for potholes whenever it has a few minutes off between terror attacks?
EDIT: On second thought, is finding the holes really the bottleneck in The War on Potholes? And if so, isn't this better fixed with an answering machine, and/or a $5000 Rails app?