Screenland
8 1.23.
Opening page: Screen grab from YouTube. Above: Screen grabs from YouTube; Marcin Kilarski/EyeEm/Getty Images.monitor the U.S.- Mexico border. Agents
could use the drones to interrogate
unauthorized travelers from a distance
and to incapacitate subjects who refused
to comply with their demands. ‘‘There’s
no wall here,’’ the teenager says, ‘‘and it
probably wouldn’t work anyway, because
of the rough terrain and eminent- domain
issues. But there is a solution.’’ He calls it
‘‘the wall of drones.’’
The video dramatizes how such a wall
might work. A quad copter fl ying over a
stretch of desert displays a red alert when
it detects an ‘‘anomaly’’ walking among
the bushes. It’s an olive- skinned man
wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and a
wind breaker. The drone swoops down to
confront him. ‘‘This is U.S. Border Patrol,’’ a
voice booms through the drone’s speaker.
‘‘Identify yourself.’’
‘‘My name’s José,’’ the man shouts back
in accented English.
‘‘What are you doing out here?’’
‘‘Taking walk.’’
‘‘Do you have any identifi cation on
hand?’’
‘‘This is my identifi cation,’’ José yells,
pulling a gun from under his jacket and
pointing it at the drone. Then, inexplica-
bly, he turns his back and walks away.
‘‘Stop moving,’’ the drone warns, ‘‘or
you will be tased.’’ But José continues
walking. ‘‘Taser! Taser! Taser!’’ the drone
shouts as wired darts shoot from the quad-
copter and hit José in the back. He falls
face forward into the sand. Presumably hewill lie in the scorching heat, unmoving,
until agents drive into the desert to locate
him and take him into custody.
This can’t be serious, I thought the fi rst
time I saw the video. It has the same cheap
production values and odd juxtapositions
as a late-night comedy skit. The drone’s
charging bay screeches ridiculously as it
opens. The spokesman is a teenager with
wildly untrimmed curly hair; he looks like
a gamer on his way to an Art Garfunkel
look- alike contest. The video ends with
the company’s name, Brinc Drones, and if
a ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’- style tag line had
appeared beneath it — Tasing migrants for
a p r o fi t! — I might have laughed uncom-
fortably, the way you do when a joke nails
the dark center of a prejudice.Photo illustration by Mark Harris‘Taser! Taser!
Taser!’ the
drone shouts.