ATLANTA - About two dozen protesters gathered in Atlanta today to speak out against the use of unmanned drone aircraft by the U.S. government for spying, surveillance and carrying out lethal attacks.
The demonstration was held outside a hotel where representatives from academia, industry and government were meeting for a technical conference on unmanned aircraft systems.
Organizers of the conference say they're surprised to hear about a protest. They said they believe the protesters might have misunderstood their purposes, which they said focus largely on civilian uses of the technology.
Protest organizer Bob Goodman of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition says he's not accusing conference participants of bad intentions. But he added that scientific research is often used in ways that researchers never anticipate.