Word-PIC

[if the plan text says uav or UAS replace it with drones]

The aff sanitizes language and justifies atrocity - the term UAV/UAS is an attempt
to whitewash the horrible history and practices of Drones.
Stanley 13 Senior Policy Analyst @ the ACLU (Jay, May 20th 2013,
https://www.aclu.org/blog/drones-vs-uavs-whats-behind-name, "Drones" vs "UAVs" -- What's Behind A
Name?) NAR

Representatives of the drone industry and other drone boosters often make a point of saying they dont like to use
the word drones. When my colleague Catherine Crump and I were writing our drones report in 2011, we talked over what
terminology we should use, and decided that since our job was to communicate, we should use the term that people would most clearly and
directly understand. That word is drones." Drone

proponents would prefer that everyone use the term

UAV, for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAS, for Unmanned Aerial System (system in order
to encompass the entirety of the vehicle that flies, the ground-based controller, and the communications connection that connects the two).

These acronyms are technical, bland, and bureaucratic . Thats probably their principal
advantage from the point of view of those who want to separate them from the ugly,
bloody, and controversial uses to which theyve been put by the CIA and U.S. military
overseas. I suppose there is a case to be made that domestic drones are a different thing from overseas combat drones. Certainly, theres a
wide gulf separating a $17 million Reaper drone armed with Hellfire missiles and a hand-launched hobbyist craft buzzing around somebodys
back yard. But drone proponents themselves would be the first to say that drones

are a toolone that can be used for many different

purposes. They can be used for fun, photography, science, surveillance, and yes, raining death upon people with
the touch of a button from across the world. Even the overseas military uses of drones vary, including not
just targeted killing but also surveillance and logistics. Putting aside well-founded fears that even domestically
we may someday see the deployment of weaponized drones, in the end, the difference between overseas and domestic drones is a difference in
how the same tool is used. Regardless of whether youve got a Predator, a Reaper, a police craft, or a $150 backyard hobby rotorcraft, that tool is
what it is. What it is is a drone. I cant touch on this subject without quoting from George Orwells famous essay Politics and the English
Language, in which Orwell

argued that bland and needlessly complicated language was a political

acta symptom of attempts to cover up things. Such phraseology is needed if one wants
to name things without calling up mental pictures of them , he wrote. Defending the English language against
such obfuscatory usages, he argued, requires writers to: Use the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's
meaning. Let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. Never us a
long word where a short one will do. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an
everyday English equivalent. All of which back up our decision to stick with the word drones . In light of
the overseas uses of drone technology, its worth noting Orwells conclusion: Political languageand with variations this is true of all
political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable. If the word drones has horrible connotations, its because the technology has
in fact been associated with horrible things. Many Americans may not pay attention, but when U.S. drones bring
dismembering explosions down upon wedding parties, women, children, and other innocent civilians, they generate all the warm feelings and
associations in those countries that the Boston Marathon bombing brought here. In any event, if we change the word we use for drones and they
continue to be used for such purposes, then the new word will just gain the same associations as the old. Linguists call that the euphemism
treadmillthe process by which euphemisms lose their value as euphemisms and take on all the negative coloring of the original word. For
example, the words moron, imbecile, and idiot were once neutral terms referring to specific levels of mental disability. They were replaced
with the euphemism mentally retardedbut in time that has also come to be seen as offensive. The good news for drone boosters is that the
very fluidity of the meaning of words that makes a euphemism treadmill possible also means there is plenty of opportunity for the word drone
to gain more positive connotations over time. If the technology does, in fact, bring benefits to our lives, and not just continue as a surveillance
and killing tool, then the word will start to take on the warm and fuzzy tones its proponents would like. Mainly we

at the ACLU use

drones because that is the clearest way to communicate. At the same time, if the word continues

to carry a reminder that this is an extremely powerful technology capable of being used for
very dark purposes, then thats not necessarily a bad thing.