True!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosions#Sov... / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
Beyond the obvious (digging big holes fast) there are proposals for using them to extinguish particularly bad oil/gas fires (perhaps Centralia, Pennsylvania could be a use case?), stimulating natural gas production (this one is likely to be unpopular these days), and destroying large amounts of chemical weapons (and while you're at it, a nuke ;)).
Guns don't cause crime, cars don't cause accidents, and nuclear weapons don't kill people: their (usually) negligent operators do.
The tools aren't evil, but our authoritarian corporatocracy might be.
So, no, I still can't see them as evil. Just foolish.
And if you've reduced a word to signifying nothing at all, perhaps you're just trying to run away from allowing the things it does signify to be labelled? If the "evil" in fairy tales is, deep down, the same kind of justified, empathizable action that real people in our real world do every day, then why can't the thing the real people do also be called evil?
I'm guessing that, after a few rounds of clarification, your real problem with the term might be its true definition: evil is basically a useful bit of meta-ethics jargon meaning "something that is subjectively offensive to the part of my utility function I assume my culture shares with me, as evidenced through mythos and communicated social norms." It's that "subjective" part that people get tripped up by--"evil" (and its opposite "good") are only defined given a utility function and a culture of empathizable peer-beings who share some part of that utility function. Without the utility function, you might have something unclipperific[1], but not something evil. Without the empathizable peers, it might be something you find personally offensive, but this feeling won't be shared to others via sympathetic anger (offense at losing in a fair competition, for example, feels like "rage", not like "observing an evil being perpetrated.")
I think the use of the word "evil" to describe the actions of our well meaning but thoroughly righteous and shortsighted government is counterproductive. If evil exists outside of fairy tales, it does so inside of us. All of us.
Yes, and? You seem to think you're making quite the profound point.
A quick search shows a lot of case law related to this (especially related to cases of people who were growing marijuana outside, unsurprisingly). But I didn't see a distilled answer.
The principle in question is Curtilage, the relevant holding was United States v Dunn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtilage
The fence argument is interesting, the factors they'd need to consider are outlined in the Wiki article. It's also why a professor of mine who was a lawyer told us in DC that if we ever got a MPD citation for drinking in public on our porch that he'd take the case for free, as he felt the law would clearly be unconstitutional - and said he'd have fun doing it.
If Google can figure out how to make a self-driving car, I think the government can (or has already) figure out a way to make self-flying drones.
I don't see a problem with the FBI using unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance, so long as they do it within the confines of the law (and not some preposterous interpretation by a secret court). As long as a they have a specific warrant, this is just a clever application of technology, and a far cheaper alternative to a helicopter with crew.
We already have traffic cameras and satellites, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy outdoors.
Also, it isn't like these devices are able to pilot themselves, they're just remotely controlled aerial vehicles. What if the FBI put a video camera on a weather balloon?