Late last month, for the first time,President Obama publicly confirmed the Americanuse of drone strikes in tribal areas in Pakistan.He answered a question on the subjectduring a Google video conferencewith people around the United States.BARACK OBAMA: "I want to make surethat people understand that actually,drones have not causeda huge number of civilian casualties.For the most part,they have been very precise precision strikesagainst al-Qaida and their affiliates.And we are very carefulin terms of how it has been applied."Debate continues about how many people,including civilians,have been killed in those drone attacks.Drones are technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.These aircraft, however,are not just used for air strikes,and they are not just used by governments.Human rights activists,environmental groups and journalistsare increasingly using drones in their work.Drones can fly above news eventsto capture images that reportersmay not be able to get close to on the ground.Matt Waite is a journalism professorat the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.Students in his Drone Journalism Labare exploring different uses for drones in news reporting.MATT WAITE: "Drone journalism as an ideais less than a year old at this point.The first instance I saw was a labor protest in Polandwhere a man had a remote-controlled helicopterand he put a camera on it and he flew it upand got just a view of the protests from the air. And you could see police moving into positionto kind of block the protest route."A video on YouTube shows images capturedby the so-called RoboKopter.A group of citizen journalists in Moscowused a similar drone camera to record protestsduring Russian parliamentary elections.And Professor Waite noted a recent environmental casein the United States capturedby someone flying his remote-controlled airplane.MATT WAITE: "He spotted a meat packing plantthat was polluting a nearby creek that ran into a nearby river.He had images of a river of blood flowingout of this meat packing plant, which was against the law.And environmental regulatory authorities were alerted to it."Andrew Sniderman is a co-founderof the Genocide Intervention Network.He wrote recently in the New York Timesthat drones could be used to collect important informationin conflict areas, like Syria.Professor Waite also imagines many other uses for drones.MATT WAITE: "I thought of every hurricane,and tornado and fire and every kind of mass disasterthat I ever covered as a journalist and thought,oh wow, that would be amazing to have as a tool."Drone use in the United States is now rarebecause of federal restrictions on airspace.However, Congress just passed a bill designedto ease those restrictions by twenty fifteen.And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report,written by Arick Simms.