Amazon.com has now declared the existence and development of a new delivery option: by drone. One of only six sites even being considered for legal drone use, Amazon is currently ironing out the legal details, and turning a standard prototype into standard protocol. Now, the prototype looks more like an octopus, than like the the historical war machines, but the FAA has a few problems with the new drones.

Matt Waite, a professor at the University of Nebraska and founder of their Drone Journalism Lab, shares his view with how the Amazon-FAA negotiations are going, saying that “The rules will definitely cover Amazon Prime Air, but the FAA has already said in their road map there are going to be significant restrictions on where and when and how those things can fly.”

The government has good reason behind their worry. In our recent war with terrorism, the CIA authorized “surveillance, and precautionary action” on suspected terrorists. In July of 2012, 18 workers were killed in an undisclosed area of heavy taliban influence. They were suspected to be accomplices, and were destroyed by a drone missile strike. No other formal investigation was conducted to prove or deny the Taliban connection.

Since 2004, there have been approximately 884 civilians killed during drone attacks in the Middle East. If even our own government may have misused this versatile technology, they will certainly be weary to give it out to just anyone.

At the R&D sector in Amazon, they talk a little differently. “It looks like science fiction, but it’s real” and “one day, seeing prime air drones will be as normal as seeing a mail truck.”

Amazon prime air is truly a step forward in technology, but would it be acceptable for the government to allow it? Is guaranteed speedy delivery worth the possible abuse of power? So far, so good, Amazon Prime air is set to release between 2015 and 2020, depending on aforementioned FAA restrictions, and complications. It would certainly be handy, but is it too much of a threat?