downer89

I'm not sure that's true for dense urban zones like NYC. I'm pretty sure my phone registers with many different towers frequently.

There's a tower on almost every other building in New York, and sometimes even within buildings and underground.

Considering that smart phones are particularly promiscuous, especially in the presence of poorly conceived and opportunistic apps (downloaded by my rotten teenage kids), my phone is probably a shining beacon of electromagnetic activity, constantly transmitting high-score updates, and my entire contact list and GPS coordinates to web servers hosting silly JSON APIs.

This isn't a theory specific to the premise of drones. It's a natural human tendency. It's why school-yard bullies exist.

In the absence of an principled, ethical personality, the discovery of impunity, combined with any obvious benefit obtained by way of abuse precipitates unrestrained abuse.

A greedy person that can get away with something will act in favor of obtaining an object of desire.

Consider the idea that reducing risk to military personnel actually provokes a steep increase in the propensity to indiscriminately wipe out civilians, simply because the fear of any consequence has been mitigated.

So as you approach zero risk, the occurence of applied lethal force accelerates on a curve toward an asymptote.

  Fraud that takes out a person's entire life savings, even 
  if the victim doesn't commit suicide, typically does more 
  lasting damage than, say, the average case of assault and 
  battery. 

I disagree with you in every possible way, and I think you've just decided, off the top of your head, to make that up because you think it sounds good. You might be able to google some statistics, but I'm not drinking your kool-aid.

Assault resulting in serious injury is categorically worse than fraud or identity theft, and far more common.