I don’t disagree with your comments at all. I think, however, that you need to re-read my commentary.

My argument was that while someone seems to have assessed and accepted the risk at some point in the past, now that their decision has come under fire, their attempts to defend and rationalize the past decisions are laughably bad and easily disproved by various other examples.

On the other hand, the Air Force did give an answer recently, which I’ll link here:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/12/deptula-whacks-predator-hack-w.html

While I agree that there’s a certain usefulness to knowing if you’re being watched or not, the Air Force seems to weigh this in-line with other costs/benefits:

1. As Gary pointed out, encryption of these signals can result in outdated equipment being unable to receive the feeds. It’s something anyone has run into in a mixed computing environment, one OS supports a better security profile than an older one, yet the system is forced to the lowest common denominator for compatibility. It’s not pretty, but it takes time and testing to get newer equipment in the field.

2. Key management is a pain in the ass even stateside. I can only imagine what it’s like in the field.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/intercepting_pr.html

Broadcasting in the clear is certainly not an idea solution, but it seems to me that while there’s a potential downside here, the drawbacks to encrypting the transmissions are numerous.

Hence, sending the drone video feed in the clear sounds more like an accommodation to older field-level equipment (without encryption capabilty) and outdated acquisition contracts.