John Villasenor of the Brookings Institute gets a bit of stick in these parts for his op-eds on drones (in part for some sweeping statements and fuzzy terminology), but I've always found him to be responsible, happy to learn and engage in dialog here and otherwise worth reading.
Here's his recent op-ed in the Washington Post, which makes the good point that the FAA, which is charged with bringing commercial drones into the National Air Space, is not the right agency to consider the privacy implications of that. This is, of course, self-evident to anyone following this area and such privacy issues are almost always handled by other agencies as well as the courts, but the op-ed is worth reading if for no other reason than a good summary of where things stand in the US regarding new issues that drone may present on privacy.
Here's the lead:
In February, President Obama signed into law a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that requires the agency — on a fairly rapid schedule — to write rules opening U.S. airspace to unmanned aerial vehicles. This puts the FAA at the center of a potentially dramatic set of policy changes that stand to usher in a long list of direct and indirect benefits. But the FAA is not a privacy agency. And although real privacy concerns have arisen about these aircraft, asking the agency to take on the role of privacy czar for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would be a mistake.
Comments
One of the interesting questions regarding the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, relates to the source of its authority to regulate the sky and the inherent limitations of such authority. The question is not merely one of semantic construction. As an agency of the government, the FAA is delegated the technical details of who gets what airspace. This delegation of power does not mean the FAA is not accountable to the United States Constitution and the will of the people.
"The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 (P.L. 85-726, 72 Stat. 731) created a Federal Aviation Agency (later called the Federal Aviation Administration; FAA) and empowered it to oversee and regulate safety in the airline industry and control civilian and military use of the airspace over the United States. The authority to regulate air travel and the airline industry is based on Congress's power under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution to regulate inter-state commerce."
While the enabling act of the FAA referred to the continuation of the FAA as an extension of the Civil Aeronautics Board, the statutory authority of the CAB was not renewed in 1985. When the Department of Transportation Act passed in 1967 (another administrative agency of the federal government), the FAA came under DOT as a sub-agency. The Department of Transportation also receives its authority to act under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the US Constitution.
This, in a small way, shows why there are valid contentions between states rights and the federal government and policy disputes to this day regarding jurisdiction to airspace.
I hope this helps somewhat.
Re: removal of my blog entry - my reply to mail@diydrones failed.
Mike Pursifull,
Hi Mike. The FAA decision was Friday, the day I blogged the entry. As prior articles covered the FAA pending decision over drones and this article relayed that decision via Bloomberg.com and indicated awaiting FAA decision and how many years the drone community was waiting for a decision; that's relevant. Yes, the FAA making some decision was already discussed, however, the fact of making that decision happened the very day I posted this article. An earlier article by Chris Anderson's "Drones and the FAA:A Bad Match" also referenced the Broooking's Institute article in an op-ed of the Washington Post. So, if there was an earlier discussion of the brand new Bloomberg article about the FAA on Friday releasing this brand new FAA decision on diydrones.com, I must have missed it. Can you help me find it? Thank you so much. And yes, I did not discuss that article much as I had not conducted any research on it at that time, such as, the specific FAA internal document on FAA's website posted for the public. And, a quick look on diydrones.com reveals many members has commercial interests selling, developing new technology and marketing their work complete with links to their results. Some of these members provide one word quips in response to a discussion thereby lacking much content.
The same day of this article, diydrones featured an interesting article about the Chinese Hobby Fair, that too was of commercial interest. Thank you for your email and have a nice day.
John Galczynski
The FAA (per bloomberg.com) today (Fri.25 May 2012) came out with the "awaited" ruling. Drones are legal up to 400 vertical feet AGL for government services while keeping sight of their under 25 pound drone. I've read that cameras may be restricted from private drones but don't yet know really.
Let's recap the US environment in economic terms then consider the concerns over privacy. The growing cost of "terror", See: US taxing price of terror A quick look at the growth of institutional spending in the terror business.
This year by year chart is sourced from Zerohedge.com post Add to this the growth of the national debt.
To this add the pending bill: CISPA. See: CISPA - your personal data for sale without recourse And the No charges, no trial, no burden of proof, no Constitutional rights signed into law NDAA January 2012. See: NDAA - your on the list. They are coming to take you away.
Well, let's now consider why privacy will not be an issue other than lip service. There is growing political discontent in the United States, so selling and using uav or drones will be big business very soon.
From the outside I continue to just not get it. The only real reference I can use is the UK as I have followed regs closely there. Other countries have just not had the issues popping up in the USA.
Can it be there is a much greater distrust of government there?
Is it that the large military vendors have rushed to close the door behind them. Thinking that setting high barriers to entry would be a really good plan. Then disruptive low cost alternatives start flooding the market that they never foresaw.
It really is simple take the definition of whats built up and therefore not suitable for UA flight, in the UK its basically yellow on the map, that's what! So the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) is not overseeing privacy concerns, its regulating safety. Keeping people and UA separate.
For the Olympics there is this no fly zone for large models, it shows the yellow built up areas well.
Again sounding painful, model aircraft are UA (unmanned aircraft) now and most certainly subject to airlaw. But enjoy exemptions and relaxed rules.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse anywhere!
The FAA over there just seems to be floundering they should have put something very simple in place 5 years ago and started to employ people from inside the industry to start overseeing integration.
That EFF map continues to enjoy mentions everywhere. Never with the byline, EFF map shows just how little research is being undertaken in the USA into unmanned aviation. The statement that the USA is the world leader in unmanned aviation keeps being trotted out. There is a marked difference between being the largest user and biggest innovator.
I know my camera on a stick analogy that I have used before is a liitle mischievous but what people perceive UAS can achieve and the reality is really disconnected. Why is there not as much noise about cellphones? I can place one in a tree put it in a waterproof box add a solar cell to charge it and record everything within it's field of view.
Watch this space, in five years time there are going to be rafts of reports that start.
City Police chief apologises to council for money burnt in ill advised technology experiment.
There won't be as much copy dedicated to the multi agency Predator orbits quietly gathering pattern of life data.
Humm what a rant!