The Marine Band was in a state of transition when clarinetist Master Gunnery Sgt. Ruth McDonald auditioned 30 years ago.

It had only been 12 years since the first female member joined “The President’s Own,” and there were still no locker rooms or specially designed uniforms for women.

But over the course of her 30-year career, McDonald’s leadership and guidance played an integral role in improving the life, comfort and presence of women in “The President’s Own.”

McDonald, who began playing the clarinet in the third grade, auditioned for the band in 1985 after seeing an advertisement in the musician’s union paper. She had just earned a master’s degree at New England Conservatory. Three years prior, she completed a bachelor’s degree in music at Ithaca College in New York.

Following her July 10 retirement ceremony, McDonald will earn the distinction as the longest-serving female member of the Marine Band.

“It’s going to be a big loss when we see Ruth retire,” Maj. Michelle Rakers, the band’s assistant director, said. “She has shouldered the burden of transition when women just came into this organization.”

McDonald sat down with Military Times to reflect on three decades of service, as well as the changes she’s seen and what she will miss the most.

Q. How did you make the most of your position as one of the band’s female pioneers?

A. I had wonderful opportunities to showcase what I could do. I sought opportunities to do solos, perform chamber music and coordinate chamber recitals. Then I became assistant section leader of the clarinet section. I just always believed in doing my job well. I also was given opportunities to lead changes on women’s uniforms. I worked on improving the fit of maternity uniforms, something needed as more women join the Corps.

Q. How have things for women changed over the course of your career?

A. When I auditioned for the band, it was behind a screen and you took your shoes off so no one knew if you were a man or a woman. There have just been so many changes [in terms of] the number of women who have auditioned and successfully joined the band. We have key people in positions of principal — principal clarinet, principal flute — who are women. When I first got in the band, one of the most notable changes is if there were a small group going out — for instance, a funeral band going to Arlington — it would not be unusual for there to be just one woman on that job. Now there are five or six women going together. So just the camaraderie of women [to deal] with issues about uniforms or family I think has improved life for the women in the band.

Q. What are some of the especially memorable performances during your three decades with “The President’s Own?”

A. I served under five presidents, but was involved in seven inaugurations. One of my favorite inaugurations, which was a difficult experience because it was just so cold, was President Obama’s first ceremony. I have never seen anything like that on the National Mall. There were people everywhere. They were in the trees, on the monuments — that was quite a view.

Q. What about your time serving with the Marine Band has been the most meaningful?

A. Seeing the veterans sitting in the front rows at a tour concert [while] you play the national anthem. There’s no way that they’re going to stay in their seat. Or as we finish up the concert with the “Armed Forces Medley,” there’s no way that there is a dry eye from any of them because they’re just so moved from their pride and their patriotism. We are honoring those families and those heroes who have either served for a length of time, or have given their lives.

Q. What will you miss the most?

A. It has been a wonderful career, to be in the band for 30 years, to play with musicians of this level. The musicians that we’re getting now, there’s just a great desire to perform. I think more so than when I first got in the band. Just the talent, that’s perhaps the thing that I will miss the most. Playing with such wonderful musicians.

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The Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications vehicle system. (Courtesy of CyPhy Works)

WASHINGTON—Drones aren’t on their way – they’re already here. But they’re not technically legal, at least not where commercial and hobbyist use are concerned. So what exactly are people hoping to do with them, and how is the government planning to regulate it?

This past February, the Federal Aviation Administration released a set of proposed rules to govern the commercial use of small unmanned aircraft systems under 55 pounds, and then opened a 60-day commentary period. That has expired, but the FAA never set a date for a final version, and experts say the waiting game could last two years, possibly longer.

Meanwhile, unmanned aircraft system technology is advancing at a rapid pace, a fact not lost on Robert Pappas, whose team coordinates Unmanned Vehicle policy for the FAA. He said his office is trying to work with various government agencies and the private sector to ensure drones are used safely, both now and once a final set of rules are released.

The agency’s current priorities, Pappas said, are improving safety requirements and streamlining certifications and exemptions. Not at the top of the list: preventing the tiny unmanned vehicles from being used for illicit surveillance purposes – or even as part of a terrorist attack.

And that’s surprising, considering recent incidents. In the early hours of January 26, an employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency crashed an illegal drone onto the White House lawn, completely undetected by radar. What that drone could have done – or carried with it – is something best left to the imagination.

“We’ve seen a rise in UAS operations in the national air space over the last few years,” Pappas said, referencing an existing exemption process which helps the private sector “pursue some potential relief” from the current ban. Pappas grants exemptions to the existing “no commercial use rule” on a case-by-case basis, governed by Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012.

Speaking at a discussion on civil drone policy sponsored by the Center for Strategic & International Studies in late April, Pappas said that Section 333 demand remains consistently and “remarkably high.”

Pappas said his division has issued close to 250 exemptions in the last seven months alone, and is “now issuing dozens on a weekly basis,” many of them to commercial entities so that they can use UASs for aerial photography, survey and film production.

According to Pappas, the UAS Integration Office is working internationally to develop standards, approaches and frameworks for commercial guidance in light of recent technological advances. “We continue to see new and novel applications” for drone use, Pappas said, including survey and photo capabilities in the real estate and property management sectors. He said he has received exemption requests for aircraft with unusual power sources and rotors, as well as for nighttime operations, which the proposed framework excludes for safety reasons. Permission to operate outside line-of-sight constraints, which currently require that operators maintain visual contact with their drones at all times, is also a frequent request, he said.

In theory, the potential capabilities of drones are infinite, a point made by Brian Wynne, CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, at the CSIS panel. “There are going to be as many devices as you can imagine missions going forward,” he said.

And the FAA’s response to date has been all about flexibility. In a press release timed with the release of the proposed rules, FAA administrator Michael Huerta said, “We have tried to be flexible in writing these rules. We want to maintain today’s outstanding level of aviation safety without placing an undue regulatory burden on an emerging industry.”

Drone advocate Patrick Egan, who helps manage an international organization dedicated to capturing news related to UASs, said that “flexible” doesn’t begin to describe the FAA’s proposed framework and approach. He offered a better word for it: “liberal,” as in accommodating.

Egan, a former consultant with the Space and Missile Defense Command Battle Lab where he worked on future warfare research projects said he was initially surprised by how generous the proposed rules were – even if they aren’t yet final. And from what he’s heard, the drone community feels the same way.

“As a community, we got a gift,” Egan said. “[These rules are] way, way more progressive than we could have really hoped for.” Egan said that in his opinion, the FAA may have even been more generous than they should have, in terms of not instituting formal licensing requirements and granting a weight limit as large as 55 pounds.

The Secret Service completely mistook a blip on their radar systems for an innocent toy last month until it landed on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Then they saw it for what it really was: a disgruntled U.S. postal worker from Florida in a one-man flying machine. He had 535 letters with him demanding campaign finance reform – one for each member of Congress.

By then Douglas Hughes, 61, had breached three major no-fly zones, crossing through some of the most protected airspace in the country. And though he had broken federal law, he was admittedly unapologetic, alternately seen as a hero, a crank or an activist.

Last week, things suddenly got far more serious; a federal grand jury indicted Hughes on six criminal counts. Two of them are felonies – flying without a pilot’s license and failure to register an aircraft – and the other four are misdemeanors related to violating national airspace and operating a vehicle falsely labeled as a postal carrier.

Hughes holds another label: alleged criminal.

According to Hughes, his self-proclaimed “Freedom Flight” from Gettysburg to Washington, D.C. on April 15 was part of a longtime protest against existing campaign finance laws. A man on a mission, Hughes said he wanted to raise awareness about corruption on Capitol Hill.

“He’s going to face jail time and he’s going to do it,” said Joe Lamonaca, a Delaware-based attorney specializing in domestic and international aviation law. Lamonaca is not part of Hughes’ legal team, although he has been following the case and believes conviction is likely if it goes to trial.

The fact that Hughes intentionally flew into P-56 airspace, the designation for prohibited airspace surrounding the Capitol and White House, is without question, Lamonaca said. And that airspace belongs to the Secret Service – not the Federal Aviation Administration: “That’s the holy grail of all prohibited airspace in the country.”

“And it’s actually not restricted,” he added. “It’s prohibited – which means no flight under any circumstances.”

A gyrocopter resembles a helicopter, except that its rotating blade is propelled by air flow, rather than an engine. It’s also much lighter, smaller and incapable of hovering the way a helicopter does.

Hughes’ stunt was planned years in advance and widely discussed, and was the subject of interviews with the Tampa Bay Times and at least two Secret Service Agents months before he ever took flight.

So Hughes can’t claim that he lost control of his gyrocopter, took a left instead of a right and wound up at the Capitol, Lamonaca said. Hughes even livestreamed his journey mid-air. What he did was premeditated and that will limit his defense strategy, Lamonaca added.

“He was trying to make a statement for himself,” Lamonaca said. “But I think the government is going to make one the other way.”

With 30 years of experience as a pilot, Lamonaca said he knows why the Secret Service may have mistaken Hughes’ gyrocopter for a toy. It doesn’t have a transponder, which means that Hughes wasn’t sending out a secondary radar signal the way planes do.

“I know what it would have looked like on that radar screen, low flightpath, slow speed,” he said. “He was so low, the signature was almost nonexistent.”

But that’s no excuse, Lamonaca said. The Secret Service should be checking out every signal, using visual spotting to make up the difference: “There are so many different ways [to fly a weapon] and that’s going to require manpower.” Hughes had letters onboard, as opposed to bombs or explosives, but the potential for danger was still there. And the Secret Service either missed it entirely or let it slide – when they let it land.

“Whether it’s drones [or] gyrocopters … they’ve got to start taking them seriously,” he added, in reference to the need for federal security officials to account for new technology. Because a future incident, he said, may up the stakes significantly.

CyPhy drone (Image courtesy of CyPhy Works)

Noticeably missing from the recommendations unveiled earlier this year were any privacy oversights. For the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the plaintiffs in the suit against the FAA, that was inexcusable.

The advocacy group’s website site is full of unnerving facts about camera-wielding drones. They can be equipped with facial recognition, license plate scanners, the capacity to track multiple targets, and the ability to operate at distances and heights making them impossible to detect. Drones are “designed to undertake constant, persistent surveillance to a degree that former methods of video surveillance were unable to achieve,” according to EPIC.

The courts are not the only avenue to affect policy change at the FAA. Public comment on the framework will be accepted until this Friday.

But many experts argue that the FAA isn’t the governing body that should be charged with ensuring drones don’t violate privacy. What’s more, others – chiefly drone-makers and their advocates – question whether unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, even require a new set of privacy standards, saying that existing laws are already enough.

In a privacy impact assessment issued alongside the proposed framework, the FAA stated that while it “acknowledges that privacy concerns have been raised about unmanned aircraft operations … these issues are beyond the scope of this rulemaking.”

While some privacy advocates are worried that the omission may allow for invasive surveillance from commercial or government drones operating inside the US, the drone community said those concerns are more of a red herring than anything else.

“The FAA has wisely backed off all privacy issues [because]there’s no need for a new federal privacy bureaucracy [when]states already have protections in place,” says Charles Tobin, a privacy rights lawyer at the law firm Holland & Knight, who represents a coalition of media outlets advocating for drone usage for the purposes of journalism.

“The laws that are on the books are all technology agnostic. They apply to computers, they apply to still cameras, they apply to wireless microphones, they apply to video cameras … and there’s no reason that they can’t be applied – as already written – to UAV,” he says.

Relying on existing legal protections should be the obvious choice, says Brendan Schulman, head of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems practice at the law firm Kramer Levin in New York.

Nicknamed “the Drone Lawyer,” Mr. Schulman says that “if the concern is physical intrusion or inappropriate photographs, state law governing offenses such as trespass, stalking, peeping or unlawful surveillance … apply.” That means that what people are most fearful of – being stalked, harassed, or surveilled by a drone, or being victimized by a peeping tom behind a drone – are already acts bound by law.

Simply put: the states have things covered, he says.

REGULATORS LAG BEHIND TECHNOLOGY
A presidential memorandum issued the same day as the FAA’s proposed regulations relays the responsibility to “develop a framework regarding privacy, accountability, and transparency for commercial and private [unmanned aerial systems]use” to the Department of Commerce. The memo states that the department must initiate a “multistakeholder engagement process” within 90 days of the memo’s release – so it must begin work by mid-May.

But government trying to regulate a specific piece of technology is not the best approach, says Matt Waite, professor of journalism and founder of the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which explores the ways in which drones can be used to further journalistic aims.

“As we are already seeing, the government lags way behind technology when it comes to laws that would deal with that technology. It’s taken the FAA a long time to come up with [proposed]rules for these drones and they’re flying around right now. They’re being used for commercial purposes even though the FAA says, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ ”

Mr. Waite says it’s important to determine exactly what people can’t do – what actions need to be stopped. “We need to start thinking about what we consider a reasonable expectation of privacy in our modern times. And if that’s not allowing [me to]photograph [someone]streaking in their backyard, then that’s great. We can say I can’t do that. But it shouldn’t matter how I do that, [just that]you don’t want me to do it.”

It’s about recognizing that once privacy has been violated, how it was violated is no longer important, says Helen Greiner, chief executive officer of Massachusetts robotics and drone company CyPhy Works. She says that although she understands the privacy concerns related to the commercial use of drones, those concerns are often misdirected: “It’s not a drone issue. It’s a camera issue. In that way, it’s kind of a red herring.”

“You need to go to the real issue, which is pointing cameras at things they shouldn’t be pointed at,” Ms. Greiner says. “And if we’re going to talk about privacy with cameras, it should be for all cameras … whether they’re on a drone or a balloon.”

She says she doesn’t worry that public fear might hurt her business because the drones sold by CyPhy Works are used to perform specific commercial functions. “They may be used to survey a property or a facility, for example,” but they’re not being used to capture footage surreptitiously, Greiner says.

“I believe privacy is an important issue and that it should be regulated, but rules already exist,” she explains. She says it’s unlikely that fears related to the perceived loss of privacy will bog down final passage of FAA regulations – something she’s anxiously awaiting: “It might be wishful thinking, but I don’t foresee a tightening in terms of the finalized regulations.”

THE CASE FOR PRIVACY POLICIES
A public commentary period on the proposed regulations expires Friday, but there’s no firm deadline for when the FAA must have finalized regulations in place. Experts think it could take two years, possibly longer – which means the waiting game has only begun. It also means that commercial drone use will remain technically illegal for the duration, outside of a handful of exemption-type permissions granted by the FAA.

Amie Stepanovich, senior policy counsel for privacy advocacy group Access Now, says that there’s room for improvement when it comes to ensuring personal privacy. That’s because drone technology is in a league of its own: “Drones have [the]capacity to bring a bunch of different surveillance technologies onto a singular platform and to reach into areas that other vehicles have not been able to get to.”

Ms. Stepanovich says that limitations should be put in place to restrict the ways in which government agencies can use drone technology for the purpose of surveillance. “We need things that will, for example, protect users’ location information from being collected and tracked,” she says. “It comes back to tracking people over time without a warrant and being able to pinpoint their exact location. … and we need to make sure that that information is adequately protected.”

But she’s also a fan of technology agnosticism. She says that whatever restrictions are put in place, they should not be drawn up as drone-specific. “There are several other different kinds of technologies that are coming out,” she says, referring to Stingray trackers that are now being used by law enforcement agencies to gather data from cellphones.

The presidential memo issued in conjunction with the FAA’s proposal states that agencies must “comply with the Privacy Act of 1974, which, among other things, restricts the collection and dissemination of individuals’ information that is maintained in systems of records, including personally identifiable information.”

Although the White House’s assurance that government agencies will be held accountable to legacy privacy standards is a start, Stepanovich recommends further attribution and transparency.

“The FAA has a publicly accessible database of who is able to fly airplanes in any specific geographic area in the United States. But they haven’t made a similar commitment to do that for drone operators,” Stepanovich says. She calls that a double standard.

People won’t know which agency, company, or person is behind the remote control of the drone flying over their homes, Stepanovich says. “So the FAA definitely has a role to play in protecting privacy,” she says.

Stepanovich suggests the FAA incorporate a registry: “We’re talking about transparency, requiring that drone users register what technology they are deploying on their drones, and what capacity these drones will have. This just gets at making sure people are aware of what’s going on in their own area.”

Medill Professor Josh Meyer (left), moderates a discussion between Richard Andres (center) and Omer Taspinar, both professors at the National War College in Washington D.C. (Mary Cirincione/MEDILL)

Gap between aspirations and expectations leaves Western Muslim youth open to radicalization

WASHINGTON—The global reach of ISIS has left an indelible mark on the media worldwide, providing cautionary tales on the susceptibility of western Muslim youth as some young people leave their homes to join terrorist ranks abroad. Drawn by a savvy use of social media and digital propaganda, their shared story is becoming more common.

“Social media has spread radicalism globally to people who normally wouldn’t be exposed to it,” according to Richard Andres, a professor of national security strategy at the National War College. The ease of access made possible by 140-character tweets, messages and videos has created a new playing field, he said, enabling terrorist organizations to penetrate groups of dissatisfied people in mass.

Authorities picked up three Denver teens en route to Syria last fall, while another three fled East London in February. All six were active online, maintaining Facebook and Twitter accounts where they interacted with extremist points of view.

“Social media click-washes you over time,” something Andres likens to brainwashing. This process pulls readers and viewers “further and further toward the extreme” with every click, he said.

Speaking at a National Press Club event Monday sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, Andres said those initial clicks are fueled by innate prejudices: “We’re attracted to things that confirm our biases.” It’s a slippery slope from there as social media users access more content aligned with a single view point, he said. “Like a cult, it will isolate you … making you more and more extreme.”

That’s all part of its strategic approach, he said. Those brutal beheading and execution videos regularly released by ISIS were never part of the endgame. They’re clickbait.

“We like sensation. Human beings are attracted by sensation and so people tend to click on the more sensational link,” Andres said. Once they do that, ISIS can further its primary mission by “linking those social media users with major headlines and gain legitimacy.” That means linking to real stories describing the group’s presence, violence and aims.

According to a study released late January by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, one-fifth of all foreign fighters joining ISIS are westerners. Of an estimated 20,000 worldwide, more than 4,000 recruits have come from Europe, while 100 have come from the U.S. Young Internet users appear to account for the majority.

Speaking at the same event, Brookings fellow Omer Taspinar described a crisis of identity, as some young Western Muslims appear integrated into their communities, but in reality suffer degrees of alienation. “They don’t feel that they belong to their immigrant groups,’ or their parents’ generation … They have an identity problem and in that sense they feel uprooted, that they don’t belong anywhere.”

At that point it becomes an issue of relative deprivation, Taspinar explained. These radical teens aren’t uneducated or down-trodden. Most are bilingual, even trilingual. “The evidence that we have from profiling terrorist groups is that most of the time, masterminds [and] people who are successful terrorists … are not really poor. They’re middle class and they’re educated,” Taspinar said.

But their grievances are real and they’re wildly discontented, he added. Many are either unemployed or underemployed, leaving them vulnerable to clickbait propaganda. “There’s a growing gap between expectations and opportunities,” Taspinar said. Increasing rates of education in Europe coupled with unemployment problems have resulted in broad dissatisfaction.

“So they’re looking for something bigger than themselves. [They’re] looking for a cause to attach themselves to.” And that cause is the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Taspinar said, as youths embrace the rise of a caliphate as their reason for being.

David Gregory (left) moderates a discussion concerning the rise of ISIS with retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor at American University on Wednesday, April 8. Mansoor said that the takeover of ISIS is a direct result of the U.S. decision to invade, and then leave Iraq in the 2000s: “Al-Qaida was defeated during the surge in 2007-2008 – not destroyed.” (Mary Cirincione/MEDILL)

Whatever headway the U.S. gained in Iraq following the 2007 surge has for the most part come undone — paving the way for the rise of the self-described Islamic State.

That’s the assessment of retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who had a front-row seat for the surge in his capacity as executive officer to retired Army Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq from 2007 to 2008, the culmination of Mansoor’s 26-year Army career.

When the last U.S. troops left Iraq on Dec. 18, 2011, following several years of drawdowns, al-Qaida was defeated, but was not irrevocably destroyed.

“We had al-Qaida down on the 10-count, and we let it off the mat,” Mansoor said.

And, he added, from those not-quite-extinguished ashes rose the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

After his deployment as XO to Petraeus, Mansoor retired in 2008 and went on to publish two memoirs detailing his experiences during the surge. He’s now an associate professor at Ohio State University, where he teaches military history.

Speaking at a discussion Wednesday at American University in Washington, D.C., Mansoor assessed the Obama administration’s approach to Iraq and criticized several key areas.

Citing a general “unraveling of the security situation around the world,” Mansoor stressed the need to “know who your enemy is.”

ISIS is an entirely new kind of adversary, a “hybrid enemy,” he said. “And to combat a hybrid force, you need a hybrid force.”

That requires an unrestricted approach. President Obama’s proposal for a new authorization for the use of military force in Iraq in February is a good start, but doesn’t go as far as it should, Mansoor said.

“The authorization shouldn’t be constrained geographically because the president needs to be authorized to combat ISIS wherever it exists,” Mansoor said. “It shouldn’t have constraints on number and type of force … [and] should not rule out ground forces” because they are integral to any functional, comprehensive approach to defeating ISIS.

He suggested that any effort to retake the strategic city of Mosul, for example, would require troops on the ground. “If you rule out those uses of force, then achieving our goals becomes much more difficult.”

And drones are not enough to win this fight, he added. “Unfortunately, this administration has used drones — which are a tool for war — as a substitute for strategy.”

Mansoor said U.S. strategy today “is to support the Iraq government with air power and advisers that do not accompany troops into battle, but train them.”

He argued that is not enough, and that maintaining close, continuous involvement with the Iraqi government should be a priority.

“That’s what we’re not seeing from the Obama administration,” he said.

The lack of close collaboration has created missed opportunities, in Mansoor’s opinion, among which was the chance to support a moderate bloc within the Iraqi government — when there was one.

Moving forward, the U.S. approach needs to acknowledge the changing reality with Iran, Mansoor said.

“Iran sees the Islamic State as an opportunity,” something akin to a distraction because if Americans are preoccupied with the threat posed by ISIS, Iranian leaders think the U.S. will overlook its grievances with them.

“But we need to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time,” and deal with both fronts simultaneously, he said.

That means weaning Iraq off Iran, Mansoor explained. “Right now, Iran has its tentacles deep into Iraq,” which he called bad news for the rest of the world.

Mansoor believes America’s best bet is an international coalition, and should include soliciting more support from Turkey in terms of shutting off the flow of fighters and oil into Iraq. “Turkey needs to be onboard,” he said, but they haven’t been fully cooperative.

Mansoor also suggested that Obama appreciate his influence over the American people to get their support for broadening the fight against ISIS.

“Right now, we have an administration that’s engaged diplomatically, but because they’re taking off the table much of the military [functionality], no one believes them,” he said.

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But noticeably missing from the proposed regulations? Privacy.

And the FAA owned up to it. In a privacy impact assessment issued along with the proposed framework, the agency stated that it “acknowledges that privacy concerns have been raised about unmanned aircraft operations. … These issues are beyond the scope of this rulemaking.”

That makes sense, according to Matt Waite. Privacy is not in its wheelhouse.

“The FAA has said all along that it is not a privacy organization – It is an aviation safety organization. They don’t have the experience or the skill[set] to be in the privacy business,” Waite added.

A professor of journalism and founder of the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Waite said that the FAA more or less intentionally walked away from building privacy regulations into its proposal. “They had been talking about it and had been claiming that that was the reason it was all being delayed [as] they were considering privacy regulations … But ultimately, nothing.”

Waite said that the implications of that choice suggest that states are going to have to make up the difference.

“The FAA has wisely backed off all privacy issues [because] there’s no need for a new federal privacy bureaucracy [when] states already have protections in place,” said Charles Tobin, a privacy rights lawyer and partner at Holland & Knight.

“The laws that are on the books are all technology agnostic. They apply to computers, they apply to still cameras, they apply to wireless microphones, they apply to video cameras … and there’s no reason that they can’t be applied – as already written – to UAVs,” Tobin added.

He said he understands why people are concerned, but suggests we look to history for any insight we might need. “Since the turn of the century, people have expressed concerns about every single new phase of technology [that has been] developed to allow people to gather information in public places and private places, and so over the decades, states have developed a strong series of statutes and precedents in the courts that deal with electronic surveillance, eavesdropping, trespassing and just about any other concern for invasion of privacy.”

To add additional statutes would be more than redundant, Tobin said. It would be confusing for everyone involved. It also leaves the possibility that one law could potentially violate the other.

While recognizing that the FAA made the appropriate call when it chose to step aside, Tobin said the baton has simply been passed on down the line. A presidential memorandum issued the same day as the FAA’s proposed regulations relays the responsibility to “develop a framework regarding privacy, accountability, and transparency for commercial and private UAS use” to the Department of Commerce. The memo states that the department must initiate a “multi-stakeholder engagement process” within 90 days of the memo’s release – so it must begin work by mid-May. According to Tobin, “the development of private industry best practices” by the Department of Commerce is a positive step – but it should avoid stepping further.

Government trying to involve itself in the regulation of a specific piece of technology is just a terrible idea, Waite said. “As we are already seeing, the government lags way behind technology when it comes to laws that would deal with that technology. It’s taken the FAA a long time to come up with rules for these drones and they’re flying around right now. They’re being used for commercial purposes even though the FAA says, ‘No, you can’t do that.’” Law will forever lag behind technology, he said.

“So if that’s the case, then legislatures and policymakers need to acknowledge and accept that and begin to craft rules that are technology agnostic,” Waite added. Because therein lies the solution to any concerns that privacy might be invaded.

Waite said that the key is deciding what we don’t want people to do – what we need to prevent from happening. “We need to start thinking about what we consider a reasonable expectation of privacy in our modern times. And if that’s not allowing [me to] photograph [someone] streaking in their backyard, then that’s great. We can say I can’t do that. But it shouldn’t matter how I do that, [just that] you don’t want me to do it.”

It’s about understanding what we’re offended by. And then realizing that if privacy was violated, then how it was done is unimportant, he added.

The drone-related privacy concerns of the average American are actually pretty obvious, Waite said. They’re afraid of a drone operator peering into their windows like a 21st Century peeping tom, or using them to stalk and harass people. And they’re also afraid that someone might gather information about them and their behaviors.

Amie Stepanovich, senior policy counsel for privacy advocacy group Access Now, said these concerns are genuine because drone technology is in a league of its own. “Drones have [the] capacity to bring a bunch of different surveillance technologies onto a singular platform and to reach into areas that other vehicles have not been able to get to. For example, up into very high buildings or into inside spaces.”

But many of the acts people are fearful of are actually crimes, Waite said. They’re already illegal. “It is illegal for you to fly up and peer in[to] someone’s window, those peeping tom laws already handle that.” He admitted that some states aren’t as advanced as others because they require that an offender physically be on the property to be prosecuted as a peeping tom. “[But] that doesn’t take a great leap of mind to fix that real quick,” he added.

Gathering information through surveillance is a different issue, however, one steeped with potential for abuse. Stepanovich said that limitations should be put in place to restrict the ways in which government agencies can use drone technology. “It’s highly advanced and gives them a great deal [of] increased capability and can be used to collect a great deal of information,” she said.

“We need things that will, for example, protect users’ location information from being collected and tracked. … It comes back to tracking people over time without a warrant and being able to pinpoint their exact location. And this is true with drones but … there are several other different kinds of technologies that are coming out. And we need to make sure that that information is adequately protected.”

The presidential memo issued in conjunction with the FAA’s proposal states that agencies must “comply with the Privacy Act of 1974, which, among other things, restricts the collection and dissemination of individuals’ information that is maintained in systems of records, including personally identifiable information.”

The White House’s assurance that government agencies will be held accountable to legacy privacy standards is a good thing, Stepanovich said, but she recommends further attribution and transparency.

“The FAA has a publicly accessible database of who is able to fly airplanes in any specific geographic area in the United States. But they haven’t made a similar commitment to do that for drone operators,” Stepanovich said. She calls that a double standard.

People won’t know which agency, company or person is behind the remote of the drone flying over their homes. They’re already fearful, so that’s not the best way to go about this, Stepanovich added.

“And so the FAA definitely has a role to play in protecting privacy,” and she recommends the agency operate a full registry. “We’re talking about transparency, requiring that drone users register what technology they are deploying on their drones, and what capacity these drones will have. This just gets at making sure people are aware of what’s going on in their own area,” she added.

“But it should be up to Congress and other agencies to ensure that users don’t violate one another’s privacy rights.” That requires a separate law, but Stepanovich said it would be a mistake to make a new law for a singular piece of technology.

Like Waite and Tobin, she advises technology agnosticism when it comes to lawmaking. Because technology changes frequently. And for that same reason, Stepanovich said the drone privacy debate is an important one: “It will definitely be worth paying attention to because it’s really deciding the future of this technology in the U.S.”

All three agree that the next 24 months will be very exciting. “We’re sort of in the early years of the Wild West stage here, where the rules and the court cases [haven’t happened] yet,” Waite said. “But things are going to happen and they’re going to be tested in court and they’re going to be squared to our constitutional values and when they are, we’ll actually have a fairly stable system.”

“But until then you’re going to have some crazy stuff going on,” Waite added. “You’re going to see people doing things that were never envisioned and you’re going to see [drones] being used in ways that we hadn’t thought of yet. And some of that’s going to be cool and neat and some of it’s going to be kind of ugly.”

One thing is guaranteed: The waiting game has just begun.

But few people can remember dozens of unique passwords without writing them down. Most will admit to having a cheat sheet somewhere—perhaps hidden in a notebook in their desk, tucked away on a Post-it under their keyboard, or stored somewhere as a virtual note on their cell phone.

The truth remains that even though users may believe their passwords are hidden, they’re not as safe as they could be. And that means they’re vulnerable, leaving Americans and their personal information at risk.

The National Cyber Security Alliance aims to teach us safe Internet use and how to maintain a secure digital presence in our personal and professional lives. NCSA runs a series of campaigns to generate awareness about the importance of building up online defenses, to protect identities as well as bank accounts.

Online theft and hacking schemes are growing in sophistication, and users don’t know how to adequately defend themselves, according to Kristin Judge, program lead for NCSA’s Two Steps Ahead campaign. “Everywhere I go I realize more and more people are looking for help because they want to know how to be safer.”

Remembering three or four passwords was the norm up until a few years ago, “but now people have dozens, and it’s impossible to remember that many,” Judge said. And yet we tend to rely on keeping a “favorite” password across several accounts, which Judge said is downright dangerous. The only solution is to modernize your defenses.

And there’s a great new way to protect yourself, Judge said. It’s called two factor authentication, and it’s popping up all over the place—on Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, LinkedIn and even Gmail—although most Americans haven’t noticed.

That’s because it’s an optional function. “You have to opt-in and sync with your phone, but most users don’t seem to know about it,” Judge said.

Two factor authentication is simple. Every time a user logs in with his password, he must provide a six-digit code that has been automatically sent to his phone. That code is good for up to five minutes, which Judge said helps her feel more secure: “I feel really comfortable knowing that no one else can get into my account without that six digit code.”

As part of the Two Steps Ahead campaign, Judge is working to get the word out on two factor authentication, its ease of use and the added security it provides. According to Judge, “it really is one of the best ways we have to keep our accounts safe right now.”

But there is  another method, which Judge said she recently started using herself: an online password manager.

“They’re not necessarily intuitive so it’s going to take some commitment on the user’s part,” Judge said, admitting that it took her a few hours to set one up for her family. But online password managers offer unparalleled protection by way of double encryption, she explained.

Password managers like LastPass and 1Password are subscription-based and cost anywhere from $10 to $50, meaning there’s some financial commitment as well. But they’re becoming more common, Judge said, because they make password memorization and cheat sheets obsolete. The user creates a central account with one main password, needed to unlock a password vault. Once logged in, the user gains access to all of his password-protected websites because he has saved each site’s unique password during the initial set-up. This is a “once-and-done” step, Judge said: “You just remember the one password, get into the vault, and you’re in!”

If online password managers seem intimidating, Judge has a quick tip that even the least tech savvy user can use to boost their security: “Just make some time, and take the passwords you have and make them stronger,” Judge said. “Consider adding an extra letter or two,” to each account. Maybe add a “g” at the end of a Gmail password, or a “p” at the end of a PayPal password. “I still have my [core] phrase which I haven’t written down, but I add those extra letters to make sure each password is just a little bit different,” Judge said.

And if you need to write them down you should, she said. But never store passwords near a computer, or somewhere where prying eyes can find them.

Verity Harding, Google’s Public Policy Manager, spoke at a European parliamentary meeting Jan. 28 on counter-terrorism action planning, to lend some insight into the complexities of barring terrorist video publication. Simply put, YouTube is flooded with new content every minute of every day—300 hours of new content every minute, to be exact. Sifting through each piece of material to remove inappropriate content would be impossible, she said, and pre-screening before uploads isn’t an option either. Harding said that “to pre-screen those videos before they are uploaded would be like screening a phone call before it’s made.”

So Google can’t keep out terror-related content because it can’t keep up with the sheer amount of content period.

But it can do a better job at hastening identification and removal if it has the massive support of its users, she said. By flagging “bad” content more generally, but also keeping an eye out for terrorist videos more specifically, Harding said users can make YouTube a safer, cleaner place. Once a video has been flagged, YouTube staff review and take action accordingly, possibly deleting the content and banning the user who uploaded it.

Echoing Harding’s suggestion, the counter-terror chief for the European Union moved one step further to propose that each member nation designate a team of trained professionals to tackle the task: “We have to help them, and refer to them, and signal content. Each member state should have a unit with people trained to do that.” According to Gilles de Kerchove, only one-third of offending content flagged by ordinary users is taken down, while content flagged by law enforcement is removed more consistently.

Harding did not address whether Google is at risk of losing revenue or “clicks” over the offensive videos on its site, but any image problem can certainly heighten the concerns of both investors and users. By getting in front of the issue and moving to share responsibility for the problem, Google took steps to defend itself from criticism, as well as the possibility that YouTube might become known as the “go-to place” for terror propaganda.

Mary Cirincione/ MNS

WASHINGTON—When Edward Snowden leaked more than a million classified documents to which he had access while working as a credentialed contractor for the National Security Agency, Americans were shocked. Debate ensued: Was Snowden a traitor or a patriot? Were the NSA’s surreptitious surveillance programs sufficient cause for Snowden to not only break his contractual agreements with his employers, but also break the law?

Before you can answer either of those questions, two key determinations must first be made: whether Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in terms of their phone records, and whether the government has the reasonable right to disregard those expectations of privacy for the sake of national security. Unfortunately, popular agreement on either front has been hard to find—although the courts have spoken.

The NSA holds that its bulk collection efforts are legally protected under Section 215 of the U.S. Patriot Act, passed in response to the 9/11 attacks. Section 215 states that the government can retrieve any “tangible thing” from private persons or institutions for the purpose of protecting national security.

But what exactly was the NSA collecting? Although the surveillance programs remain technically classified, a fair amount of information has come to light over the last decade. From what we know, the government began collaborating with American telecommunication providers in the early 2000’s to share the call-detail records of their customers, a set of information that includes customer names and addresses as well as the names and numbers of the people they called.

If these records are already being kept, they are certainly not secret. But more importantly, they are not private. In Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that telephone users have no legitimate expectations of privacy. The judgment stated that a pen register, which records call details but not the content of the call itself, did not constitute a search within the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment because the “petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company” when he chose to make a call.

The NSA’s bulk collection records collect the same information as a pen register, albeit in mass, so the constitutionality of the program’s collection seems a logical extension to some; but the courts have said that searches need to involve a specific person, not a category of people although there is some dispute about other rulings that appear to allow bulk collection for national security purposes. This would also mean that Americans do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to their call-detail records.

Following Snowden’s initial leaks in the summer of 2013, NSA Director Keith Alexander defended his agency’s bulk phone record collection programs repeatedly, touting them as a successful anti-terror tool: “They have protected the U.S. and our allies from terrorist threats across the globe.” Alexander attributed the prevention of at least 50 potential terrorist events in the years since 9/11 to NSA surveillance programs.

But he never offered a specific thwarted attack as proof of the program’s success, a point not lost on Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. On Dec. 16, 2013, Leon challenged the overall constitutionality of the NSA’s program in Klayman v. Obama, ruling that the agency’s mass collection of metadata constituted an unreasonable search and seizure. Leon criticized the government for failing to “cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack.”

But two weeks later, U.S. District Judge William Pauley in New York ruled the reverse, upholding the NSA’s surveillance operations as constitutional in ACLU v. Clapper. Pauley defended the NSA’s data collection scheme as a practical tool for combatting terrorism, explaining the importance of using non-conventional intelligence gathering methods in a post-9/11 world. National security takes precedence over any perceived right to phone privacy, he said.

So which is it? Does the government have the right to view our phone data if it helps keep this country safe? Or has it abused its legal authority?  Both District Court rulings are currently on appeal before federal Appeals Courts, although decisions are expected sometime in 2015. It is assumed that one of these cases will then be brought before the Supreme Court and enable a binding decision on the matter of NSA surveillance. Until that time, it will depend who you ask.