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.

WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) — Doug Hughes, the Florida mail carrier who landed his gyrocopter on the U.S. Capitol’s West Lawn last month, appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to all six federal charges against him.

Among the charges against Hughes are two felonies: operating an aircraft without a license and flying an unregistered aircraft. He faces up to nine and half years in prison.

“As long as I’m free I’m going to introducing voters to groups with solutions to problems of corruption that the vast majority of voters recognize and oppose.” Hughes said after the hearing.

On April 15, tax day, Hughes piloted the low-altitude aircraft from Gettysburg, Pa., to Washington, landing on the Capitol lawn.

Hughes carried 535 two-page letters, one for every member of Congress, highlighting the need for campaign finance reform because of what he sees as the corrosive effect of money politics. He described his actions as an act of civil disobedience.

“I’ll never do anything like this again, but I would do it exactly the way I did,” Hughes said.

Capitol Police arrested Hughes after he landed the small aircraft. He was later released on bail and remained under house arrest in Ruskin, Fla., where he wore an ankle monitor.

Mag. Judge Alan Gray allowed Hughes to move within Hillsborough Count,y where he lives, though he still must wear the monitor.

The judge also refused to let Hughes visit the Capitol, White House and other areas in Washington, which he was banned from doing immediately after the incident.

Hughes was also put on administrative leave from his job at the U.S. Postal Service.

The postal worker’s protest has raised concerns from lawmakers about the security of the Capitol. Hughes flew across 30 miles of some of the nation’s most restricted airspace on his route to D.C.

The Tampa Bay Times wrote about Hughes’s protest plans before the flight. He also informed the Secret Service and other news organizations by email and live-streamed the event on The Democracy Club, a website dedicated to congressional reform.

Hughes has stated his frustration at the focus on the security concerns raised, rather than the reasons for his flight:

“I have faith in a jury of my peers and will accept whatever consequence I must,” Hughes wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. “I simply hope by putting my freedom on the line, others might realize how precious their freedom is and join those of engaged in this fight to preserve and protect our government of, by and for the people.”

Members of CODEPINK, the women-led grassroots activist group, presented Hughes with a framed stamp after the hearing.

Published in conjunction with

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.”

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.

The “drone medal” was approved under Leon Panetta, Hagel’s predecessor at the Pentagon, to honor “extraordinary direct impacts on combat operations” without regard for the location of the recipient in relation to the combat operations. This means a drone operator who remotely conducts targeted strikes could be given the award without being in a combat zone.

After the announcement in December, followed by an increase in media attention in February, a number of veterans groups publicly opposed its position as a higher honor than some of the military’s most prestigious awards.

John Hamilton, the commander-in-chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, sent Hagel a letter outlining the group’s opposition to the rank of the new medal, calling for combat medals to be given priority.

“To create a new ‘war’ medal that doesn’t require physically serving in a war zone, and then to rank it above valor and injury medals that can only be earned in combat, has created a huge morale problem within the ranks,” Hamilton wrote in the letter, which was co-signed by representatives of 18 other national veterans associations.

The new medal also faced a backlash from members of Congress, including those who served overseas. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told The Huffington Post that he thinks a higher rank should be given to medals honoring those who could have died in battle.

“It’s still different if your lives are on the line. You got to differentiate and we’d like DOD to do that so I don’t have to do this,” Hunter said.

A bipartisan group of 22 senators also sent a letter to Hagel asking the Department of Defense to lower the rank of the medal.

“We adamantly oppose the decision to elevate this award above those earned in direct combat,” the letter said. “We maintain that heroism and personal courage in combat do not change from generation to generation, and should be held sacred and awarded accordingly.”

The Pentagon’s announcement that the medal would be reviewed was applauded by those who opposed the award’s placement, but Hamilton noted in his letter that it was not yet a “done deal” that the medal would be lowered in rank.

CNN reports that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey has been charged with reviewing the medal and that his report is expected to be completed by early April.

Although President Barack Obama has adopted drones as the workhorse weapons system of his anti-terrorism strategy, full automation is unlikely in the near future.

“Drones don’t change the human dimension of war,” said Christopher Swift of Georgetown University, a leading expert on the anti-terrorism campaign in Yemen. The true philosophical quandary, Swift explained, comes with granting computers the power to shoot.

Replacing humans with computers in that capacity “seems like an incredibly bad idea,” said Josh Meyer, former chief terrorism reporter for The Los Angeles Times and director of education and outreach for Medill’s National Security Journalism Initiative.

While it’s unlikely that automaton UAVs would present a sci-fi threat akin to the Terminator series’ Skynet, the human element is still essential for effective use of drones.

Ground based teams commonly aid UAVs in finding their targets. There are also strong indications that the military is using manned aircraft in the sort of covert missions usually reserved for drones. Witness February’s fatal accident in Djibouti, in which an Air Force Special Operations U-28 with civilian markings crashed killing all 4 occupants.

But the level of reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is not to be underestimated. According to Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation, the Obama administration conducts a drone strike every 4 days. Under President George W. Bush, the average time between drone attacks was 40 days.

There are many reasons for the increased dependence on drones. One major advantage of drones over conventional aircraft is the UAV’s ability to remain in a holding pattern for a long period of time. This ability leads to “better precision [when conducting strikes]”, said Meyer.

Another advantage is political. Drone strikes have been ordered overwhelmingly in Pakistan and Yemen, countries where a conventional American military presence would likely create havoc. While Pakistan and Yemen have tacitly acquiesced to UAV operations over their territories, the strategy is not without flaws.

The strikes have successfully weakened Al-Qaida by killing off many within its leadership, especially those with battle experience. “It used to be that Al-Qaida had a deep bench,” said Meyer, “some killed aren’t easily replaceable.”

But the strikes aren’t 100 percent accurate. The collateral damage caused by drone attacks has at times alienated potential key allies on the ground. Swift claims drone strikes have multiplied the number of Al-Qaida militants in Yemen threefold.

The pressure for young Yemeni males is economic, Al-Qaida pays $200 a month in a $60 a month economy, and reactive: Signature strikes, attacks aimed at men behaving in a suspicious manner, have often hit undeserving targets. As Swift pointed out, “Not everybody with an Ak-47 and a turban in Yemen is al-Qaida.”

Most UAV missions are not signature strikes but targeted killings. Because of collateral damage, missiles mounted on drones have been modified over time to be more precise.

(Defence Images/Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON – Drones – the same unmanned aircraft used for attacking the Taliban and killing Islamist terrorists – could soon come to a sky near you.

On Feb. 14, President Barack Obama signed the Federal Aviation Administration’s Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, accelerating the timetable for unmanned air vehicle use in U.S. skies. The bill greenlighted both public and private UAVs – or drones – for domestic liftoff by September 2015.

But privacy advocates are hotly protesting the law, warning that the FAA bill is the first step down a dangerous road to a surveillance society. UAVs’ high-tech cameras and sensors, they say, coupled with the current lack of regulation regarding drone use, could lead to a nation in which Big Brother watches from the sky.

The FAA previously blocked domestic UAV use due to safety concerns. But the military’s growing drone arm – they now make up a third of military aircraft – has driven improvements in the sense- and-avoid technology that helps prevent mid-air collisions.

Experts agree the bill opens the door for a commercial industry that could bring UAVs to any area from crop dusting to personal photography.

Drones’ main draw, however, is in the public sector – and therein lies their main controversy.

Advocates like Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., say bringing UAVs to U.S. skies will lead to unprecedented gains in border defense, public safety and emergency response.

“Our state and local law enforcement agencies need a faster, more responsive process,” McKeon said in a statement. “Our neighborhoods deserve safer streets, and these systems can help provide that.

Source: FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (David Uberti/Medill)

Opponents of the FAA bill don’t dispute drones’ policing capabilities. But they say the same components that allow drones to stalk and strike terrorists in the Middle East and South Asia will be used to scout crime scenes, follow suspects and patrol wide areas. Thermal imaging, for example, makes it easy to look at suspects inside buildings. And high-resolution cameras let operators follow several subjects simultaneously.

The rapidly improving technology is privacy advocates’ main concern. The FAA expects as many as 30,000 UAVs – as minute as small birds and as large as the 116-foot Global Hawk  – to fly in U.S. skies in 10 years.

Keeping up with technology 

“The technology is getting cheaper and more powerful and smaller,” said Jay Stanley, a policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s entirely predictable that the use of this technology will spread greatly unless there are obstacles put in its way.”

Stanley wrote a December ACLU report urging the FAA to expand its regulations to include privacy measures – not just safety guidelines. Although the air agency has repeatedly denied this responsibility, civil liberties groups insist that ensuring personal privacy helps protect individuals on the ground.

If the FAA doesn’t consider privacy safeguards in its UAV regulations, advocates want Congress to fill the gap. The main concerns are overuses by government and law enforcement agencies that include mass surveillance, video retention and see-through imaging, Stanley said.

“It’s important that these protections be put in place in the infancy of this technology so that everybody understands the ground rules of the game,” he said.

But UAV supporters think otherwise. Ben Geilom, government relations manager for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said current regulations for manned aircraft should extend to their unmanned counterparts.

“The aircraft itself…is new and maturing,” he said. “But the systems payload – the cameras and sensors that are on the unmanned system – are not new. In fact, they have been used by law enforcement and others on manned aircraft for decades.”

Small drones are able to hover outside of house windows to capture images and sounds, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal under current air regulations, Geilom said. Most of the privacy fears, he added, are due to unfamiliarity.

“With any new technology, there will certainly be the ability to abuse that technology,” Geilom said. “But there are also safeguards that are already in place that can serve as the framework.”

Complicating things further is that drone technology is progressing at a furious pace. The last time Congress passed a comprehensive FAA bill before February’s legislation was in 2003, when UAVs were in their infancy.

Future regulations should be limited to “broad safety parameters,” Geilom said, as more-detailed guidelines will be hard pressed to keep up with the accelerating technology.

“If unmanned aircraft can prove that it can seamlessly and safely integrate into the current manned aviation airspace…then they certainly should be able to integrate,” he said.

Medium to large-sized drones used by the U.S. military. (Congressional Research Service

Public up in the air

Despite widespread support from law enforcement agencies and the defense industry, the public remains deeply divided over domestic drone use. A February Rasmussen poll found that only 30 percent of voters approve of UAVs flying in American skies.  More than half, meanwhile, oppose it altogether.

Congress has thus far ignored any privacy concerns, including few regulations in the FAA bill and making no effort yet to add rules elsewhere.

Privacy advocates – notably the ACLU, Consumer Watchdog and the Electronic Privacy Information Center – called for added guidelines in a Feb. 24 petition to the FAA. Regulations must be added to keep up with UAV technology, they wrote, because drone use “poses an ongoing threat to every person residing in the United States.”

But law experts question the likeliness of such safeguards. Ryan Calo, director for Privacy and Robotics at Stanford University’s Center for Internet & Society, said that U.S. privacy law doesn’t hold back drone use.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that no warrant was required for government agencies to take aerial photographs of a person’s backyard. And in 1989, the justices ruled that police do not need warrants to observe private property from public airspace.

“Citizens do not generally enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in public, nor even in the portions of their property visible from a public vantage,” Calo wrote in the Stanford Law Review. “Neither the Constitution nor common law appears to prohibit police or the media from routinely operating surveillance drones.”

Geilom and others within the UAV industry insist current rules for manned aircraft will suffice for domestic drones. Over-regulation of a potentially lucrative industry before it gets off the ground could squander opportunities for not only law enforcement, but also photographers, real estate agencies and farmers, they say.

Opponents, however, paint a much darker picture. Only a few hundred of the 19,000 law enforcement agencies in the country have a manned aircraft arm. Stanley said the ACLU fears that without further privacy protections, government organizations could overuse or mishandle such drone technology.

“That would fundamentally change the nature of our public spaces and public life and the nature of the relationship between an individual and government,” he said. “It’s not a road we should not go down.”

Panelists included:

• Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., Deputy Judge Advocate General
• Nicholas Rostow, State University of New York University Counsel and Vice Chancellor
• William C. Banks, Director, Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University College of Law
• Kate Martin, Director, Center for National Security Studies

Watch panel discussion: