Slashdot Mirror
How You Too Can Be Shut Down By the Feds For Flying Drones
An anonymous reader writes "University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Matt Waite waived a government cease and desist letter recently received for his experiments using 3-pound, $500 drones for news reporting (specifically, for a story about drought in Nebraska). He gave journalism organizations the lowdown on what they can expect from the government on this front going forward and said he's posting his experience in trying to get certified by the FAA on GitHub so they can follow along."
No, that's not what news organizations can expect. That's what people trying to report on actual events can expect.
The government selectively enforces rules like this. It has been for some time now. We have to keep you away from the raw and unadorned truth... it's dangerous to democracy you know. You will receive an edited and redacted version suitable for consumption within 3-5 business days. Thank you for your cooperation, Citizen.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
At what point is a hobby shop R/C Airplane or Helicopter a drone? I used to enjoy flying R/C planes as a teen. I mean they were the "trainers". I never had the space to dedicate a workshop towards building the larger model planes until recently. And delicate (and easily breakable) R/C planes and young kids probably wouldn't matter much.
I now wonder if by the time kids get old enough to know better if I'll be able to get back into the hobby due to every R/C plane being classified as a drone...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
My hobby eye in the sky is legal. His professional eye in the sky is illegal.
Mine is a scale predator drone. I use it to 'real world troll' groups with paranoid populations. e.g. Occutards, gun shows, teabaggers, privacy advocates, protestors in general.
Completely legal as I'm doing it for fun.
Hint for anybody thinking of joining the fun. Put a plant in the group to spot the drone just as it completes an orbit and disappears. Otherwise they won't see it. At 400 feet AGL a five foot wingspan drone is about right.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Drones have an ability to make truth more evident. Not only people but governments do not like it when truth is available. Any effort to make good use of drones will be met with huge resistance. For example we are willing to spend billions of dollars on a border control as long as it does not work. Imagine what a fleet of drones could do to halt illegal immigration. Now tell me just how likely it is that drones will be heavily used to patrol our borders. I have seen this same phenomena in police work where a couple of cops came up with a great way to curtail drunk driving. Two cops simply waited outside popular bars and stopped drivers who pulled out of the parking lot late at night. Almost 100% of the stops resulted in a valid drunk driving arrest. The city quickly halted the practice. The problem was that the town bordered another town and when word got out people simply drove a few hundred yards to get drunk in the next town's bars. In other words the real working policy of the city was to make a show of stopping drunk driving while making sure that they really did not stop drunk driving.
Drones work too well. By using drones we can expose situations and that endangers all kinds of social institutions. With a good swarm of drones on patrol we could really knock out almost all home burglaries at night. But how many companies and jobs depend on a busy criminal justice system? Society really is that perverted.
My television certainly should qualify, it does nothing but drone when it's on.
In that case, my wife would also qualify.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
It's illegal to fly an RC model for any kind of pay.
As long as you are doing it for fun (and follow AMA safety rules), RC camera work is legal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Nothing stops these UAVs from flying in the same airspace as planes carrying people - all it takes is a little software malfunction. They are small and hard to see, aren't in radio contact with air traffic controllers, and don't show up on radar. There's a reason the government is concerned about them, and I suspect it's not about supressing truth.
You can have a real time camera, as long as you operate it in line of sight.
You can't operate it for profit. e.g. Aerial photography of real estate.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You know, even by Slashdot standards this summary is remarkably incoherent. And that's ignoring the waived/waved confusion.
"he's posting his experience in trying to get certified by the FAA on GitHub so they can follow along."
Likely his problem was that the FAA doesn't use Github for certification. They have their own computers and application forms and stuff.
Three Squirrels
Regulating the parts of the airspace routinely used in interstate commerce is the job of the Federal government.
I don't know what the actual "airspace" that the feds claim jurisdiction over, but common sense would say it's anything at or within the safety margin of the lowest altitude a commercial aircraft flying from one state to another or flying in or out of the United States would routinely use over that spot, or the lowest altitude a military or other federal-government-owned aircraft would routinely use over that spot. In most areas the "FAA floor" should be a few thousand feet at the lowest (I suspect it's much lower, but I digress). For areas within a few hundred feet of runways, helipads, etc. this may be all the way to the ground (sorry kiddies, no radio-controlled toy airplanes for you without FCC approval).
However, FAA regulations should be safety-oriented, not use-oriented.
States should and do have the right to impose safety regulations below that height.
Now, when it comes to radio transmissions, the FCC gets involved. They can and for all I know do impose rules that would prevent a ground-based kiddie-toy remote-control aircraft transmitter from interfering with other, higher-priority, licensed radio users including radios used by commercial aircraft.
For aircraft which emit pollutants into the atmosphere, the feds also have the right to impose pollution controls.
One other thing that can come under regulation is the actual purpose of the drone's use and the harm to society by allowing the drone to fly at all. I'm thinking noise pollution from low-flying drones and invasion-of-privacy issues from drones with cameras aimed at your backyard swimming pool or aimed at your windows. Most of this should come under state regulation, but things like flying near one state's border and photographing inside someone's window who lives across the border would reasonably come under Congress's purview, as would photographing into the backyard of a home located on a military base even if the drone were flying over private property with that landowner's consent.
Now, would I favor my state banning camera-less or camera-turned-off drones flying over private property with the owner's consent, or flying so high and so quiet that they are not a nuisance but not so high that they interfere with interstate commerce? No, but I would expect my state to ensure the safety of such craft. Would I favor my state banning photography from a drone if the subjects of the photograph and/or their owners consented, and the photography wasn't creating a nuisance, safety, or other issue for anyone else? No.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's illegal to fly an RC model for any kind of pay.
That's what *I* thought, too. So why don't we take a page direct from the politicians: I fly for myself and take pics, and then give them to you because you ask. (Presumably I'd need to give them to all comers, but then again not Every Single Person I meet is my friend. So I don't see that saying "No" is that bad. A judge may disagree.)
You, then, contribute to my fund (charitable, PAC, LLC, something) that I just happen to control. No no -- it's not MY money at all, it's the funds' money; I just happen to be the one in control of it. Or my friend is, whatever.
Now, could the feds come in and take control and arrest me before, during, or after the fact? Yep, because the men with guns always win, especially if they have enough bullets.
By the way, I think that's great: "I use it to troll 'real world' groups... Completely legal as I'm doing it for fun." But mightn't fun have consequences? Just because you're having fun doesn't mean everyone else is. Aren't you responsible if you hurt someone else? And if there's not some kind of ID (owner sticker, serial number, etc) on it, how are they to know who owns it? Do you walk up and say "Sorry about that" and claim ownership and responsibility? Or do you just write it off as perhaps a bad battery and disappear?
Fun is by yourself or with friends, and perhaps with a few strangers accidentally nearby. Fun does not consist of ONLY strangers. Then again I'm an old fogie, so get off my lawn. And by the way: I'm practicing.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?