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That Toy Is Now a Drone
fluxgate (2851685) writes "A notice from the FAA announced earlier this week just turned a bunch of kids' toys into drones. In the past, the FAA had made the distinction between model aircraft (allowed) and drones (prohibited without special permission) according to whether they were used for recreation (okay) or commercial purposes (verboten). Now they have further narrowed the definition of model aircraft: If you fly it through video goggles, it no longer qualifies. This move eliminates First Person View (FPV) radio control flying. I'm an editor at IEEE Spectrum with a special interest and blogged about this disturbing development as soon as I heard the news."
The FAA has always had this rule.
To be a flying a 'model' you have to fly by line of sight, i.e. with your eyes on the model, not via electronics. Its been this way for years.
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In coding terms, the militia part is a comment, the right part is code. The militia part isn't part of the operative law of the constitution; never was. It clarifies intent, however.
But viewed in the context of the time, with a bunch of ordinary people with weaponry in their private possession (including military-grade stuff) just having used that to overthrow an oppressive government, it's quite clear the intent there was "a check on government overreach". Even through the 19th century, it was common for 1%ers to buy cannon, Gatling guns and other clearly military hardware, and bring it along to war, or donate it to the town for local defense. Due to some remarkably stupid procurement decisions by the US military, we would likely have been soundly defeated in the Spanish-American War had it not been for rich guys bringing along artillery they bought themselves (and Roosevelt basically inventing the modern "base of fire" infantry tactic with those Gatling guns.)
It's only been in the past century that we've had this notion that the right to keep and bear arms had secret limitations written in invisible ink.
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I seem to have had to keep repeating this endlessly on Slashdot, but a Federal NTSB judge has already ruled that the FAA does not have lawful authority to regulate low-altitude models or drones, regardless of whether they are being used commercially.
The FAA has appealed the decision, and so far seems hell-bent on regulating as much as it can before it gets slapped down in higher court. Which it surely will... Congress simply hasn't given them legal authority to regulate such things. They're acting like the EPA has been recently, seemingly trying to greedily grab up all the usurped authority they can before the November elections.