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California Bill Would Dramatically Limit Commercial Drones
An anonymous reader writes: California's Senate Bill 142 would prohibit drones from flying under 350 feet over any property without express permission from the property's owner. The bill passed the California Assembly easily. Tech advocates have been battling privacy advocates to influence the inevitable regulation of private and commercial drones. Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin. The legislation would also drastically diminish the usefulness of camera-centric drones like the ones being rolled out by GoPro. If passed, the bill could influence how other states regulate drones. The article notes that 156 different drone-related bills have been considered in 46 different states this year alone, and the FAA will issue nationwide rules in September.
Drones have no legitimate reason to fly over private property. Too bad for you city dwellers, guess there's a reason to leave for the countryside after all, huh?
The next step is to ban aerial photography by drones entirely.
" Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin. "
Sounds like a good use of state authority to me.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
I'm all for it, and that's pretty much the first law in CA I've ever been behind except for the de-criminalizing of weed. Yay CA! (honestly didn't expect to say that today)
How? If I gave permission with the order, they can land on my property. They just have to hover down from 350 feet.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What about over the public roads and streets? How would anyone get permission to fly over those? Leave it to California to pass laws that screw everything up...and what California does, the rest of the country does by default.
Isn't there already a sufficient ban in place?
https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/model_aircraft_spec_rule.pdf
For example, the FAA regulates low-altitude operations to protect people and property on the ground. The FAA permits aircraft operations below 500 feet when flown over open water and in sparsely populated areas. 14 CFR 91.119(c). Such operations may not be conducted “closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.” Id. Therefore, although such low-altitude operations may pose a lower risk to aircraft flying much higher, the operation may still pose a risk to persons and property on the ground warranting enforcement action when conducted unsafely.
It seems like the FAA has already done what needs to be done. Why do we need a similar state law that's actually less restrictive in many respects?
That's what we need! Another law! More people in jail! More reasons for cops to arrest people! More of a burden on our justice system.
For crying out loud, we have THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of pages of laws at every level of government, from local to federal. WE DO NOT NEED MORE.
These politicians, on both sides of the aisle, love nothing more than to MAKE MORE THINGS ILLEGAL.
*JUST STOP IT!*
Begun the drone war has.
You can't handle the truth.
For once.
Next up, time to ban computer-driven vehicles!
FedEx and UPS manage to deliver packages to me by truck without driving over any property without permission. Why is it supposedly so hard for drones to do so without flying over property without permission? Just follow the same route UPS or FedEx would use.
In fact, it should be easier for the drones since they will be allowed over property without permission if they are 350 feet up. FedEx and UPS trucks do not have that option.
All airspace within the U.S. is under control of the FAA. Although the FAA allows some unlicensed use of low altitude airspace (for model aircraft, rockets, and the like), anything that's not sitting on the ground is under their regulatory authority. The supremacy clause of the constitution spells out that, in the event of a conflict between federal and state law, federal law takes priority.
The person controlling it is in CA on the ground, and is subject to California law.
The FAA should simply preempt California's unauthorized attempt, as they have the exclusive control of the air space of the United States from ground level to space; and are the only agency to establish the policies for its use.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Who is this California Bill, and why does he want to limit commercial drones?
There is no sig.
Back in the 90's all the /. articles on autonomous vehicles, notably from Georgia Tech and their competition, looked on the technology as very exciting. Now it's "I'ma blast one out of the sky with my shotgun if it comes within a half mile of my yard." It's a whole new mindset and culture in only a generation. That's some serious manipulation going on and people don't even recognize it.
There are some unexpected impacts of this law (I haven't read the full law).
A non-commercial area of drone use that is currently not possible, and will not be possible under this law (assuming there are no exemptions) is around search and rescue. Drones fitted with cameras help with visual scanning, with heat sensing equipment they can be sued for far more effective search and rescue.
.. but a legitimate point of argument in the debate. What is the point of this discussion at all if anti-drone posts gets labelled as a "troll"? Perhaps the grand-parent calling drone enthusiasts "twisted perverts" could be seen as a troll, but the parent does not include any abuse apart from what is seen in the direct quote.
I'm not sure what the difference is between a radio operated car with a camera on (surely a form of trespassing, if on your property?) and a drone flying 20 feet above it with a camera. They both have the same implications; invasion of privacy. The drone also adds risk of destruction to your property.
Drone enthusiasts can take their drones to public parks, nature or fly over their own property.
Drones are the flying cars that couldn't have been, in a society where we focus not the aspiring free movements of people but on surveilling them from their homes and delivering them shiny crap so they don't think about moving too much.
It isn't the drone that's subject to the law, the person flying it is. He's on the ground in California and subject to CA law.
Do you think they can't pass a law banning the throwing of rocks into the air?
Or firing guns into the air? Simply because the bullet flies?
"Tech advocates have been battling privacy advocates to influence the inevitable regulation of private and commercial drones."
Let's get this right. It's not "tech advocates", it's big business.
Just another day in Paradise
California does not have the right to limit the use of commercial drones. Anything that happens even one inch off the ground is the sole purview of the Federal Government. Period.
Got it, California, you useless fucks? If it doesn't happen on the ground, you have no right to regulate any part of it, period.
Whatever idiot came up with this proposal is completely uninformed.
... and we'll have a new market for stabilized longer-focal-length camera platforms which will thrill the one-in-a-million actual creeps and paparazzi that everyone thinks this law is going to shut down.
First, they're not saying you can't fly over someone's property without permission. They're just saying you have to do it above 350 feet. Of course the FAA says you have to keep it under 400 feet, so this absurd law forces the drone operator to work closer to the general aviation deck, and to have to fuss about keeping their equipment in an unnecessarily narrow 50' band. Operating over hilly terrain? Double plus difficult for no reason.
Secondly, all this does is make what would annoy a neighbor even worse. In the vast majority of these cases, we're talking about a real estate agent (or her photographer) usually popping some small, comparatively very safe, quiet machine like a DJI Phantom 3 up into the air for a quick few minutes while it does a quick lap around a house for some exteriors that show the lay of the land, to add to a listing. In a more packed-in suburban setting, yes - for a useful perspective, the picture of the house they're listing is going to be taken from a short distance over the property line, so it's not a straight look-down a la Google.
But no. This brilliant piece of legislation means that now the photographer is going to have to use a heavier-lifting machine (larger hex or octo) that can carry a much heavier gimbal tweaked to carry a larger camera with a better sensor and a longer focal length lens. This rig will be heavier, and so the machine carrying it will be much more powerful (and, in the event of an accident, more dangerous), much louder, and much more annoying to use and to see in use. But someone selling a two million dollar house isn't going to blink at using (or hiring someone to use) such a device in order to continue to benefit from the now fully expected aerials of an expensive piece of real estate. So instead of having a humming little 4-pound plastic toy like a Phantom buzz around the house shooting perfectly good material, we'll have a 20-pound carbon fiber beastie with large CF props growling around at 350'
California: for a place with so many smart people, it sure is dumb.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
A preoccupied drone operator isn't going to see what hit him over the back of the head, or shot him. If you think morons walking around txting and bumping into cars is bad... and since drones are seen as expensive toys for rich white people if one flew over the hood it would look like AA batteries going off.
Gov Brown is the very definition of a moderate: paddle a little on the left, paddle a little on the right, to go up the river.
But he's not a spendthrift:" person who spends money in an extravagant, irresponsible way."
You meant thrifty, perhaps.
He's also not parsimonious (spending too little to get stuff done).
Our roads have problems, but they're FAR better than most roads on the east coast snow belt.. Drive in New Jersey or New York... or even as far south as Maryland and Virginia. Lots more potholes, lots more work needed.
Separation of powers. Congress has the authority to make laws, and the responsibility to do so. Delegating that responsibility is not in their authority.
We don't recognize the authority of the FAA, FCC, EPA, BLM, ATF, ICE, FBI or any other agency that arrogantly THINK they have the authority to decide something.
If you want to restrict it, then do so by law.
"The legislation would also drastically diminish the usefulness of camera-centric drones like the ones being rolled out by GoPro."
You make it sound like this is some unexpected side effect of the bill, rather than one of the primary reasons for passing the bill.
"would prohibit drones from flying under 350 feet over any property without express permission from the property's owner." [...] "Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin."
If i order a delivery via drone, presumably part of that process would be to give the drone permission to fly into my property. If your delivery drone is unable to go above 350 feet outside of my property and has to buzz everyone else in a direct line between you and me then perhaps you shouldn't be using it to deliver things?
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obnoxious=drones
I one percent support this law.
Drones flying under 350 feet are known to the state of California to cause cancer.
Instead of Private and Commercial, limitations are needed for Government owned, controlled, or private/commercial under government contract drones.
Drones are like cars: Great for those who operate them, sucky for everybody else nearby. At the dawn of the era, a powerful lobby that stands to make a bunch of money from them, is trying to popularize them. This group promotes (drones/cars) as 100% awesome, while legitimate and fairly obvious objections are brushed aside as being Ass-Backward Technophobia that is Anti-Commerce, Anti-(our)Prosperity and Anti-Progress. (Never mind that EVERY technology has unintended side-effects, from the wheel right on up. I said never mind that! DO IT, DO IT! DO IT NOW! WE CAN DO IT, SO LET'S DO IT!!!!!!)
Fast forward a few decades, and EVERYBODY has one. They're considered essential for one reason or another. The few who stood to make money have made their money, the available space for them (highways / skies) is all full-up and the whole place is a fucking dystopia. Everybody says "How did this happen?" and "Nobody anticipated this."
Automated drones can just fly over public streets and highways. They can still go pretty fast since they don't have to stop for lights or anything.