FAA's Drone Laws Clash With Local Regulations (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has finally started to roll out its new rules for small drones. The agency was notably slow to do so — slow enough that many cities, counties, and states beat them to it. Now, the FAA's rules are clashing with established and more developed rules, frustrating local lawmakers and confusing drone hobbyists. "Lawmakers said the agency's drone rules did not go as far as many states and municipalities that are explicitly banning flights within cities and over homes, strengthening privacy protections and imposing steep criminal and financial penalties on violators."

The FAA's slow and unilateral response is causing local officials to fight the nationwide regulations. "There was not supposed to be such a divide between local and federal drone regulations. Congress instructed the FAA three years ago to write laws for drones, a nascent technology at the time. Yet the agency struggled to create first-time rules for the category that would balance a public outcry over safety concerns with the economic benefits drone makers promised from the machines." Meanwhile, tech companies focused on drone development are pleased with the FAA's light touch. There are hobbyists on each side of the issue; some are glad to avoid more restrictive and complicated local regulations, while others wish the government would do more to slow the rush of unprepared and reckless new drone owners.

Comments

Re:Constitutionally, the FAA should lose

[BitZtream]

As soon as that weed is sold, it becomes a federal issue, if nothing else its a tax issue.

Which is why the feds don't bust people who grow their own.

The constitution defines a couple fist fulls of Musts and Must nots, everything else it leaves to Congress to control, the Supreme Court can disagree with Congress and throw it out, but otherwise Congress is actually capable of doing pretty much anything they want.

And its ignorant fucking statements like yours that are a major contributing factor as to why we have such a shitty Congress and national state of affairs. People like yourself expect to stand back without any actual understanding of hour our government works and screen 'constitution' when its sounds entirely like you've never even read it. And you do nothing to actually fix the problem. Just shout and point at something someone else did and absolve yourself of the actual situation.

The FAA has jurisdiction over what flies over any US territory, deal with it. Doesn't matter if its a grain of sand millimeters off the ground or a military aircraft at 80k feet, or even ballistic missiles (though its probably not worth arguing about if ballistic missiles are flying around, is it?).

The reality of it is, "We, the people of the United States of America" DO WANT DRONES REGULATED. I say this as someone who has been flying RC aircraft for over 20 years and currently own 3 flight ready quadcopter, 2 standard helicopters and a fixed wing rc aircraft. Countless model rockets as well. I'm safe. Joe Sixpack that gets one as a christmas present is not. Until 5 years ago, Joe Sixpack was going to be so incapable of controlling the aircraft that its probably going to crash on take off... this wasn't even all that dangerous cause it happened once, fairly early in the life of the aircraft. Artificial stability (the part that makes it so a human being can actually fly a quad in the first place) makes it so Joe Sixpack doesn't crash immediately. This is dangerous. Now he gets over confident and starts doing 'cool' things without actually thinking about what he's doing.

He's just not thinking about the fact that a 5 pound aircraft dropping uncontrolled from 10 feet above someones head is well beyond the amount of blunt force required to kill someone with a head strike ... and thats just an unintentional freefall, I'm ignoring all sorts of things that could cause all sorts of damage to a person besides death