FAA Sued Over Federal Drone Registry (technical.ly)

"Last December, the FAA rushed an arbitrary and ineffectual recreational drone-owners' registry into effect, mere days before Christmas and just in time to criminalize the flying of toys by thousands of children and hobbyists," argued The Daily Signal. Now Slashdot reader jenningsthecat reports on a promising legal challenge filed by a drone hobbyist who's also a lawyer, who is now "receiving financial help with his suit from the D.C. area Drone User Group (DC DUG). In his Petitioner's Brief, John Taylor maintains that "(f)or the first century of American aviation and beyond, the federal government made no attempt whatsoever to regulate recreational model aircraft", and that "(t)he FAA seeks to revise history (PDF) when it argues its failure to register model aircraft, or otherwise treat them in any manner as 'aircraft,' in the past was the exercise of an 'enforcement discretion.'"
On a fund-raising page for the challenge, the group calls the federal registry "deeply concerning to users and prospective users of small unmanned aircraft."

Comments

Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

When you can't play with your toys in a safe manner you get your toys taken away.

Re:Gun Registry

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they broke they law by passing unconstitutional laws and the court system decided to illegally turn a blind eye to it.

During World War II the us government illegally imprisoned Japanese americans. It was still illegal they just got away with it.

Re:FAA is barred from legislating by sec 331

[slimjim8094]

Section 331 of the 2012 FAA modernization act is a definitions section. Perhaps you meant section 336. You also left off a bunch of conditions:
- It has to be hobby/recreational
- It has to be according to the AMA's rules ("in accordance with a community-based set of safety guidelines and within the programming of a nationwide community-based organization")
- It has to be less than 55 pounds or signed off on by the AMA
- It has not interfere with manned aircraft
- If within 5 miles of an airport, you have to call the airport
- It has to be within visual line of sight

Also it says that "Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the authority of the Administrator to pursue enforcement action against persons operating model aircraft who endanger the safety of the national airspace system."

So the section 336 exemption is followed exactly, except that the FAA says that if the drone is more than 0.55lbs it must be registered. The FAA probably argues that this is part of maintaining the safety of the national airspace system, and I think it's a case they will win considering it's based on weight. Their legal argument is basically that by codifying the Part 107 UAS rules, they have told everyone "we consider unregistered drones over 0.55lbs to endanger the safety of the NAS and will pursue enforcement actions against such persons" - which is basically all a regulation is. The plantiff's argument would have to be along the lines of "well technically the law says you can't do anything it doesn't say, and doesn't say anything about whether heavier drones can be required to be registered". Which is fair enough, but since registration is non-discriminatory (anyone can do it, the FAA won't tell anyone they can't) and free ($5 online but you can do it on paper), they'd have to argue that the registration requirement itself constitutes a burdensome regulation on top of what's allowed by the law - to which I say good luck.

Generally, laws about regulation either delegate a section of authority to an agency for them to figure out the rules, or (if the congress-folks are worried about the agency doing or not doing something they don't like, which is what happened here and with the more recent class-3 medical certification reform for manned aircraft) they lay out the shape of the rules that they expect the FAA to create. That's what the FAA did here, modulo that registration requirement. But it's up to the agency to create the laws that follow the outline in the law, and on general principle courts will yield to the regulating authority unless the disconnect is "big enough".