The Trump Administration Wants To Be Able To Track and Hack Your Drone (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Trump administration wants federal agencies to be able to track, hack, or even destroy drones that pose a threat to law enforcement and public safety operations, The New York Times reports. A proposed law, if passed by Congress, would let the government take down unmanned aircraft posing a danger to firefighting and search-and-rescue missions, prison operations, or "authorized protection of a person." The government will be required to respect "privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties" when exercising that power, the draft bill says. But records of anti-drone actions would be exempt from public disclosure under freedom of information laws, and people's right to sue over damaged and seized drones would be limited, according to the text of the proposal published by the Times. The administration, which would not comment on the proposal, scheduled a classified briefing on Wednesday for congressional staff members to discuss the issue.

Comments

Makes sense... if it weren't secret.

[XXongo]

I don't mind the idea of public authorities being able to take down drones that are behaving dangerously or interfering with firefighting or rescue missions. The part about "records of anti-drone actions would be exempt from public disclosure under freedom of information laws, and people's right to sue over damaged and seized drones would be limited," on the other hand, bothers me a bit.

I like to know that the government is doing, and if they're saying that they're protecting public safety, they shouldn't mind telling us what they did and why.

Re:Which is all fine (mostly)

[Anonymous Coward]

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I don't think anybody here is fooled

[hyades1]

When all the weasel words are taken into account, it quickly becomes obvious that this means, "Drones making video of police beating or killing civilians will be taken down, and you can try to get the wreckage back by talking to one of our tame judges."