Entrepreneurs At SXSW: Give Us Our Drones! http://www.businessinsider.com/faa-ban-on-commercial-drones-2013-3/comments en-us Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500 Sun, 28 Dec 2014 21:56:00 -0500 Pax Dickinson http://www.businessinsider.com/c/514b2bc36bb3f7da1c000014 Pax Dickinson Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:48:19 -0400 http://www.businessinsider.com/c/514b2bc36bb3f7da1c000014 Didn't realize this was also posted here, here's my email reply: -------- Hi Shad, I agree with all that. My mistrust of the government is legendary. I was approving Rand Paul's recent filibuster to anyone who would listen, he finally started the conversation we should have been having for years. However, the topic of the article was the absence of FAA regulations on commercial drones. Discussions about government and military abuses are beside the point of my post, because they aren't regulated by the FAA. I thought it was interesting to learn that any commercial use of drones is currently illegal, and I thought others might be interested to know, as it didn't seem to be common knowledge. I can think of many uses for commercial drones that aren't threatening and are completely legitimate innovations in safety and technology. Those involved in the drone hobbyist community hate when every discussion of drones is hijacked by the military/government issue. To me the use of drones by military and government is a completely different issue from the questions that arise around hobbyist and commercial uses of the technology. I don't want the government spying on me or blowing me up as I sip a latte at a cafe, but I wouldn't mind an air-delivered taco sometime. I think there's a balance between privacy and commercial use of the technology that can be arrived at, but certainly whether the FAA is the proper agency to manage those regulations is an open question. I'd prefer to err on the side of no regulations than to have ineffective ones that stunt innovation in the private sector, especially when the government seems to be steaming full speed ahead with deployments of drones domestically. Our best chance at maintaining our privacy and freedoms may one day be the public availability of commercial anti-drone technology, so holding back commercial interests from entering the field my be exactly what we DON'T want. Regards, Pax http://www.businessinsider.com/c/514b1a71ecad04330900000e Sam Kephart Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:34:25 -0400 http://www.businessinsider.com/c/514b1a71ecad04330900000e This comment is from Shad Olson (newscaster and video producer) to Pax, the author: Pax, To center the premise of your response on commercial drone deployment is to miss the point in a way that is dangerous, and potentially obfuscatory. New Central Intelligence appointee, John Brennan, was not stonewalling Senatorial inquest regarding his opinion of commercial drone deployment, but about having the latest and greatest United States military hardware actively patrolling domestic airspace, constituting a de facto violation of Posse Comitatus. A few thoughts: When powerful government officials and elected leaders refuse to answer direct, simple and unobtrusive questions about their intentions to either honor or violate the most basic convents of our Constitutional guarantee, every American should be jolted from their Barcalounger with the news. The irrefutable evidence of this conversation remains that the digital intrusion and physical threat capabilities of this hardware, by their very nature, pose an inescapable existential threat to Constitutional freedoms from involuntary search and seizure, invasion of privacy, and material safety. Let us not limit those concerns to nude sunbathing or online infidelity. After culling more than 700 pages of Department of Defense Pentagon white papers, think-tank position studies and other sources I won't disclose publicly, it is patently obvious that there are those in our government who would dearly love the ability to do illegal things with these fabulous new toys that our tax dollars have purchased. And, as has been recently illustrated in grand historical detail, they get right miffed when expected to ask permission or forgiveness from anyone regarding their actions or intent. As Arthur C. Clarke once wisely opined, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." For anyone observing this exchange, I would note that the difference between alarmism and realistic threat assessment is often nothing more than studied comprehension. It is a gap I would encourage you to bridge and quickly. As a trusted opinion maker in the expanding confluence of technology and daily life in an open society, your influence on this moral conversation should not be underestimated nor minimized, lest the 'magic,' at our leaders' fingertips becomes the undoing of our democracy. http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5149fbe469beddf158000006 Pax Dickinson Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:11:48 -0400 http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5149fbe469beddf158000006 I agree with all of that. My mistrust of the government is legendary. That doesn't have much to do with licensing drones for harmless commercial purposes, though. A film production company using drones in an unpopulated area doesn't pose risks to anyone's privacy or safety. An agricultural company using drones to monitor irrigation and crop health doesn't pose those risks either. Government is going to do what government is going to do, and this article doesn't have anything to do with that. FAA restrictions don't apply to Big Brother, and even if they did, Big Brother follows his own rules only when he feels like it. Flying drones in populated areas is already illegal for anyone other than the state, so paparazzi aren't much of a concern here. Ultimately the drones become so small they they're undetectable and all the government rules in the world won't matter. My position is basically that if commercial drones are outlawed, only outlaw companies will have commercial drones. Laws that are applied ineffectively and unevenly are worse than having no laws at all. Right now we're cracking down on legitimate uses while letting non-legitimate ones slip thru the cracks. Technology changes so fast that by the time 2015 rolls around the regulations will likely be irrelevant. http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5149d75decad04031c000009 Sam Kephart Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:35:57 -0400 http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5149d75decad04031c000009 Pax, of course commercial drones AREN'T the same as CIA/Pentagon use. However, the moral hazards ARE the same. No, commercial drones probably won't kill or injure you unless they happen to lose power while flying and hit you in the head or crash into your windshield while you're diving a car. Some context for my qualified remarks: I worked for 17 years in the high-end security business in SoCal with Westinghouse/Westec. I’ve designed security systems and have been responsible for security teams who have protected some of the most powerful people in the WORLD, not just the US. During that time, I worked with many former law enforcement types, as well as a few retired 'spooks' who were doing second careers; not all law enforcement folks are ethical. I have some direct experience here; I wouldn't depend on them to self-police, no pun intended. Without clear laws having real teeth and rules around "fair and appropriate use" of ANY and all drones (police, military, CIA, commercial, hobbyist), you will have all manner of folks, who are missing a moral chip, looking for cute and clever ways to employ drones for win/lose advantage over others.... period! Let's say sensitive merger talks are being held at a private ranch or estate, it would be easy for a hedge fund manager to hire a drone expert to fly a small surveillance drone onto the property to gain insider information. If they're demonstrably willing to pay someone literally hundreds of thousands of dollars for a sub rosa tip, hiring an expert drone sleuth to get the same information remotely would have less traceable risk and would represent a relative bargain expense for the potential profit involved. Abuses by paparazzi are obvious... Also, drones can be much more than aerial photographers. Depending on the model being deployed, they can field a full complement of remote sensors that can tell how many people are in a structure, intercept ALL land line, cellular, and internet traffic. (They can jam those also, if desired.) They can also listen in to the people in the building. Further, this drone snooping can all be done without a warrant or ANYONE checking the checker. Personally, I don't want a ‘Big Brother’ eye-in-the-sky, with the capacity to do a virtual 'strip search' of my life from 1,500' up, trolling around the skies with unregulated impunity. I can't fathom the general public’s somnolence and insensitivity to this very real potential "on-demand" intrusion into their lives and the shredding of their Constitutional rights... unknowingly. You appear to trust government and corporate interests too much; I can’t help but wonder if your passion for the underlying cool technology and the potential billions in sales this market represents hasn’t possibly skewed your filters. I don’t see the skeptical eye of of a jaded reporter in your response to my comment. I ran for the US Senate here in South Dakota in the 2007-2008 Republican primary; I actually was the first politician to publicly state that the US was headed “off the cliff” back in August of 2007. There term became more popularly adopted about 18-24 months ago. (I’d be happy to provide you with the video link to that speech.) Needless to say, the overt moral lapses I witnessed during my campaign amongst some of our leaders and their supporters was quite disheartening. Our moronic Congress can't even balance a budget or control spending for more more than 4 years now; why would you trust them, or anyone else for that matter, to be equitable or ethical with the type of intrusive power that drones of all types represent? http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5149ba5aecad04026100002e Pax Dickinson Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:32:10 -0400 http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5149ba5aecad04026100002e This is some seriously overheated alarmism. Commercial use of drones to substitute for uses that currently require a human-piloted helicopter have nothing to do with national security uses of drones. Commercial drones =/= government surveillance drones. It's not logical or sensible to lump all uses of drones together, they're a just a tool like any other piece of technology. They can be misused but they also have legitimate purposes. http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51490ac9ecad049118000008 Sam Kephart Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:03:05 -0400 http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51490ac9ecad049118000008 Domestic drone usage is ill-conceived, elitist, and end-runs our inherent Constitutional protections. Here are two (2), very well-produced, videos that anchor my points: Emmy Award-winning newscaster Shad Olson’s ‘The Great Drone Debate’, featuring US Senator John Thune: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoOASanKao" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoOASanKao</a> Here’s a mind-blowing, well-done animated short that really captures our collective angst that if the road to perdition is paved with good intentions, then domestic drones are a superhighway to an Orwellian panoptic gulag. <a href="http://vimeo.com/59689349" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" >http://vimeo.com/59689349</a> For national security purposes, Americans are already subject to warrantless wiretaps of calls and emails, the warrantless GPS “tagging” of their vehicles, the domestic use of Predators or other spy-in-the-sky drones, and the Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of all our behavior through “data fusion centers.”  <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" >http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/</a> America’s promise has always been the power of the many to rule, instead of the one. Ungoverned drone usage, particularly domestically, gives power to the one.