For the past couple of years, drones have continued to grace the American airspace, either as surveillance, hobby or service delivery. Gone are the days when drones were associated mainly with the film and entertainment industry. Drones have moved from being all about file footage coverage to being a necessary tool in maintaining law and order by the police and other law enforcement and peacekeeping bodies. Service providers have also had their share of this invention in their delivery tactics. Renowned restaurants and fast food establishments have widely adopted the use of drones in delivering their goods at the comfort of their customers. But, not everybody embraces drones for commercial purposes. Individuals across America continue to own drones for their own leisure activities and hobbies.
Since the use of the drone has diversified, and more and more individuals and organizations have access to drones, it is essential to set up laws and regulations governing the use of drones. While various organizations set up their unique regulations and laws to conform to their goal and desired outcome, there are standard laws and regulations as were set by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) around 2012, although these policies have continued to undergo amendments to conform to the emerging trends and issues on the ground. According to the United States national aviation authority, the FAA, flying a drone is legal in the country, provided the pilot is ware and complies with the drone laws and regulations, some of which include; Special Travel Considerations. According to this law, foreigners who wish to fly into the country with their drones must register their drones with the FAA using a provided portal, regardless of whether they are flying for work or pleasure. If the foreigner is flying for fun, they must comply with the rules for recreational flying, and if they are in the country for work, they have to obtain a certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration and follow the rules for commercial flying. And in the case of domestic flying, one must carry the drone in carry-on luggage only since they are not allowed to pick the drone from the checked luggage. Apart from the traveling law, there is the general flying law. This law lays down a few regulations and guidelines on how one should fly their drone in the country. for recreation; the FAA points out that the drone must be flown for hobby only and no side jobs of whatever kind, this after they register the UAV with the FAA. Another rule is the drone must be flown only within a visual line-of-sight. For the commercial regulations, it states that one must a Remote Pilot Certificate issued by the body to fly commercially. The UAV must not weigh 55 pounds or above at takeoff, including payload. The drone must also be flown during the daylight or civil twilight, must fly under 100 mph, and must not fly directly over people. The body also goes ahead to give the requirements for operating a drone in the country, including the capacity to speak, read, write, and understand English, physical and mental health fitness, at least 16 years of age, and passing an Aeronautical Knowledge Test. as stated above, the FAA as a regulatory body covers all aspects of UAV flying. Some of these laws and amendments are widely consented to and embraced, while some are a course for a public outroar and controversy, either by the way they are implemented, or motives therein (Clarke & Moses, 2014).
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One such controversial regulation would be Temporary Flight Restriction, or TFR, which the FAA set up in January 2017 for the local authorities to ban civilian flights from flying above the controversial Oceti Sakowin resistance camp and drill site. This followed an expose by an aerial drone operated by a member of the resistance camp that was opposing the access pipeline. In this footage, riot police are captured blasting crowds with water cannons. This act sent some 17 members of the camp to the hospital due to sustained injuries and hypothermia. While this video spurred a global reaction over the social media, the Trump administration was not so pleased with the incident, and the local authorities sought a restraining regulation against the use of civilian drones in 4 miles radius above the camp. While this legal action was brought into effect on such short notice, thereby leaving no room for the public opinion, it raised uproar on the injustices the media is facing under the Trump administration. The media have to air such situations in their plight to bring a national and global awareness on some of the issues affecting the society. But with their access limited, the media is locked out of the jurisdiction of their job, and the police are getting in the way of them carrying out their mandated task. According to one drone pilot and photographer based in Minnesota, Robert Levine, the FAA is not "supposed to be granting TFRs to law enforcement just because they ask for them" (Kopstein, 2017). He pointed out that putting TFR against Standing Rock news site meant criminalizing the drone pilots doing the news coverage.
Drone delivery has also had its fair share of trouble with the implementation, and amendment of certain legal aspects of drone flying. Amazon Prime Air, Amazon's delivery system with the use of drones, faces a few legal problems currently. While traditionally drone delivery has been a small portion of the drone market, Amazon is adapting the system to change the face of the commercial drone delivery. One of the current legislation that went into effect that has raised concern over the effect it has on drone delivery is FAA's Part 107 Drone Regulations. This section does not allow air carrier operations. Air carrier in this regards means an American citizen undertaking by any means, whether directly or indirectly, to provide air transportation. According to this clause, air transportation means foreign air transportation. While before its implementation this clause focused on measures to maintain security, the new interpretation means that Amazon, or any other national and global chain store cannot cross state or national borders in their operations. With limiting drone deliveries to only one state, what will be the economic impact to the company? It would be better, then, to do van deliveries since drone deliveries are way costly on a small radius of delivery. However, if the FAA were to do reauthorizations of 2016 according to the set provisions in which it could repeal Section 333 and grant for beyond visual line of sight operations (BVLOS). The farther the drone can fly, the higher the potential economic impact (Singireddy & Daim, 2018).
Onto matters safety and security, the policymakers of Illinois on May 2018 passed a bill that granted police surveillance drones at protests in the state. The federal government lifted restrictions on the warrantless use of use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) by police to monitor large public gatherings. Passed and adopted in May 2013 by the then governor, Pat Quinn, the state's existing drone law was amended to grant exceptions to the law enforcement agencies to use drone without a warrant during a disaster, for traffic crash and crime scene photography, or a public health emergency with reasonable suspicion of threat of harm, escape of a suspect or destruction of evidence, while looking for a missing person outside of a criminal investigation, and if the Department of Homeland Security determines that there is credible intelligence indicating a high risk of a terrorist attack. The 2018 bill that was sponsored by Rep. John D'Amico passed the House on the second last day of the legislative session by a vote of 75-35 went back to the Senate after a floor amendment and later passed to become a state law by adding a sixth exception to the rule that had hitherto been in place. This sixth exception for monitoring events estimated to be attended by more than 1500 people D'Amico says is "Basically to just promote safety across the state of Illinois" (Wall & Monahan, 2011). He went ahead to cite instances where the police department had reported cases of terrorists or lone shooters within such a crowd. He was hopeful that the move would better equip the police in identifying such persons and hopefully prevent potential danger. But while the representative was able to argue coherently on the floor while tabling his table and went all the way into having it signed into law, looking at the safety measures it would help enhance, not every citizen of the state now views the law as such. Civil liberties and privacy advocate, for instance, the worry that the drones would be used to monitor political activity while using facial recognition technology to build databases of demonstrators. These groups, led by the governmental affairs director for the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union pointed out that with the law in the place; the state was a step closer to a future of constant police surveillance in Chicago. While the advocates of the law including the Senator Martin Sandoval of Chicago said they were motivated to change the law after the mass shooting in 2017, they rallied the massive support of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson lobbying for the bill's passage. Khadine Bennett, however, led the protestors of the law by pointing out the fact the police never really provided a single example of lacking necessary authority under current law, and that even if they did, they were well capable of devising other measures that did not include infringing into the freedom of the state citizens. With the Chicago Police Department having highlighted that they would be targeting and monitoring any public gathering of 100 or more people, Bennett is worried that citizens would shy away from protesting or matching to air their views thus bringing the federal government to order. And not only are the freedoms of the citizens at stake but so are their rights. Bennett argues that that the police could use this technique to check on just about anything, including "those smoking pot at a concert or underage drinking at a festival" (Wall & Monahan, 2011). The group points out that this is an infringement on the right to privacy, and rather than promoting the security of the citizens, the police would be instilling fear and driving the citizens from expressing themselves freely.
In a nutshell, it is imperative to realize that while some of these policies are meant to safeguard the usage of unmanned aerial vehicles and use the channel to promote security, peace, and stability, it is not okay at any level whatsoever to infringe on the rights of others, or suppress one given group at the expense of the others. Measures taken should be beneficial for both parties involved. While these laws and policies gear towards realizing a specific effect, it should not bring any unintended damage on either the subject or object involved therein.
References
Clarke, R., & Moses, L. B. (2014). The regulation of civilian drones' impacts on public safety. Computer Law & Security Review , 30 (3), 263-285.
Kopstein, J. (2017). Police are making it impossible to use drones to document protests. AOL News , 28 .
Singireddy, S. R. R., & Daim, T. U. (2018). Technology Roadmap: Drone Delivery–Amazon Prime Air. In Infrastructure and Technology Management (pp. 387-412). Springer, Cham.
Wall, T., & Monahan, T. (2011). Surveillance and violence from afar: The politics of drones and liminal security-scapes. Theoretical Criminology , 15 (3), 239-254.
