George Orwell couldn't make this stuff up...
DRONELAND SECURITY
FAA issues new rules on eyes in sky, from monitoring crops to spying on you
By S. William Matthews Monday, May 14, 2012
Drones aren’t just flying over Afghanistan. They’re taking pictures of traffic in Grand Forks, N.D., and tracking crooks in Grand Junction, Colo. And it’s a pretty sure bet that unmanned aerial vehicles are either circling over your head right now, or very soon will be.
Today, the Federal Aviation Administration issues regulations that give cities and states  police and fire departments and natural disaster and environmental protection agencies  the OK to fly drones that weigh less than 5 pounds no more than a few hundred feet off the ground.
The regulations are being hailed by aviation analysts as the milestone for the U.S. drone market, estimated at about $6 billion today and expected to double in a decade. By late 2015, under orders from Congress, the FAA has to have rules in place that let privately owned drones operate in U.S. airspace.
The FAA predicts there will be 15,000 drones in U.S. airspace by 2020.
Experts expect drones to take on dangerous jobs  assessing the damage to Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plants, for example  and the mundane ones, such as inspecting power lines.
And they predict commercial uses, from shooting sales videos for real estate agencies to gathering news footage. And creepy ones, from pedophiles scouting playgrounds to nosy neighbors spying on the house next door.
But the biggest sector that they think will come to rely on drones is agriculture.
Drones equipped with cameras and a variety of sensors could check crops for fertilizer, insects and moisture, said Ben Gielow, government relations manager of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
Tractors already drive themselves with GPS devices, he said. Add flying drones and farmers could do most of their work in an office, sending remote controlled machines  on the ground and overhead  out to tend the fields.
In Japan, unmanned helicopters already spray pesticides on rice paddies, Gielow said. And they could do it on corn, wheat or soybean stands in the U.S., where crop dusting is still one of the most dangerous forms of aviation.
“We have not fully envisioned all of the uses†for drones, Gielow said.
Matthew Waite envisions using drones as news gatherers. For example, a reporter could rely on a drone to survey the damage caused by a tornado, forest fire or hurricane  and the cost would be a fraction of what a TV station or newspaper would have to pay to rent a helicopter.
Waite is so hot on this idea that he founded the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he’s a professor. In the lab, students study both the practical aspects of using drones in journalism and the ethical and legal ramifications.
“The ability to put a camera in the air opens up all kinds of ethical questions that we need to answer,†said Waite, who has created a drone journalism lab website.
With the right sensors, drones can take pictures, stream live video, see in the dark with thermal imaging, and intercept Wi-Fi signals and cellphone calls, said Jennifer Lynch, an attorney for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
“Those raise serious privacy concerns,†she said.
Surveillance technology is already fact of modern life. Traffic light cameras snap photos. Cellphones signal their users’ location. Video cameras keep watch in airports, subways, schools, automated teller machines, and taxicabs.
But there’s a key difference between that technology and drone-mounted surveillance. A drone can peak into your backyard. It can hover in front of your window. It can track your car. It can stalk you.
“A drone will be able to follow you virtually wherever you go,†said Harley Geiger, policy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The best way to keep drones from violating your personal space is to encourage Congress to pass what Geiger calls “baseline privacy legislation,†which would restrict commercial and governmental data collection.
Geiger and other civil liberty advocates fear the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies could be the biggest violators of personal privacy. Police probably will be “the big early adopters†of drones, he said, though fewer than 300 departments already have them.
In Geiger’s ideal world, Congress would put a short leash on law enforcement agencies  requiring them to disclose how they plan to use drones and what information they plan to collect; forbidding them from mounting weapons on drones; mandating warrants for extended surveillance of specific targets; and obtaining approval from an independent official before flying drones for general surveillance that collects personally identifiable information, such as facial features and license plates.
No small part of the appeal of drones for states and cities is their cost, especially compared to helicopters. The ones being designed for police and fire departments run about $50,000, the same price as a police cruiser, Gielow said. The price tag for a police helicopter: $3 million.
And a drone costs “about 50 bucks an hour†to fly, compared to hundreds or even thousands of dollars an hour for a helicopter, he said.
The price is right and demand seems high, but the privacy concerns about can’t be downplayed  and won’t be by the civil rights advocates and perhaps even citizens themselves.
“People have told me they will shoot down drones†to keep from being spied on, Geiger said.
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/05/14/051412-news-drones-faa-1-4/
DRONELAND SECURITY
FAA issues new rules on eyes in sky, from monitoring crops to spying on you
By S. William Matthews Monday, May 14, 2012
Drones aren’t just flying over Afghanistan. They’re taking pictures of traffic in Grand Forks, N.D., and tracking crooks in Grand Junction, Colo. And it’s a pretty sure bet that unmanned aerial vehicles are either circling over your head right now, or very soon will be.
Today, the Federal Aviation Administration issues regulations that give cities and states  police and fire departments and natural disaster and environmental protection agencies  the OK to fly drones that weigh less than 5 pounds no more than a few hundred feet off the ground.
The regulations are being hailed by aviation analysts as the milestone for the U.S. drone market, estimated at about $6 billion today and expected to double in a decade. By late 2015, under orders from Congress, the FAA has to have rules in place that let privately owned drones operate in U.S. airspace.
The FAA predicts there will be 15,000 drones in U.S. airspace by 2020.
Experts expect drones to take on dangerous jobs  assessing the damage to Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plants, for example  and the mundane ones, such as inspecting power lines.
And they predict commercial uses, from shooting sales videos for real estate agencies to gathering news footage. And creepy ones, from pedophiles scouting playgrounds to nosy neighbors spying on the house next door.
But the biggest sector that they think will come to rely on drones is agriculture.
Drones equipped with cameras and a variety of sensors could check crops for fertilizer, insects and moisture, said Ben Gielow, government relations manager of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
Tractors already drive themselves with GPS devices, he said. Add flying drones and farmers could do most of their work in an office, sending remote controlled machines  on the ground and overhead  out to tend the fields.
In Japan, unmanned helicopters already spray pesticides on rice paddies, Gielow said. And they could do it on corn, wheat or soybean stands in the U.S., where crop dusting is still one of the most dangerous forms of aviation.
“We have not fully envisioned all of the uses†for drones, Gielow said.
Matthew Waite envisions using drones as news gatherers. For example, a reporter could rely on a drone to survey the damage caused by a tornado, forest fire or hurricane  and the cost would be a fraction of what a TV station or newspaper would have to pay to rent a helicopter.
Waite is so hot on this idea that he founded the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he’s a professor. In the lab, students study both the practical aspects of using drones in journalism and the ethical and legal ramifications.
“The ability to put a camera in the air opens up all kinds of ethical questions that we need to answer,†said Waite, who has created a drone journalism lab website.
With the right sensors, drones can take pictures, stream live video, see in the dark with thermal imaging, and intercept Wi-Fi signals and cellphone calls, said Jennifer Lynch, an attorney for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
“Those raise serious privacy concerns,†she said.
Surveillance technology is already fact of modern life. Traffic light cameras snap photos. Cellphones signal their users’ location. Video cameras keep watch in airports, subways, schools, automated teller machines, and taxicabs.
But there’s a key difference between that technology and drone-mounted surveillance. A drone can peak into your backyard. It can hover in front of your window. It can track your car. It can stalk you.
“A drone will be able to follow you virtually wherever you go,†said Harley Geiger, policy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The best way to keep drones from violating your personal space is to encourage Congress to pass what Geiger calls “baseline privacy legislation,†which would restrict commercial and governmental data collection.
Geiger and other civil liberty advocates fear the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies could be the biggest violators of personal privacy. Police probably will be “the big early adopters†of drones, he said, though fewer than 300 departments already have them.
In Geiger’s ideal world, Congress would put a short leash on law enforcement agencies  requiring them to disclose how they plan to use drones and what information they plan to collect; forbidding them from mounting weapons on drones; mandating warrants for extended surveillance of specific targets; and obtaining approval from an independent official before flying drones for general surveillance that collects personally identifiable information, such as facial features and license plates.
No small part of the appeal of drones for states and cities is their cost, especially compared to helicopters. The ones being designed for police and fire departments run about $50,000, the same price as a police cruiser, Gielow said. The price tag for a police helicopter: $3 million.
And a drone costs “about 50 bucks an hour†to fly, compared to hundreds or even thousands of dollars an hour for a helicopter, he said.
The price is right and demand seems high, but the privacy concerns about can’t be downplayed  and won’t be by the civil rights advocates and perhaps even citizens themselves.
“People have told me they will shoot down drones†to keep from being spied on, Geiger said.
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/05/14/051412-news-drones-faa-1-4/
