Drone Makers Cautious of Obama Plans to Register the Craft
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-19/drone-makers-cautious-of-obama-plans-to-register-the-craft
"As with all things, the devil is in the detail," Michael
Drobac, director of the Small UAV Coalition, which represents
companies including Google's Project Wing and Amazon.com Inc.
"We have very little detail and much of this feels like it's
being pulled together very rapidly and with very little input
from industry." ... "The feasibility and effectiveness of any
drone registration system will very much depend on the details
of how registration would be accomplished, who would manage the
process, and which types of drones it would apply to," Shulman
said in an e-mail. Congress in 2012 exempted drones being flown
for recreation from any U.S. regulation, so long as operators
followed safety standards. That prohibition on government
regulation may make it difficult to require owners to register
their aircraft, Drobac said. "We need to hear where the
authority comes from. Would this be mandatory?" he said ...
- - -
And it's obvious that the federal government has NO idea what it's doing
regarding drones. They are already making conflicting claims. There's
word both "new" and previously bought (built?) drones (Capable of flying
now? Capable in the past? How about the various mashups of experimental
parts and firmware that constantly change and can be built and compiled
by anyone with the requisite skills?) would all have to be registered
with the feds. Or maybe not? How would a hobby drone *even be defined?*
Or counted? How would names and addresses for registrants be verified?
Credit cards? Social Security Numbers? Oaths? If (as some claim) the
emphasis is on commercial operators, why all the discussion of
hobbyists? Why the first-of-a-kind rush to *push through regulations by
Christmas*? Yeah, rushed regulations are always the *best* kind of
regulations, huh? Various observers have suggested that it's impossible
to create useful regulations regarding a topic this complex in such a
rush -- or at least that every time Washington has tried it before in other
contexts they've royally messed up. It's clear the Obama administration
is in "golly we have to tell the voters we're doing something about the
evil drones!" mode (even as they fly their own murder drones,
ironically) -- and they're just floundering around *without a clue* on
this topic.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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