Bad drone legislation in the US

[BigAl07]

Attention US drone owners (r/c too!).

Utah's Senator Lee is at it again with his "Drone Integration and Zoning Act" bill.

DSP Alliance and other organizations were informed of this yesterday. Kenji and I are working with some other organizations to put together a unified approach to make sure this bill doesn't become law once it's submitted.

Stay tuned.

More info: Lee’s Dangerous and Destructive Draft Legislation – Drone Service Providers Alliance (admin approved link)

 

[ZCDC]

Thanks for the alert. Extremely depressing and absurd. If anything like this were to ever be enacted they would have tens of thousands of rogue operators who would completely disregard it making the airspace less safe. I would likely be one of them.

Hopefully this bill dies like his last one.

 

[Brian Fist]

So, what is this guys real issue?

He hates drones, period?

He feels that he doesn't have enough privacy?

That somehow drone use is keeping rich people from having the control they want? (ie, they feel they own the real estate, the government, the laws, the media and everything else and a "freedom" like flying a drone is something they want control over as well?)

Basically it would seem as if these type of people want only people with enough money and connections to have any real "freedoms", due to connections, influence, control.

I would say a lot of society has a lot of misconceptions of drones and view them as "we don't know, don't care, but we just don't like it" kind of attitude. They feel "spied" upon, and in general have great misconceptions of their own "freedoms" and apply those misconceptions to everything else around them, especially their own property, thus they feel if you can somehow "see over a fence" you are intruding upon them. Yet a lot of those same people pull things that are strictly prohibited by laws and society in general (drug use, shooting firearms in areas they should not, acting in manners that would get them in trouble with the law, etc) and feel just because they "have to worry someone will see" that it is everyone else problem and that they should be protected in acting in ways that are unacceptable and want to be protected from "being caught". Basically it is the way the laws exist in this country in general, in that if you have money the laws can be made to work for you, if you have none you are very hard pressed to get them to work in your favor.

Did I miss anything here?

 

[Donnie Frank]

While a lot of my flying is done in the 200'-400' range, I certainly fly a lot lower than that for construction progress videos. Generally, for that type of work, 130' AGL seems to net the best oblique "sweet spot" that most clients like. Any more oblique, and I'm venturing outside the "happiness" bell curve.

For those geometrically aware, flying 70' higher means I would have to fly farther out to achieve the same angle. I would then have to digitally zoom the image to achieve the same composition, which would negatively impact resolution. In addition, more distance = more risk and less likely to maintain VLOS.

Question for the legislators; "Who the **** is going to be flying UNDER 200' that drones need to avoid???" And "How the **** do we climb to 200' AGL without passing through the < 200' AGL no fly zone???"

Gotta love politicians.

D

 

[Brian Fist]

I think you have hit upon the whole point... Make it so obscure that you are violating the law per the officers discretion.

No rights is the way they want the law to operate. That way if someone with enough money, influence, or flat out authority makes a call of "violating" you are screwed.

Leaving laws that are closed-ended is the ideal for our political system. Laws that are allowed to have clear-cut "rights" are not open to such blatant control and manipulation, thus they are the least flexible for law enforcement as now they have to respect an individuals "rights" and be wary of violating them. Remove their "rights" and the law has all the power to enforce or not enforce.