Journalism schools experiment with drones as newsgathering tools, but worry about privacy

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By ELLEN SHEARER
Medill National Security Journalism Initiative

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, for commercial and law enforcement use in the United States is under increased scrutiny as the Federal Aviation Administration moves forward on implementing laws to regulate the technology. But the value of the small, relatively inexpensive surveillance technology has not escaped the notice of another group of potential users – journalists.

At least three journalism schools  are experimenting with small drones to determine their usefulness and practicality in newsgathering and storytelling. In addition, a few news organizations have also put some drones in the air, as did the Occupy protesters to monitor police action. And they are being used by Realtors and other commercial outlets as the FAA deliberates the safety and privacy regulations needed, which is to be completed by 2015 when wide-scale use is anticipated. A Congressional Research Service report estimated that the drone industry will reach about $89 billion in 10 years.

“There are a lot of arguments for why journalists might want to use UAVs to do journalism,” said Matt Waite, a journalism professor and director of the Drone Journalism Lab at the UN-L College of Journalism and Mass Communications.  … (Continue reading story on NationalSecurityZone.org)

Source: nationalsecurityzone.org

Meet Shura, a city intentionally designed to thwart drones and surveillance

A law student who believes “architecture against drones is not just a science-fiction scenario but a contemporary imperative,” has put together some foundational thoughts and designs for how a city might be built to protect its citizens from drones and surveillance. 

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               Depiction of drone-resistant city by Asher Kohn. 

“The successful check against the machines is not a daydream but an inevitability, and the quicker more creative solutions are proposed, the more likely such answers can be disseminated widely and kept from the patent-wieldinghands of some offshore-utopian type,” Kohn writes in his report on what he calls “Shura City.” 

The United States’ recent history with drone surveillance and attacks is the spark for Kohn’s thinking. “American jurisprudence is simply not capable of making clear, comforting, adjudications on drones and thesorts of crimes they have been created to deter.”  He calls his proposal “a setting-off point for discussions on proper defense and on what ‘proper defense’ might mean.” 

PopSci has a good summary of Shura’s seven key protective features, from its towers and “windcatchers” to “smart windows.”  And theatlanticcities.com has a takeout on Kohn’s thinking that is well worth a read. 

Homeland Security sued over data related to lending drones to local law enforcement agencies

In its lawsuit Wednesday over a FOIA request that has gone unanswered, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said “Americans deserve the full story” about how Customs and Border Protection is “expanding its surveillance work, flying Predator drone missions on behalf of a diverse group of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.”

EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch: “Drones are a powerful surveillance tool that can be used to gather extensive data about you and your activities. The public needs to know more about how and why these Predator drones are being used to watch U.S. citizens.”

EFF on Wednesday also sued the FAA, claiming it is “foot-dragging” is releasing data about public drone flights.

Full Story | The lawsuit (PDF) | Second suit filed against FAA over drones 


Source: nat-sec.me

Drones and the 4th Amendment

For those with an interest in the domestic use of drones, the Congressional Research Service has released a pretty good summary and overview of the various “far-reaching” privacy issues that are emerging. (Get the PDF via FAS.org).

       

“While individuals can expect substantial protections against warrantless government intrusions into their homes, the Fourth Amendment offers less robust restrictions upon government surveillance occurring in public places and perhaps even less in areas immediately outside the home, such as in driveways or backyards,” the report says. “Concomitantly, as technology advances, the contours of what is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment may adjust as people’s expectations of privacy evolve.”

It concludes:

Currently, there is a vast body of Fourth Amendment law that governs the circumstances in which law enforcement must obtain a warrant before conducting surveillance. However, the sheer sophistication of drone technology and the sensors they can carry may remove drones from this traditional Fourth Amendment framework. Beyond the courts and the Constitution, what role should Congress and the President play in regulating the introduction of drones inside the United States? As the integration of drones for domestic surveillance operations quickly accelerates, these questions and others will be posed to the American people and their political leaders

Photo: Illinois National Guard via Medill Reports.

Source: fas.org

Where the drones are: U.S. military drone locations mapped

The research project Public Intelligence has assembled a map and list of dozens of current and planned areas with Department of Defense drone activity, including the type of craft.  ”What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear,” Danger Room reports. “Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots.”

Wired notes that 12 of the locations are for “Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed.”

Secrecy News, meantime, cites another report that lists 110 potential drone bases, vs. the 88 in the Public Intelligence report. Here’s that DOD report to Congress. (PDF)

In April, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released a similar map of public and private sector drone operations. 

Source: publicintelligence.net

Inspector’s report raps customs and border patrol for unmanned aircraft program

An inspector general’s report has determined the $240 million unmanned aircraft program run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection has “not adequately planned resources needed to support its current unmanned aircraft inventory. “

The report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found:

  • Inadequate ground resources in place to support the craft.
  • The seven craft have only flown 37% of the projected number of hours — and despite this, two new $18 million aircraft were ordered.
  • A multi-million-dollar maintenance funding shortfall that could lead to curtailed missions.
  • There is no formal process in place for other agency “stakeholders,” such as the FBI and Department of Defense, to request missions on their behalf and does not have agreements on being reimbursed for the costs of those missions. 
The report recommends that an operating plan be developed to cover maintenance, operations and equipment; aircraft purchases should stop until that happens; a system be developed for stakeholders request and coordinations, along with a reimbursement system. 
The agency has nine unmanned craft based across the country. The program “provides command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability to complement crewed aircraft and watercraft, and ground interdiction agents,” according to the report.

One of the unmanned aircraft used by the border patrol. SOURCE: Inspector general’s report.

Source: oig.dhs.gov

Domestic drones 'an imminent threat to privacy,' petition to FAA warns

Domestic drones are “an imminent threat to the privacy of every U.S. citizen,” the Electronic Privacy Information Center said this week in a petition to the Federa Aviation Administration. The ACLU says it is onboard with the petition as well.

“Google, inc. has already started using drones in other countries to supplement the images for their Street View service. In Hollywood, companies are developing “paparazzi drones” in order to follow and photograph celebrities. Private detectives have also found use for drones to assist with persistent tracking of their targets. Criminals and others may use drones for purposes of stalking and harassment,” the petition says.

“The consequences of increased government surveillance through the use of drones are even more troubling. The ability to link facial recognition capabilities on drone cameras to the FBI’s Next Generation Identification database, the largest collection of biometric data in the world, increases the First Amendment risks for would-­‐be political dissidents. In addition, the use of drones implicates significant Fourth Amendment interests and common law privacy rights.”

The president earlier this month signed legislation requiring that drones ben integrated into commercial airspace.

FAA Bill Speeds Path for More U.S. Drone Flights

(WSJ) “A broad funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration, which was released this week and is expected to win final approval before the middle of February, for the first time establishes specific deadlines designed to speed up the widespread use of unmanned planes, or drones, across the U.S. On Friday, the House passed the package in a 248-169 vote.

“The bill calls for integrating a wide range of so-called unmanned aerial vehicles—operated by both governmental and corporate entities—with commercial and general aviation traffic across the nation’s skies by September 2015.”

Not surprisingly, some see looming civil rights issues over the use of the drones. Said one reader in the online comments section of the story:

“Now law-abiding American citizens are going to find themselves subjected to the same kind of surveillance that we applied to enemy armed forces in the field. This is not only a technology leap but also a dramatic shift in the attitude the government takes toward its own citizens — they are ALL potential enemies and need to be carefully watched. Not a good sign.”