• using a drone to patrol the freeway looking for drunk drivers (well, technically they could use a drone to look but they would not be able to send a ground officer to cite the drunk driver),
• using a drone to track the getaway car from a bank robbery,
• searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent.
In the first example, a drone COULD be used to patrol the freeway looking for disabled cars or accidents, but if any criminal activity were observed during such patrols the evidence from the drone could not be used against the criminals.
This is typical Rand Paul--it is designed to sound good and make it look like he is looked out for The People on some important issue, but the bill is written to be so overly broad that it won't have much chance of actually passing--which I suspect is fine with Paul.
Another example of that was an amendment he tried that would have made it so that former Congressmen who become lobbyists lose their benefits. Sounds like a good idea, right? Of course it does--but then when you check the details you find that "lobbyist" is defined so broadly as to include anyone who gets money from the Federal government or gets money by working for someone who gets money from the Federal government.
For instance, if a former Congressman is a physician, and after leaving Congress goes to work at a rural medical clinic--and that clinic accepts payments from Medicare, that physician would be a lobbyist under Rand Paul's amendment and would lose his benefits.
Of course that amendment went nowhere, but now Paul can paint himself if he wishes as a guy who tried to fight the corrupting influence of former Congressman becoming lobbyists.
I can think of a much longer list of ways we could detect and combat crime if policemen had a key and legal protection to enter any citizen's dwelling any time day or night for any reason whatsoever. The list gets even longer if they can leave always-on surveillance equipment in each citizen's home.
They could:
* Find meth labs without waiting for evidence that the meth was being brewed in the residence, which could cost lives.
* FIND children taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent.
* Collect tax cheat information from users' computers before waiting for them to slip up and break specific IRS auditing rules.
* Detect spousal abuse without waiting for the spouse to show up in an emergency room.
I mean, the list of ways that we could improve law enforcement is infinite if we would just give the State infinite power.
Don't you see anything wrong with that argument?
Liberties won against government are so unbelievably hard fought. Most of the time those gains involve bloodshed. Why would we be so quick to give away any liberties whatsoever without tarring and feathering the politician/bureaucrat proposing the idea?
Exactly what liberty are we giving away if, say, a research biologist from a university funded by a research grant from the National Science Foundation is using a drone to track a tagged animal he is studying in a national wildlife refuge, and he sees someone dumping a body, and uses the drone to watch the dumper so as to gather sufficient information to lead the FBI to the dumper, and that drone-gathered evidence is allowed to be used in court to prosecute the guy who dumped the body?
Paul's bill would ban the use of such evidence, unless the biologist had a warrant to track the body dumper.
What's special about drones here? If that biologist was not using a drone, but was instead tracking the tagged animal visually from a distance with binoculars, and happened to witness the body dumping, should that also not be allowed in court?
The point is not about all the ways that they can be used that would generally be considered "good" - it's not hard to concoct an example such as yours that falls into that category. The point is all the ways they could be used that are perceived as "evil", and since it's very hard to draw a line between the two in law he's taking the stance to ban it completely. I happen to believe that it's better to risk that murderer going uncaught than to catch him by turning the country into a police state.
We can write much better laws than ones where we just ban a specific technology. If police can't use drones for surveillance without a warrant, I don't see why they should be allowed to do surveillance at all without a warrant. This sort of law only muddies the issue by banning tools rather than actions (similar to banning BitTorrent to stop piracy.)
While I agree with your point that it's important to attack the root of the problem rather than dance around the edges -- shutting down drone activity before it even starts is better than waiting and hoping that some other legislator takes on the whole surveillance issue.
Controlling drones is a lot bigger of a deal in the surveillance area than just controlling bit torrent is to file sharing. There are a lot of almost-as-good alternatives to bit torrent. Cheap arial surveillance only has drones.
I will happily vote with you to support politicians who want to curtail unwarranted surveillance during upcoming elections; but I will take what I can get with this anti-drone legislation for now.
[ long painfully-tortured never-gonna-happen scenario ]
Yeah, whatever. I would be fine if a politician came back to us later with a revised bill that includes very specific exceptions for situations like the one your example described and maybe something to allow for keeping images taken of aliens from outer space.
For now, though, the liberty we're giving away 99.9999% of the time is our right to prevent illegal search and seizure plus we're giving away our implied rights to privacy. No thanks. Domestic drones should be shut down forcefully until we as a society think through the ramifications (which we obviously haven't because they're being allowed by default).
> What's special about drones here?
If you can answer the question of why the Govt wants to use the drones in the first place, you have my answer to why that's a bad thing.
> If you can answer the question of why the Govt wants to use the drones in the first place, you have my answer to why that's a bad thing.
Some obvious places state and local governments will want to use drones:
• Search and rescue. For the cost of one manned aircraft, a whole fleet of drones could be deployed, allowing for a wider search.
• Fire monitoring. A park ranger who spots a remote fire could check it out much faster with a drone than on foot or horseback or ATV.
• Traffic monitoring and crowd safety monitoring during high turnout events. For instance, major sporting events, or the informal large street celebrations that happen when the home team wins a championship.
• Damage assessment after natural disasters or severe weather. A fleet of small drone helicopters could check power lines after a severe wind storm to find places where trees or branches have fallen into lines, for example.
• After a snow storm, a school could send a drone to fly over the school bus routes to determine if they appear safe to send out the school buses, or if school needs to be cancelled.
These are bad things if there are no limits:
- Search and rescue could easily become "search and track" whoever the police suspects.
- Crowd safety monitoring could become a tool against demonstrators, used to prevent large groups of people from getting together by precise police intervention.
- Traffic monitoring could lead to actual registration of individual plates leading to massive privacy concerns. Why is the government allowed to know where I am going?
There's always a very narrow gap between something that is useful and something that causes harm. Without any clear provision, and by blinding trusting government, you easily end up with crowd controlling policies. The State is like Sauron's Ring: it wants Power.
So there's your answer. You're describing "features" that give more power to the government. They want it because it empowers them. I don't care how you candy coat it by cherry picking some neat special features of that power. I've been around long enough to know that the features used to sell you a product or service don't ever tell you the whole picture of what you're buying. Government tends to take authority given to them for ostensibly noble purposes and abuse that authority [1].
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"
I prefer to consider the totality of what granting this extra power to the government would entail... and it's not all search and rescue.
I like how message board libertarians write as if their comments were addressed to history instead of to other people on the message board; "the eternal vigilance of the stridently worded objection" is a noble thing indeed.
The reality is, 'tzs started this thread by pointing out why Senator Paul's bill was flawed as a matter of policy: it precludes obviously legitimate uses of remote-controlled aerial devices, which are obviously going to be a commonplace technology in 10-15 years and are used with little regulatory drama by private industry today.
Naturally, the Libertarian Paladins of the Comment Thread want to turn 'tzs workmanlike point --- which, unlike the glittering pronouncement of principals favored by your fellow Paladins, actually involved reading the bill --- into a discussion of drones used to shoot hellfire missiles down the chimneys of anyone who would write an unfavorable comment on a message board about Romney or Obama.
But that's not the discussion 'tzs invited. He simply said: "this is a poorly written bill, so much so that it is obviously not going to get passed, so obviously that Senator Paul had to have either known that or be incompetent, and let's stipulate that he's not incompetent".
Can you address your comment to his actual point, rather than conjuring up some authoritarian demon that shoots drones armed with Wikileaks-seeking missles out of its butt? Because 'tzs is not that demon.
If your local police force started chasing after people using tanks, then well, tanks would no longer be military equipment.
Military equipment is any equipment that is predominantly used by the military and not so much by anybody else.
Drones are primarily used by the military. They are military equipment. If they start getting used by local police forces left and right, well, they would no longer be military equipment. And that would be unfortunate.
"Drone" is just a colloquialism for "unmanned aircraft".
"Tank" is a word that means "armored vehicle, likely fitted with heavy arms".
So the problem with your comments here are simple as far as I can tell:
There is a nationwide problem of police forces using tanks as part of SWAT operations, and of manufacturers of what are effectively tanks starting to tailor products to police forces. This militarization of our police forces is a real problem and worth talking about.
But wow do you ever muddy the waters when you suggest that a straightforward technological advance --- small, remote-controlled unmanned aircraft --- must clearly be "military" because its first widely-known use was by the military.
There are already civilian drones. Drones were used during Fukushima to monitor radiation above the burning reactors. Energy companies apparently use them to monitor marine mammals in offshore drilling.
You are on extraordinarily shaky ground when you attempt to paint "law enforcement UAVs" with the "hellfire missile" brush. I think you should let this point go.
PS: What separates tanks from APC's tank's are designed to be artillery pieces (aka Cannon) which can move while protecting their gun crew. Where an APC's goal is to transport infantry. It may have some built in armaments but it's more effective for people to get out when the fighting starts. This compares to a howitzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRF1 which is designed to be far enough from enemy lines that while it may be mobile it does not need to protect it's crew.
Then please allow civilian use of drones as well. Without any restrictions. And let us send drones to track governors, senators, public figures, to see how they feel about being watched.
As the first sentence of that GPS link points out, the practice of using GPS trackers as a substitute for human agents following cars (which obviously doesn't require a warrant) was halted by the Supreme Court, which stated that the FBI needs a warrant to attach a GPS device to someone's car, not that they are forbidden from using GPS.
GPS tracking was struck down on extremely narrow technical grounds - without a warrant the police do not have the right to trespass upon your vehicle (attach a GPS tracker). They deliberately did not rule upon the rightness or wrongness of tracking someone's public travel without a warrant. Since there will be no physical trespass when airborne drones are tracking our cars, that Supreme Court ruling isn't really relevant.
In my opinion, tracking someone automatically (either via GPS or drone), as opposed to having an actual person follow them, is sufficiently different in terms of cost that it becomes a qualitatively different phenomenon.
> The Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act would require the government to get a warrant before using aerial drones to surveil U.S. citizens.
It doesn't ban drones. It bans their use for police surveillance without a warrant based on probable cause. A lot of people seem to be confused about this issue.
Cheaper. Can be mass-produced. Autonomous. No need for permanent man-operation.
It lowers the technical barrier for surveillance of a large population significantly. Therefore, that's what we call a groundbreaking technology.
that's what's different.
"How is the Internet fundamentally different than the telegraph? "
"How is a ITBM different from artillery?"
"How is the car different from a carriage?"
You can use that kind of question for every technological advances. Obviously every major step changes behaviors significantly.
Because helicopters are already widely used, drones are not. Yet. Because a helicopter costs millions of dollars. A drone doesn't. A helicopter must be flown by a person. Drones can be automated. Are you starting to get the picture? 1 helicopter = 100 drones. Go read 1981 by Orwell. You'll begin to understand the concept of something being Orwellian.
>Because helicopters are already widely used, drones are not. Yet.
So what?
>Because a helicopter costs millions of dollars.
Drones that provide enough persistence for surveillance aren't anywhere near that cheap. DHS paid $180m for ten of them, making them far more expensive than the kind of helicopters police departments use.
>A helicopter must be flown by a person. Drones can be automated.
Sort of. The FAA is still going to require an operator in case there's some kind of air traffic situation. And someone still has to sort through whatever data the drone is providing, something that isn't automated.
>Are you starting to get the picture? 1 helicopter = 100 drones. Go read 1981 by Orwell. You'll begin to understand the concept of something being Orwellian.
Yeah, I get the picture. This is mostly hyperventilating. The statement you can buy and operate 100 drones for the cost of one helicopter displays a complete disconnect from reality. You need to do a little reading up on what kinds of capabilities drones offer at what cost.
Errr ... those are Predators. Literally the military model. You know, the ones that can shoot missiles and stuff.
Nobody is talking about that.
I can stick a battery powered WiFi cam on a model airplane and get remote surveillance that doesn't cost 18 million. This is the same issue as plastering cameras at every intersection.
Guess what? My town just did that. They have cameras on almost every intersection. That's sick.
>I can stick a battery powered WiFi cam on a model airplane and get remote surveillance that doesn't cost 18 million.
Sure, you can. And you'll get what you pay for in terms of useful images. Far from your Orwellian fantasy, your little plane will only be in the sky for a few minutes, meaning you can't use it for surveillance.
>Guess what? My town just did that. They have cameras on almost every intersection. That's sick.
That's a totally different issue, and one on which we agree. What they've done in the UK is a travesty, and I don't want to see it where I live.
>Wake up.
Oh, I see. The only reason I wouldn't agree with you is because I'm sleeping. Idiot.
So you are opposed to police using bulletproof vests, GPS (in their cars, not to track people), and the internet (including websites for their agencies)?
Almost all of the equipment used by police today was once military equipment. Some of it still is.
um so why do American Police need hand guns with more powerful rounds than SF Operators (Delta, DEvGuru the SAS etc) do them.
I bet Bonnie and Clyde wish that the Police where banned from having "Milatery weapons" as it was the full auto BAR's that did for them back in the 30's
Yes - we need to be tough on crime and protect our children. We need to constantly improve technology used to fight crime and protect our children - otherwise our civilization will perish.
I know we Eastern Europeans are very cynical but I can tell you communism survived for so long because of reasoning like this.
I read the bill again, and it is even more badly drafted than I had thought. Basically, no drone use to gather evidence for any crime is allowed, if done by anyone who receives money from the Federal government, unless they have a warrant.
There are some exceptions: border patrol to combat illegal immigration and illegal importation of controlled substances, specific terrorist threats identified by homeland security from specific organizations or individuals, and exigent circumstances. That last basically means there is a life in imminent danger and the drone is operated by a law enforcement party, which is defined as a party that is paid by the Federal government to investigate or prosecute crimes against the United States.
So, if a traffic monitoring drone operated by local police saw a hit and run, they could not use the drone to track the hit and run driver. The exigent circumstances exception would not apply because (1) there is no imminent danger to life, and (2) even if there was local police may not be a law enforcement party, as that is limited to parties that deal with crimes against the United States, not local and state crimes.
Or if a drone operated by NOAA for weather research spotted a crime in progress where someone was in imminent danger of being killed, and the NOAA drone operators then used the drone to monitor this and gather evidence, they would be in violation of the law and the evidence would be inadmissible. The exigent circumstances exception would not apply because NOAA is not a law enforcement party.
There are about 500 comments on this on Reddit, and almost all of them indicate people think this is about stopping the government from sending drones over your backyard to spy on you.
Legislation to do that would be a good thing. This is not that legislation.
I suspect bringing these bills forward is similar to negotiating a contract, i.e. the person developing the draft is most likely putting out a very idealistic perspective.
If this thing ever passes, it is probably going to be so much watered down, that you probably can fill a noise complaint with your local police station in the case a drone is hovering less than an inch over your head.
Five years from now these will be used for revenue generation by tracking moving violations. All the great things they could do are nice, but in the end it'll be about money.
And that'll just make the inevitable abuse get swept under the rug.
I don't see how this bill would ban your example #3. It would be as simple as getting a warrant. Similarly, for #2 police don't need a warrant when they are in "hot pursuit," so why wouldn't there be an exception for drones as well?
Best thing to do is call his office at 202-224-4343. Express your disdain.
You should also call your Members of Congress and Senators. Funny that congress doesn't have a automated directory. So I built callingcongress.org for this exact purpose, it's dial by zip.
You would be surprised how far a phone call, email, fax, and even a letter go. Especially if enough people tie up phone/fax lines etc.
I think looking too closely at "drones" in particular just makes the problem more obscured. What we are really dealing with is that technology in general is making surveillance so easy that police have started using it to go out looking for crimes to prosecute. When you add that together with a convoluted law system that criminalizes a great deal of the ordinary behavior of citizens and relies heavily on selective enforcement, you have a recipe for some serious abuses.
Now how about a bill protecting humans from drone surveillance? This is like a bill that says 'torture is okay, as long as you don't torture US citizens'. I don't have any strong opinion about the moral correctness of drone surveillance, but if you admit that it's not good enough for your constituents ...
Stop making sense. Next you'll start on about how people should be able to work, vote and run for office regardless of which patch of dirt their mothers delivered them on.
Turning away brown people from our shores and then slaughtering them in other countries is my God-given right as an American.
The recent panic around unmanned surveillance seems odd to me given the excellent quality of imagery from low-orbit satellites that have been around for much longer.
The problem here is that it's 100% certain that this technology is going to be used for 24/7 surveillance in major cities. It's guaranteed. It's a giant leap forward in surveillance.
Not every local police dept. is going to have on-demand access to a LEO satellite for tracking purposes. These bulky UAVs are the tip of the iceberg. What happens when police can have $20 robotic hummingbirds with 300ft audio/visual range?
The past 40 years have shown the government will always do their best to breach privacy rights to meet their (sometimes noble) ends. Their passion needs to be countered by privacy protections, sad as it may seem.
I don't know about this bill (haven't read it), but something like this needs to come along to protect the people from the government.
So US citizens will be afforded greater protection while foreign citizens living in the US will be possibly subjected to yet further scrutiny? Human rights seem to vary greatly on your nationality and it seems that the divide grows year on year.
I doubt this will pass. Many have speculated that Rand is angling for the VP nomination by positioning himself as Romney's biggest competitor for 2016 (if Romney wins), meaning that nominating him as VP would be a smart way to take out his biggest competitor. He has been doing a bunch of things like this lately in order to raise his own profile.
If he's angling for VP, he shouldn't be going against the party line so hard this close to the election. If he's going for 2016, this seems like a fine idea.
He actually just endorsed Romney a couple days ago, after the two had a private meeting. I don't think it's necessarily likely that he'll get the VP slot, but I do think that if that's his goal then he is going just enough against the platform to stand out in a positive way right now.
Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a >0% chance that he'll be VP, but I don't think this will help at all. He doesn't have to worry about going against the platform enough. If he really wants VP he has to worry about going too far outside.
It's really hard to answer the inevitable question of "Why did you introduce a bill in June that is directly opposed to Governor Romney's position on drone security?"
That is, assuming (which I think is safe to do) that Romney is in favor of these drones.
> Many have speculated that Rand is angling for the VP nomination by positioning himself as Romney's biggest competitor for 2016 (if Romney wins)
Who are these "Many" and what meds are they on? These people are suggesting that if Romney wins in 2012 and doesn't choose Rand Paul as VP then Rand Paul is going to run against him in 2016... and be a serious threat?
It's pretty clear that the only way Rand will definitely not run in 2016 is if he is Romney's VP nomination. And right now Rand is the only Republican whose actively positioning himself for 2016 on a near daily basis, so he is kind of Romney's biggest 2016 competitor by default. I don't have a specific source for the actual claim, but I've definitely seen it repeated by many people across the blogosphere.
Oh, certainly I'm sure that Rand Paul will eventually run for President when Ron Paul gets too old for it.
If Romney loses then one Paul or the other will be up on the stage in 2016, getting 9% of the vote and eventually losing to Chris Christie (or Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal). If Romney is President in 2016 then a primary challenge from Rand Paul is no threat whatsoever.
The only way the Pauls could threaten Romney is to run as a third party candidate and siphon off enough of the vote to ensure a Democrat win. I don't think they'll do that though.
> then one Paul or the other will be up on the stage in 2016, getting 9% of the vote
I think you make a mistake if you perceive that Rand == Ron.
Rand is a lot more politically savvy than his dad. Have you ever seen the clips of where Ron Paul appeared on the old Morton Downey Jr. show screaming and yelling at audience members? Rand would never let himself appear as that much of a kook.
Plus, Ron Paul was always a lone voice in the wilderness. Although I think there was a lot to what he was saying, he had no hope of accomplishing any type of sea change. In contrast, Rand Paul is riding a wave of anti-government sentiment that may actually produce real legislation or put someone in the Whitehouse.
"The only way the Pauls could threaten Romney is to run as a third party candidate and siphon off enough of the vote to ensure a Democrat win. I don't think they'll do that though."
They don't actually have to do that though, they only need enough support to credibly threaten it. And since right now Ron is polling almost equal to Obama in a head to head race, the threat is certainly real.
> Oh, certainly I'm sure that Rand Paul will eventually run for President when Ron Paul gets too old for it.
Ron Paul is already too old for it. McCain lost 2008 largely based on his age. Ron Paul is older than McCain. Wikipedia says that Reagan was the oldest and he was 69 upon entering office. Paul is 76.
This year's running, to me, smells entirely of a publicity stunt for his son.
Quite possibly you're right on both accounts. The interesting thing to me is that drones on domestic soil (and the TSA, another one of Rand's issues) has been around for years. Any politician could have made it an issue and introduced legislation along these lines at any point in time, and would have raised their profile in doing so.
But they didn't. They've been silent. Where's the legislation to repeal the PATRIOT ACT? I didn't see any, but instead its been expanded and extended.
Why isn't [pick-your-favorite-politician] vowing to take a stand against these evil things?
I wish Rand doing this were not at all news because there were 200+ people on capital hill raising similar issues and taking a stand against violations of people's rights.
I understand that drones make aerial surveillance much cheaper and easier, but why specify drone surveillance and not aerial surveillance in general?
It bothers me that there is such a fear around drones. Please remember that many people would like to use them for far less nefarious purposes - real estate photography, farming, etc.
They could just pass a bill saying the Government is not allowed to use drone surveillance, and they can't get private companies to do it for them either.
Otherwise companies (and people?) are allowed to use drones.
The difference is that manned aerial surveillance (i.e. police helicopters and the occasional plane) is sufficiently expensive that they only do it occasionally. If there's a police helicopter in the air it's probably doing some specific task.
The fear is that drone surveillance could become sufficiently cheap that the police could have a constant fleet of drones circling over the city and capable of looking at anything at a moment's notice.
I don't know the status of the legislation but I heard that a bill was introduced (and possibly passed) that criminalized use of drones by private entities, allowing only government to use them.
So, the political position seems to be that its ok for spying, but not ok for mapping farmland or photography.
If I remember correctly, the US just released a virus into the wild that is designed to collect all information it can possibly gather about anyone. How credible does that make any privacy protection laws?
> ... would require the government to obtain a warrant to use drones with the exception of .... or when there are risks of a terrorist attack.
Great now police will have to invent more terrorists to do their jobs as efficiently as allowed by modern technology.
> t would prohibit evidence collected with warrantless drone surveillance from being used as evidence in court
That might lead one to funny case one day when they will have to let murder loose because there is no evidence except footage from police drone accidentally passing by. Everyone will forget about OJ.
• using a drone to patrol the freeway looking for drunk drivers (well, technically they could use a drone to look but they would not be able to send a ground officer to cite the drunk driver),
• using a drone to track the getaway car from a bank robbery,
• searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent.
In the first example, a drone COULD be used to patrol the freeway looking for disabled cars or accidents, but if any criminal activity were observed during such patrols the evidence from the drone could not be used against the criminals.
This is typical Rand Paul--it is designed to sound good and make it look like he is looked out for The People on some important issue, but the bill is written to be so overly broad that it won't have much chance of actually passing--which I suspect is fine with Paul.
Another example of that was an amendment he tried that would have made it so that former Congressmen who become lobbyists lose their benefits. Sounds like a good idea, right? Of course it does--but then when you check the details you find that "lobbyist" is defined so broadly as to include anyone who gets money from the Federal government or gets money by working for someone who gets money from the Federal government.
For instance, if a former Congressman is a physician, and after leaving Congress goes to work at a rural medical clinic--and that clinic accepts payments from Medicare, that physician would be a lobbyist under Rand Paul's amendment and would lose his benefits.
Of course that amendment went nowhere, but now Paul can paint himself if he wishes as a guy who tried to fight the corrupting influence of former Congressman becoming lobbyists.