AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) - A drone, no bigger than a toy airplane, hovered north of the Texas
Capitol, floating over the heads of lawmakers momentarily distracted
from their morning meetings. Several of them gathered beneath it, faces
tilted skyward, marveling over a pair of goggles that allowed them to
watch live video of the drone's panoramic bird's eye view.
But when the conversation turned to the reason for the demonstration, the tone shifted. State Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, said he is carrying legislation
to prevent this futuristic technology — increasingly used by everyone
from aviation hobbyists to law enforcement authorities — from capturing
"indiscriminate surveillance." It is an effort, he said, to defend
Texans' right to privacy: "Why should the government or anyone else be
able to watch my every move?"
The Federal Aviation Administration
currently prohibits commercial use of "unmanned aircraft," or drones
— meaning it is against the law to capture video or images from the sky
and use them for business purposes, said Ben Gielow, general counsel and
government relations manager for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
But that may not be the case for long. The FAA is supposed to release
rules governing the commercial use of drones by mid-2014.
The existing ban does not extend to hobbyists, people who fly drones for recreation.
Gooden's House Bill 912, which is being sponsored in the Senate by John Whitmire,
D-Houston and chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, would make it
a Class C misdemeanor to use an "unmanned vehicle or aircraft" to
capture video or photographs of private property without the consent of
the property's owner or occupant. It would be an additional penalty to
possess, display or distribute an image or video captured by an
illegally operating drone.
The bill provides exceptions for law
enforcement authorities, as long as they have a search or arrest warrant
and are in immediate pursuit of a suspect. It also does not apply to
property within 25 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, where drones
are used to enhance border security.
"It will be a greater burden
on the hobbyists, but I think that's okay," Gooden said. "If you're
asking me to choose between my right to privacy and a hobbyist's right
to take pictures from the sky, my privacy comes first."
Unmanned-aircraft experts say the bill is vague and would effectively nullify the benefits of drones for private use.
Todd Humphreys, director of the Radionavigation Laboratory
at the University of Texas at Austin, which uses drones to study ways
to protect navigation systems like GPS, said he, too, could conjure up a
"dystopian view, where we're inundated with buzzing drones everywhere
we go, that disrupt our sleep and our barbecues." But without that
imminent threat, he said, such a measure seems like overkill.
"If
I'm using it to continuously monitor somebody, I think we could make a
law that would forbid such a thing," Humphreys said. "But if I'm up
there doing some other benign research and happen to capture your
picture inadvertently, I don't think ought to be outlawed."
Gooden
said that increasingly, state legislatures around the country
have begun considering drone privacy legislation to get ahead of the
curve as improving technology and falling costs make unmanned aircraft
more easily attainable. Last year, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, introduced a bill similar to Gooden's in the U.S. House.
For
those who suggest he is seeking a solution without a problem, Gooden
counters that the future is fast approaching. "If 10 years ago, someone
had said we should ban texting and driving, the response would've been,
we're legislating for a problem that doesn't exist," he said.
Gooden
said that the bigger question is one left unanswered by his bill:
whether Texans should be able to shoot down drones hovering over their
private property illegally. His answer? Absolutely.
"We should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our home or on our private property," he said.
Micheal Cincienne of Absolute Aerospace and Texas A&M Corpus Christi, engineering student Adam Ersepke, and lab coordinator Jack Edward Esparza carry the University’s RS-16 unmanned aerial vehicle, otherwise known as a drone.
