drones

President Obama's revelation last week that a counterterrorism operation let to the accidental killing of an American and an Italian hostage, as well as two Americans associated with Al Qaeda, has once again raised the circumstances under which the U.S. can use lethal force to target American citizens abroad, The Christian Science Monitor's Anna Mulrine reports: "A 2011 Department of Justice memo says that to legally order the death of a US citizen without a trial, the government must determine that the citizen is 'a senior Al Qaeda leader or an associated force' who is 'actively engaged in planning operations to kill Americans.'"

Christopher Swift, adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University in Washington, told CSM that the memo is the only legal authority out there about when American citizens can be killed without trial in the name of national security. The problem is the memo's "'reliance on due process is vague,'" Swift said.

According to the Associated Press, the Tennessee Senate has voted to ban drones from recording jails as well as ticketed events with more than 100 people in attendance. The law was requested by the NFL's Tennessee Titans.

A different version of the bill passed in the House and a compromise version has to be negotiated, the AP reports.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and other groups have appealed the Federal Aviation Administration's refusal to create privacy regulations for drones, IDG News Service's Martyn Williams reports. The groups are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

When the FAA proposed rules governing the commercial use of drones, those rules did not mention privacy concerns, only safety rules. Instead, the White House has asked the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to address drones and privacy.

A bill is being proposed in Nevada that would place privacy restrictions on the use of drones, the Associated Press' Riley Snyder reports: the bill "would limit how police can use drones in investigations and require the state's public safety department to keep a public listing of all drones used by state agencies. The bill also criminalizes using a drone to take a clandestine photo of a person in a private setting and sets certain trespassing rules for drones flying under 250 feet."

In the Midwest, the Michigan House has approved a bill to prohibit the use of drones for hunting, and Wisconsin lawmakers held a hearing this week on further regulations for drones, the AP reports. Wisconsin already banned drones that are capable of videorecording from flying in areas where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Federal Aviation Administration Michael Huerta testified in Congress Tuesday that his agency is seeking ways to speed up the approval process for commercial drones, Reuters reports. For example, the FAA is trying to address as a class similar applications from companies that are seeking exemptions from the current ban on commercial drone use. The FAA also finally released its proposed rules for integrating commercial drones into the American airspace last month, but the rulemaking could take nine months to three years to be finalized, Reuters also reports.

Colorado lawmakers have delayed a vote on legislation that would criminalize the use of drones and other surveillance technology to photograph or monitor people, the Associated Press reports. The legislation would make it a crime first-degree trespassing to take images of someone with a reasonable expectation of privacy. One legislator said the bill, as drafted, would be a "'teribbly sweeping criminalization of photography.'"

The sponsor asked for a delay in the vote on the bill in order to rework it.

A Republican Tennessee state senator has introduced legislation to bar drones from flying at sporting events, concerts and other large events, ABC local affiliate WKRN's Jamey Tucker reports. The bill also would address copyright issues when event sponsors hire vendors to record their events.

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has released proposed rules for integrating small commercial drones into the American airspace, the next regulatory front for drones is privacy, Slate's Margot E. Kaminski reports. The FAA isn't going to set privacy rules for drones; instead, President Barack Obama issued a presidential memorandum giving federal agencies marching orders on only keeping data collected from drones for 180 days and ordering agencies not to "violate the First Amendment or discriminate against people based on ethnicity, race, gender, or national origin" through their use of drones.

State law may provide the protection for privacy from drones, Kaminski reports, but First Amendment challenges are likely to ensue against such regulation. Wisconsin may have the best model for regulating privacy vis-a-vis drones because that state's law hinges "on whether the subject of surveillance has a reasonable expectation of privacy," Kaminski reports.

Five Rhode Island lawmakers had introduced drone legislation that would make it illegal for drones to take pictures or videos of private buildings without permission, Media General's WPRI 12's Allison Gallo reports. Other legislators have introduced legislation to create a panel to study how other states are regulating drones.

The Federal Aviation Administration has just released long-awaited rules to integrate drones into the American airspace, but those rules aren't expected to become final for two years or more.