Federal Aviation Administration

Poynter's Benjamin Mullin has a piece about how 2016 could be the breakout year for drone journalism because the FAA is slated to issue new rules about the commercial use of drones: "It will be a watershed development for American photojournalism writ large, one that will put relatively inexpensive aerial photography, videography and airborne sensors in play for journalists across the United States."

The most common use will be taking footage of land, especially during times of disaster. Currently, the FAA is allowing some media organizations to use drones, but their drone operators have to have pilot's licenses. Under the new rules, journalists and other commercial drone operators would be able to get an alternative licensure to a pilot's license in order to be approved to operate drones.

The Federal Aviation Administration has approved a company's request to operate 324 drones for "aerial data acquisition," which has prompted concerns from privacy advocates, Vice News' John Dyer reports. Jeramie Scott, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Dyer "'right now there are virtually no laws to address the commercial use of drones to collect massive amounts of data on the public.'"

Measure got an exemption from the FAA's current ban on commercial use of drones.

Dyer also notes that the rules the FAA are currently drafting to regulate drones don't address privacy and wouldn't mandate commercial drone operators disclose what data they're collecting.

Federal Aviation Administration officials testified this week that they expect to finalize rules for commercial drone flights within the year, which is much faster than previous forecasts of the rules being finalized by the end of 2016 or the start of 2017, Reuters' David Morgan reports. He notes that American firms have been pressuring the FAA regulators to get the drone rules off the ground because of lost revenue.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the drone industry are finally starting to see eye to eye, The Washington Post's Matt McFarland reports. For example, the FAA now appears to be committed to testing if drones can be operated safely outside of the line of sight of operators, including by CNN. The cooperation between industry and the FAA is a change from when the governmental agency was highly criticized for missing deadlines for making commercial drone flights legal.

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.

Even though Internet providers are expected to challenge the new net neutrality rules in court, some companies may not go to court because they're seeking to get approval for their mergers, the Washington Post's Brian Fung reports. Comcast is trying to merge with Time Warner Cable, AT&T is trying to merge with DirecTV, and Verizon is trying to get approval for a deal with Frontier Communications.

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.

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.

The U.S. government missed a deadline at the end of 2014 to issue rules on drones, Reuters' Alwyn Scott and Robert Rampton reports. While the Federal Aviation Administration has given a draft of the rules to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget has not finished reviewing them yet.

Reuters also reports that the Motion Picture Association of America and other industry groups want the FAA rules to preempt state or city laws regulating the use of drones.