Sen. Paul proposes bill protecting Americans from drone surveillance

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/232489-sen-paul-proposes-bill-protecting-americans-from-drone-surveillance

by stfu • 14 years ago

133 75 14 years ago

thehill.com

gm• 14 years ago

Trying really, really hard not to make a sarcastic comment about the gov't protecting Americans from itself...

Alex39174• 14 years ago

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.

nirvana2• 14 years ago

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.

saryant• 14 years ago

Rand did give a pretty good speech against the renewal of the PATRIOT ACT the last time it was up for a vote. I think it was about two years ago.

readme• 14 years ago

Government was the primary cause of unnatural death in the 20th century.

planetguy3• 14 years ago

> 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?

Alex39174• 14 years ago

Actually Romney already had a private meeting with Rand recently:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/meeting-rand-paul-mitt-r...

And shortly after meeting Rand said that it would be an honor to be Romney's VP if chosen.

And here is CBS saying that he's strongly expected to consider running in 2016 or 2020:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57449843-503544/rand-...

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.

mayneack2• 14 years ago

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.

Alex39174• 14 years ago

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.

mikemarotti• 14 years ago

I wasn't even aware this was happening. Frightening stuff.

chad_oliver• 14 years ago

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 ...

drcube• 14 years ago

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.

mrspandex• 14 years ago

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.

nirvana2• 14 years ago

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.

mtgx• 14 years ago

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.

planetguy3• 14 years ago

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.

oinksoft• 14 years ago

Best of luck to him, but this really isn't Hacker News (flagged).

tzs5• 14 years ago

Some things that would be banned under this bill:

• 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.

warmwaffles• 14 years ago

> searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent.

That is going to prevent the bill from passing. If they use the "protect the children" argument

maratd6• 14 years ago

I don't want civilian police forces using military equipment for any reason. It's really that simple.

Rand Paul gets it.

tzs5• 14 years ago

Drones are no more military equipment than are guns, cars, and radios. All of those are equipment that is used both by civilians and by the military.

shrikant• 14 years ago

Good thing they don't use the Internet or GPS then.

rprasad• 14 years ago

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.

tsotha5• 14 years ago

How are drones different than the helicopters police forces already use?

mjwalshe• 14 years ago

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

tzs5• 14 years ago

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.

nhangen• 14 years ago

'unless they have a warrant'

There you go.

stfu• 14 years ago

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.

tlogan• 14 years ago

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.

crusso5• 14 years ago

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?

tzs5• 14 years ago

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?

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

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.

nsomniact• 14 years ago

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.

siegecraft• 14 years ago

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?

tbeseda• 14 years ago

The discussion around the use of drones lately has risen out of the revelation that the EPA is using them to surveil cattle ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa to enforce the Clean Water Act (http://news.yahoo.com/epa-drones-spy-farmers-nebraska-iowa-1...).

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.

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

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.

lhnn• 14 years ago

It's about the ease and cost of use.

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.

patrickod• 14 years ago

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.

AutoCorrect• 14 years ago

the Constitution was written to protect the Citizens of the country.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

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.

ericingram• 14 years ago

I support this

scotty79• 14 years ago

> ... 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.

Tichy• 14 years ago

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?

Sen. Paul proposes bill protecting Americans from drone surveillance

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