Posts

WATCH: Huge Fire Breaks Out Suddenly at U.S. Drone Factory in Latvia

/0 Comments/in , /by

A massive fire has broken out this afternoon, Tuesday, February 7, at the Edge Autonomy facility, a US-run drone production factory in the town of Marupe, Latvia.

According to the latest online reports, at least 50 firefighters are tackling the blaze which started ‘suddenly’. It is also being reported that due to the nature of the fire, it could take many hours to extinguish it.

(Read more from “WATCH: Huge Fire Breaks Out Suddenly at U.S. Drone Factory in Latvia” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

Man Flying a Drone Takes Closer Look at Video Footage, Realizes Oblivious Boy Isn’t Alone in Shallow Water

/0 Comments/in , /by

From alligators and bears to tornadoes and lightning, individuals around the world have a higher chance of experiencing these possibly-fatal encounters with nature than encountering sharks.

However, for one boy swimming in the Bahamas, that simply wasn’t the case as drone footage displayed the harrowing moment he narrowly escaped shark-filled waters.

The drone’s cameraman, Atem Tkachenko, was using the device to capture stunning images of the beach’s crystal clear waters and sandy shore as a young boy splashed along the shore.

The scene was quick to turn from serenity to panic as four sharks were spotted swimming in the same waters of the boy who swam directly in their path.

“Run! Run!,” Tkachenko reportedly yelled to the boy, who quickly moved out of the water.

“Thank god he heard me,” Tkachenko later recalled.

The other adults present on the shore were reportedly unable to see the sharks swimming up to the boy from their viewpoint.

Though the odds of encountering a shark are slim to none, waters in the Bahamas are filled with sharks and exotic fish, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.

In September 2017, footage showed a dramatic encounter between a diver and a shark as the diver viciously punched the creature after it took food from a bait box.

And, though controversial, the practice of feeding sharks in the Bahamas still remains.

Why then, in areas where these sharks are so often seen, is there so much fear of sharks from people the world over?

Gregory Skomas, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marin Fisheries, suggests it may be a primal instinct of humans that becomes triggered when seeing — or encountering — one of nature’s most frightful creatures.

Skomal credits the evolution of humans’ senses and the survival instincts that alert each individual of a potential threat, despite how minuscule that threat may actually be.

“There’s a deep-seated fear in all humans of being bitten by some animal, either on land or in the seas,” Skomal said. “And the ocean looks dark and deep and foreign to us.”

“It embellishes that fear.” (For more from the author of “Man Flying a Drone Takes Closer Look at Video Footage, Realizes Oblivious Boy Isn’t Alone in Shallow Water” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Drone Carrying Cell Phone, Marijuana Crashes in Prison Yard

/0 Comments/in , /by

A drone carrying cell phones, tobacco and marijuana crashed into the yard at Washington State Prison, according to the Department of Corrections.

A growing problem, drones have become the newest way inmates have used to get contraband that can be sold to other prisoners for a significant profit.

Corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath said Tuesday a drone crashed to the ground at the prison near Davisboro around 10:45 p.m. Monday. She could not say how many cell phones or how much tobacco and marijuana was recovered. No one inside or outside the prison has been connected to the drone, she said.

The state prison system has struggled for decades to stop contraband from getting to inmates but, they admit, prisoners are constantly finding ways to skirt any systems put in place to thwart them. Read more from “Drone Carrying Cell Phone, Marijuana Crashes in Prison Yard” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Federal Drone Registry Declared Unlawful

/0 Comments/in , /by

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously declared the Federal Aviation Administration’s recreational drone owners’ registry to be “unlawful as applied to model aircraft” on Friday.

As a result, hobby drone fliers across the nation no longer face the specter of $277,500 in civil and criminal fines, as well as jail time, merely for failing to identify themselves to the FAA.

In late 2015, the FAA for the first time made the decision to subject recreational drone fliers to mandatory registration. Beginning on Dec. 21—just days before Christmas—anyone who owned a drone weighing more than 0.55 pounds at takeoff (helpfully, the FAA indicated this was the equivalent of two sticks of butter) would be required to register themselves pursuant to a statute authorizing the registration of aircraft. To comply, hobbyists had to provide regulators with detailed personal information and pay a $5 registration fee.

Flying a drone even a single inch above one’s own backyard before registering was deemed a federal felony.

At the time, the agency noted that surging demand for small quadcopters and other models of unmanned aircraft systems necessitated quick action. Taking advantage of the “good cause” exemption under the Administrative Procedure Act, the FAA bypassed the normal notice and comment process and pushed the registration rule into effect in a mere two months.

There was, however, one significant legal hurdle. As we wrote at the time, the FAA’s rushed regulatory action ran directly afoul of a statute passed by Congress, the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act. Section 336 of that law specifically states that “the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft.”

The agency has attempted to bypass this statutory prohibition by consistently claiming that the new rule was not, in fact, a new rule. The FAA always had authority to register model aircraft, this line of reasoning goes, but merely exercised discretion in opting not to.

How Hobbyists Become Felons

One drone owner, John Taylor, disagreed and filed suit. In the unanimous opinion by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Judges Robert Wilkins and Harry Edwards, the court was clear: “Taylor is right.”

In his opinion, Kavanaugh acknowledges the agency’s longstanding authority to register aircraft—a process that “is quite extensive, as one would imagine for airplanes.” Kavanaugh goes on to correctly note, though, that “the FAA has not previously interpreted the general registration statute to apply to model aircraft.”

Indeed, in 1981 the agency published Advisory Circular 91-57, “Model Aircraft Operating Standards,” and made compliance entirely voluntary. A 2007 notice published in the Federal Register espoused a new regulatory scheme for drones, subdividing them into public, commercial, and recreational aircraft, and prohibiting flights “without specific authority … For model aircraft the authority is AC 91-57.”

In other words, as the court pointed out, the 2007 “notice did not alter the longstanding voluntary regulatory approach for model aircraft”—an approach which Congress codified in Section 336 of the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act.

But is the registry requirement a rule promulgated in violation of the “clear statutory restriction on FAA regulation of model aircraft,” as Taylor alleged, or merely a decision to “enforce a pre-existing statutory requirement,” as the FAA contended?

To answer this, the court looked first to the definition of “rule” contained in the Administrative Procedure Act, finding that the registry was indeed a “statement of general or particular applicability … designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy.” It then considered the scope of the registration requirement, which includes “model aircraft” and defines the term identically to its definition in the 2012 law. For the court, this could lead to only one conclusion:

In short, the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act provides that the FAA ‘may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft,’ yet the FAA’s 2015 Registration Rule is a ‘rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft.’ Statutory interpretation does not get much simpler. The Registration Rule is unlawful as applied to model aircraft. (Emphasis added)

The court found the FAA’s counter arguments “unpersuasive.” The registry requirement was no mere ending of enforcement discretion, but a “rule that creates a new regulatory regime for model aircraft,” replete with “new requirements” for hobbyists and “new penalties” to which those hobbyists are subjected.

A Victory for the Rule of Law

The judges’ swift dismissal of this line of reasoning is hardly surprising. In one telling exchange at oral argument, the FAA asserted that the rule was merely an enforcement of existing law that the 2012 statute in no way hindered, prompting one judge to retort, “You’re just making stuff up. That’s not what the statute says.”

FAA arguments that the registration rule is needed on policy grounds were similarly rejected. Though “[a]viation safety is obviously an important goal,” the court noted that judges are bound to “follow the statute as written.”

In other words, if federal law is to be rewritten, it is neither a judge nor a regulator who is constitutionally empowered to do so. That responsibility falls squarely—and exclusively—on the shoulders of Congress.

The FAA’s recreational drone registry may have been struck down, but its commercial drone regulations were not at issue, and remain in force. The FAA’s ability to preserve the integrity and safety of the national airspace is similarly unaffected. Section 336(b) of the 2012 law affirms the “authority of the Administrator to pursue enforcement action against persons operating model aircraft who endanger the safety of the national airspace system.”

Friday’s opinion out of the D.C. Circuit is thus a victory not only for Taylor, but for the rule of law itself. Hundreds of thousands of hobby fliers who, only this morning, were subject to arbitrary and extreme federal criminal penalties have been granted a reprieve—at least for now. It remains to be seen whether the FAA will appeal.

Hopefully, though, the agency will treat the decision as a learning opportunity rather than a speed bump, and re-hew its drone policy to the letter and spirit of the law. (For more from the author of “Federal Drone Registry Declared Unlawful” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

How the FAA’s War on Drones Is Killing a Popular Pastime

/0 Comments/in , /by

One year ago, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration rang in the holidays as only bureaucrats can: writing new regulations forcing drone owners to register themselves with the federal government before their first flight.

And because nothing says “Christmas” quite like criminal fines and jail time, the agency promised $277,500 in civil and criminal penalties and three years’ imprisonment to any overeager youngster who rushed out to play without first thinking about the wishes of a distant bureaucracy.

The FAA’s recreational registry was, and remains, one of the most egregious acts of regulatory overcriminalization in recent memory. Even the agency’s own registration task force reported that the criminal penalties drone owners would face were disproportionate in the hobby drone context. Nevertheless, the FAA charged ahead, releasing its interim final rule to the public just three weeks after the task force report, and a scant seven days before going into effect.

Before it could regulate, though, the agency first had to get around the Congress. In 2012, legislators passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, plainly stating that the FAA “may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding model aircraft” flown for recreational purposes.

The agency responded that the registry is not really a regulation, and that drones are not really model aircraft; they are “aircraft” for the purposes of federal law, so the agency always had the authority to require registration. Never mind that this claim contradicted all prior agency guidance on drone regulation.

Once it twisted itself in a knot to get around Congress’ prohibitions, the FAA then had to figure a means to bypass the public notice and comment process mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act, as well.

That standard rulemaking process can take months or years. It is designed to give the public a chance to review proposed rules and to ensure that administrative agencies are responsive to public concerns. Notice and comment brings at least a modicum of accountability and transparency to the regulatory process.

It also serves to ensure that citizens are not caught unaware by new rules that are promulgated suddenly and without warning—an especially grave concern when, as with the drone owners’ registry, they contain criminal penalties.

But the FAA got around these restrictions by using the narrow “good cause” exemption. If agencies can show that the normal process is “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest,” it can skip public participation and issue a final rule.

In this case, the FAA claimed America’s skies were about to be overrun by hoards of drones that, like a modern take on a Hitchcock classic, would wreak havoc and endanger the national airspace. Because of this exigent threat, officials claimed, public safety demanded swift regulatory action.

There were some flaws to this line of reasoning. First, the FAA could not, and still cannot, point to a single collision between a drone and a civilian airliner.

Officials frequently cite figures that they claim demonstrate a rising incidence of near-collisions, but analysis has concluded that in only a tiny fraction of these purported instances did the pilot feel the need to take evasive action. In fact, in many cases, the object originally identified as a drone turned out to be something else altogether.

The FAA’s exigency argument fails because the skyrocketing popularity of drones was hardly surprising. Congress legislated on the subject three years before the FAA announced its registry. It seems reasonable enough that an agency specializing in aviation safety should have been able to anticipate the issue. Somehow, the “failure justifies fiat” argument worked—subject to a lawsuit pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, over whether the drone registration is illegal.

Finally, despite claiming that exigent threats to the national airspace required prompt action, the registry does nothing to deter or prevent bad actors from using drones to commit crimes or acts of terror, similar to how gun rights restrictions generally haven’t stopped bad actors from committing gun violence. Drone owners are not registered automatically at the point of sale, but instead are supposed to register at home before sending their drones on their first flight.

Someone buying a drone to use it for illicit purposes can also easily evade the registry requirement with little risk of penalty after the fact, because if the drone is crashed into an aircraft, explodes, burns, or otherwise evades capture, tracing the unmarked drone back to its owner will be virtually impossible.

Even for those who do comply, FAA-assigned unique personal ID numbers can be placed inside the drone, making remote identification impossible. Ultimately, the drone would have to crash, largely intact and in an area where it could not be retrieved by its owner, for the registry to be useful in tracking down responsible parties.

Certainly, for those who already want to fly responsibly, a registry may be a means of discouraging reckless conduct and reinforcing safety. But for those who want to use drones for ill purposes, the deterrent value is nil.

Fortunately, the FAA’s lawless actions have not escaped notice and scrutiny. Aside from the legal challenge to the registry requirement, the House Freedom Caucus recently identified the recreational rule as one of over 200 Obama-era regulations that should be repealed when the incoming Trump administration takes office in January.

Concerns about safety, whether to aircraft in the national airspace or to people and property on the ground, are not invalid, and should not to be taken lightly. Fortunately, a wide array of technology-agnostic criminal, tort, and property laws exist that address many of the harms and risks of drones. For example, it is already a federal crime to damage, destroy, or interfere with an aircraft.

The FAA should reconsider how it might work with partners in critical military and civil infrastructure, long-standing and self-regulating hobbyist communities, and technology groups to fashion sensible rules to address drone-specific harms or drone-related conduct that existing laws and regulations do not reach.

And of course, any restrictions on recreational drone activities must be authorized by Congress.

A year ago, the FAA began the process of overcriminalizing and over-regulating drones—a process that continues beyond just the recreational registry. Its redefinition of the term “aircraft” has exposed children to 20-year prison sentences for crashing toys. Its burdensome and restrictive commercial drone regulations have driven innovation and development abroad.

Clearly, the FAA won’t be stopping itself anytime soon. It’s time to rein them in. (For more from the author of “How the FAA’s War on Drones Is Killing a Popular Pastime” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Force Is Not With You: Government Rules Could Land Star Wars Drone Pilots in Prison

/0 Comments/in , /by

What kid hasn’t watched “Star Wars” and imagined skimming the Death Star trench in an X-Wing, tangling with TIE Fighters to save the Rebel cause?

For a long time, playing out these flights of fancy was restricted to video games. But thanks to drone technology—not quite anti-gravity, but close—the Force may be coming to a neighborhood near you. A company known as Propel is marketing “Star Wars Battle Quads”—faithful miniatures of some of the most iconic craft from that galaxy far, far away—that can dogfight one another above your backyard.

When the models are released, enthusiasts will be able to blast out of their backyard spaceport in the Millennium Falcon, tangle with Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, or dodge trees on Imperial speeders.

But, kids (and let’s be honest, adults, too), before you get too excited, keep this in mind: While most people will see these as harmless toys, regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration claim these palm-sized drones are “aircraft” no different than a passenger-laden 747 jet. That means that drones are subject to a host of federal laws and regulations that were originally written for manned aircraft, and carry severe civil and criminal penalties that are disproportionate in this context.

Here are just a few of the absurd crimes the FAA could accuse you of committing:

Destroying an aircraft—According to 18 U.S.C. § 32, anybody who willfully “damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States” has committed a felony punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment. Amazingly, the FAA has confirmed that this statute applies to drones, even though it is abundantly clear that Congress wrote the statute to criminalize takedowns of traditional, manned aircraft by terrorists and criminals. So, dogfight at your own risk—and don’t even think about recreating the speeder bike chase on Endor.

Aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft—18 U.S.C § 39(A) criminalizes “knowingly aim[ing] the beam of a laser pointer at an aircraft” or “at the flight path of such an aircraft.” Doing so can land you in prison for up to five years. Again, criminalizing this behavior only makes sense in the context of manned aviation, where a laser point can—and has—blinded pilots behind the controls of actual aircraft. What damage, however, is done by aiming a laser pointer at a drone? The jury is still out on that question, but violating this law is almost guaranteed given that these battle quads feature laser pointers intended to mimic Rebel blasters.

Failing to register as a drone owner—Last December, just days before Christmas, the FAA released a rule mandating that all drone owners register themselves with the FAA if the drone they are flying is used for hobby or recreational purposes, and weighs more than 0.55 pounds—the equivalent of two sticks of butter. Failure to register before your first flight constitutes a felony punishable by up to $277,500 in fines and three years’ imprisonment, a penalty scheme that the FAA’s own drone registry task force noted was utterly disproportionate in the drone context.

As if this is not bad enough, hapless drone operators flying purely for fun could find themselves fined for failing to comply with commercial drone regulations. For years, the FAA has divided drone activities into “recreational” and “commercial” categories along largely arbitrary and ill-defined lines. The result: Someone may think that he is flying purely for fun, but the FAA might think otherwise, and proceed to fine him for failing to comply with rules he did not know applied to him.

In fact, in one case, the FAA targeted a drone operator in Florida in precisely this fashion, determining that since he posted videos of his drone joyrides on YouTube, a site that had advertisements, his activity was, in fact, commercial. Another man, Mical Caterina, used a drone to photograph an event protesting the killing of Cecil the Lion. He did this as a favor to a friend, and for his troubles the FAA is now fining him $55,000 for failing to comply with commercial drone rules.

Thanks to draconian rules likes these, arbitrarily enforced by FAA bureaucrats without concern for the costs of unpredictable regulatory enforcement, yours may be the drones they’re looking for. It’s no wonder that some might yearn to become a Rebel and take out their frustrations on the Empire’s finest.

But future X-Wing pilots should probably restrict themselves to bull’s-eyeing womp rats instead of other drones, because if you actually take down Darth Vader’s toy TIE, you could find yourself hauled before a judge on federal felony charges. And no, “restoring peace and justice to the Galaxy” is not likely to be a winning defense. (For more from the author of “The Force Is Not With You: Government Rules Could Land Star Wars Drone Pilots in Prison” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Near Misses Between Drones and Airplanes on the Rise in US, Says FAA

/0 Comments/in , /by

A report of drone sightings from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shows that despite a new registration scheme, near misses between unmanned and piloted aircraft in American are on the rise. Sightings by pilots and airport officials have steadily increased from less than one a day in 2014, to over 3.5 between August 2015 and January this year, many of them from commercial passenger aircraft.

In the most serious incident, the pilot of an American Airlines jet last September had to swerve to avoid a drone. On September 13, flight 475 took off from Atlanta, Georgia en route to Charlotte, North Carolina. It was climbing to 3,500 ft when the pilot of the Airbus had to take evasive action to avoid a collision with an unidentified unmanned aerial system (UAS) or drone. The pilot told the FAA that he or she “just missed’ the drone.

In another incident in November, a helicopter leaving St Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri encountered a black and grey drone 1,400 ft above a city centre park. The pilot of the air ambulance reported that he had to make a steep banking turn to avoid the UAS, passing it at less than 100 feet. There were no patients on board, and no reports of any injuries or damage.

In both cases, local law enforcement was notified but no arrests seem to have been made.

Of the 582 sightings of drones reported to the FAA between August and January, there were two other instances where pilots were forced to take evasive action. In October, a helicopter pilot approaching Miami airport had to swerve after a drone approached to within 150 feet. (Read more from “Near Misses Between Drones and Airplanes on the Rise in US, Says FAA” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

ISIS Beware: Game Changer ‘Insect’ Drone Will Spy on ISIS – for 90 Days Straight

/1 Comment/in , /by

The Zephyr UAV will eventually stay airborne for 90 days.

It has been described as a potential “game changer” in the battle against extremists in Iraq and Syria.

Makers of The Zephyr, Airbus, claim it “endures like a satellite, focuses like an aircraft and is cheaper than both of them”.

A model was on show at the Defence and Security Equipment International show at ExCel in London and members of the Royal Corps of Signals have put it through its paces.

An early version has already stayed airborne for a record 14 days. (Read more from “ISIS Beware: Game Changer ‘Insect’ Drone Allows MoD to Spy on ISIS – for 90 Days Straight” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Russia Starting Syria Drone Surveillance Missions

/3 Comments/in , /by

‘Russia launches spy drone over Israel’Russia has started flying drone aircraft on surveillance missions in Syria, U.S. officials said on Monday, in what appeared to be Moscow’s first military air operations there since staging a rapid buildup at a Syrian air base.

The beginning of Russian drone flights underscored the risks of U.S.-led coalition planes and Russian aircraft operating within Syria’s limited airspace, without agreeing on coordination or objectives in Syria’s civil war.

The former Cold War foes have a common adversary in Islamic State militants in Syria. But Washington opposes Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seeing him as a driving force in the four-and-a-half year-long civil war.

The Pentagon declined comment at a news briefing when asked about the Reuters report on Russian drones, saying it could not discuss intelligence matters. But it said the U.S. Department of Defense was “keenly aware” of what was happening on the ground in Syria . . .

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the number of fixed-wing, piloted Russian aircraft stationed at the air base near Latakia, an Assad stronghold, had also grown dramatically in recent days. (Read more from “Russia Starting Syria Drone Surveillance Missions” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Here Is the First State to Legalize the Use of Armed Drones by Police

/0 Comments/in , /by

web-drone-gettyArmed drones could be used by police in the US state of North Dakota after local lawmakers legalized their use.

While they will be limited to “less than lethal” weapons, tear gas, tasers, rubber bullets and pepper spray could all be used in theory by the remote controlled flying machines.

In a classic case of unintended consequences, the original sponsor, Republican state representative Rick Becker said he was unhappy with the way legislation turned out.

His original intention was to prevent law enforcement officials from using the unmanned aerial vehicles from conducting surveillance on private property without a warrant . . .

The original draft of the House Bill 1328 said: “A state agency may not authorize the use of, including granting a permit to use, an unmanned aircraft armed with any lethal or non-lethal weapons, including firearms, pepper spray, bean bag guns, mace, and sound-based weapons.” (Read more from “Here Is the First State to Legalize the Use of Armed Drones by Police” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.