Eric Schmidt: Regulate Civilian Drones Now 420
An anonymous reader writes "Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is urging lawmakers to regulate the use of unmanned aircraft by civilians — and quickly. He posed this hypothetical situation to The Guardian: 'You're having a dispute with your neighbor. How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?' Schmidt went on to bring up military and terrorist concerns. 'I'm not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratize the ability to fight war to every single human being. It's got to be regulated... It's one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they're doing, but have other people doing it... it's not going to happen.'"
Only the rich (Score:4, Interesting)
Only the rich should be allowed this technology. We cannot have the plebs uncovering crime, uncovering environmental disasters, showing the world how it truly is. Only large corporations and police, who are unduly influenced by large corporations should have this kind of power. Allowing this technology may result in the upset of current power structures.
--Schmidt
i call bs (Score:5, Interesting)
he wants drone legislation to create a barrier to entry to compete with whatever Google will be offering. realtime google maps? etc
Google-Funded Drones To Hunt Rhino Poachers (Score:4, Interesting)
Mother Jones: Google-Funded Drones To Hunt Rhino Poachers [motherjones.com]
Re: How would you feel about it? (Score:2, Interesting)
I do not guarantee the safety of trespassers nor their property. Yes, how high it is flying becomes an issue though. Perhaps there should just be a definition of trespassing that includes a maximum altitude?
Actually the real irony here.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Is his company has been doing basically the global equivalent of this for how many years with google maps satellite/street view?
Sure it's not real-time, but it's had the exact same far reaching privacy implications he's claiming against civilian drones now.
Hey Eric, you made (y)our bed, now lie in it.
Different worries (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not hypothetical, future civilian use that worries me. It's real, current military use that needs to be regulated immediately.
Re:Google (Score:5, Interesting)
"In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you," Schmidt said at the 2010 Techonomy conference, arguing that there were dangers to having complete anonymity online and that governments may eventually put an end to anonymity. "We need a [verified] name service for people," he said. "Governments will demand it."
This is the first time Schmidt has ever made an argument in favor of privacy (as far as I know).
Re:Only the rich (Score:4, Interesting)
That's pretty much how I read it. Eric Schmidt is already the worst person in tech. He is one of the greatest threats to the American way of life, traditionally rooted in the idea that humans have many natural rights, not the least of which is privacy. He also seems to be a very real threat to the already well eroded foundation that government power is granted only by the people. I seriously hope he chokes to death, and I mean that.
Pot, Kettle (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems just a little bit comical that someone whose livelihood lies in obtaining as much information as possible about people for profit is complaining about individuals having the ability to spy on others.
one might ask... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not saying that we're there yet, but one might extrapolate not inconceivably far into the future to ask about the essential and theoretical foundations which grant this so-called 'legitimacy' to a state that somehow outranks the individual. What is it that a state "has" that an individual doesn't, and could we conceive of a society in which the state doesn't have any sort of primacy over the individual?
It speaks to the essential nature of the social contract, and the state born therefrom (of course this assumes that the power of the state flows FROM the the citizen, and not the other way around); but in an era where there are fewer and fewer intrinsic bottlenecks on the movement, communication, and power of citizens - for example, we're not THAT far away (50 years? 100 years?) from an era in which people could credibly create their own nuclear or bioweapons. What happens to the concepts of WMD "proliferation" when the technology, energy, and intellectual resources are ubiquitous?
It's worth mentioning that I see this in the roots of the 2nd Amendment discussions in the US as well: the martial power available to a citizen in, say, a fully-automatic weapon is almost inconceivably more than the Founding Fathers imagined a single individual having. Does this mean that the Amendment should be nullified, or (as we have today) that we acquiesce to incrementally circumscribing what is an otherwise pretty categorical and straightforward prohibition on ANY such limitation?
It's of course a smaller issue, but I see the powers available to UAVs another camel-nose-under-the-tent of personal capability to do something formerly reserved to government. I do NOT believe that blanket prohibition is in any way feasible or practicable over the long term - genies don't go back into bottles willingly.
Re:Google (Score:4, Interesting)
What all three arguments share is that they are against freedom of the individual.
Re: How would you feel about it? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know what this buffoon's agenda is, either, but as usual, he worries about private civilians rather than government misusing things.
I'd rather have 1000 private drones over my property, and my name sold off on 10,000 lists of what I buy to 100,000 companies, than have one government official spying into either.
Corporation gets out of control, "BUY THIS BUY THIS BUY THIS!"
Government gets out of control, loss of privacy, freedom. Death.
Re: How would you feel about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The general rule (there are restrictions based on proximity to airports, communication tower installations, etc.) you still control your airspace up to 600 feet. ANY object intruding into this space on your property is trespassing, be it a drone, an aircraft, a blimp, what-have-you. ABOVE 600 feet is all regulated in some way by the FAA, and you can NOT fly your drone into that space without authorization. The FAA stopped taking applications for drone licensing in all regulated airspace in 2004, except from DHS and the DoD. So right now no private or local government entity can get clearance to fly above 600 feet, even on their own property.
I'm not sure where you got your information from, but that is not true (assuming you mean below 600 ft).
First of all, in rural areas I can fly at 500ft above of your home. This is the default minimum altitude. In densely populated areas that is 1000ft. In some designated areas, I can fly as low as 100ft. Second, I can legally fly anywhere I like if I declare an emergency. If I fly at 200ft above your property and you shoot at me because you think I'm trespassing, your ass is going to jail, period.
Bottom line is, you don't control the airspace above your home, with the exception of what you can reasonably use. Perhaps you should read this article [wikipedia.org].
Re: How would you feel about it? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're probably right, but I think this does have "regular people" implications beyond paparazzi and government spying.
For instance, I imagine most of us have heard about the repeated issues with anti-hunting activists flying UAV's over a hunt club property to record people hunting. At least four times, hunters have just shot the thing down. The activists complain that the hunters shouldn't be able to damage their uav, where the hunters complain that outside parties shouldn't be harassing people engaging in a legal activity on private property. It's obvious to me that this is the kind of extreme assholery that (perhaps prematurely) forces us to consider what should and shouldn't be ok.
http://www.suasnews.com/2012/11/19719/activists-drone-shot-out-of-the-sky-for-fourth-time/ [suasnews.com]
As someone with a passing interest in hobby UAV's, I don't want to see this kind of thing turn into a government-only, legal nightmare. As a human being, I don't want people being assholes with this technology, as it has gotten ridiculously easy to operate and very inexpensive. Any jamoke can own and operate a quadcopter with an HD camera.
I don't agree or disagree with Schmidt, but while I don't share his specific personal concerns, it's something that's going to have to be dealt with, somehow.
Re: How would you feel about it? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure where you got your information from, but that is not true (assuming you mean below 600 ft).
Check right here, for one [wikipedia.org]. As you can see, FAA regulated space starts at 600 feet in most cases (plenty of exceptions, as I pointed out), as a general rule.
First of all, in rural areas I can fly at 500ft above of your home.
That's only IF you have authorization from the FAA, which you don't, and they aren't taking applications now from anyone except DHS and the DoD. More information on that can be found at this link [uavm.com]. Note they mention that Certificates of Waiver for Civil (Commercial) Use are currently on hold, which has been the case since 2004.
If I fly at 200ft above your property and you shoot at me because you think I'm trespassing, your ass is going to jail, period.
You may get arrested, but you will never be convicted of a crime related to damaging the property or persons that were trespassing - they are trespassing. There have been cases of this already, including ones involving blimps, and ones I have personal knowledge of that basically came down to the fact that since the craft was flying very low right over the house, the property owner had every right to defend his property with a weapon. You're too low over someone else's property, that's trespassing, period.
As I mentioned, there are exceptions in some areas, especially urban environments, but unless you can site some specific regulation or authority that provides and exception to low-altitude trespassing in general for any random flying craft, then I think you're just making some wrong assumptions.