On Tuesday, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) announced the launch of its Domestic Drone Information Center to act as a hub for its effort to aggregate public data on unmanned aircraft systems.
The impending deadline of the Federal Aviation Administration’s integration of domestic unmanned aircraft systems — more popularly known as drones — into U.S. national airspace continues to hold the public imagination and raise questions about the technology’s privacy implications.
“Domestic drones have many potential positive applications — e.g., traffic mapping, monitoring agriculture, weather forecasting — but it is vital that their use be regulated,” reads the statement from NACDL.
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center will not only aggregate news about drones from leading news publications, it will track federal, state and municipal legislative developments. It will also aggregate “relevant case law, scholarship, upcoming events, and data on drone usage.”
“The impressive and wide-ranging technological capabilities of drones represent a fundamental change in the balance between the privacy rights of the people and the surveillance capacity of the state,” NACDL Executive Director Norman Reimer said.
“As this landscape develops, it is important that the public, and most especially the defense bar, monitor this situation to ensure that individuals’ privacy and constitutional rights are not infringed upon,” Reimer added.
Reimer hopes that the new Domestic Drone Information Center will serve as an “asset for lawyers and members of the public alike.”
The FAA, which is the agency overseeing the integration of drones into national airspace, is seeking public comment about the privacy policy for its six domestic drone test sites until May 8.