While most of the country was thinking about the Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. Department of Justice released its policy guidance on domestic use of unmanned aircraft systems. According to The Hill, the new DOJ policy is based upon a presidential memorandum that outlined some of the civil liberty issues inherent with drone usage.
Drones and other new and exciting technologies are here to stay. However, there are significant privacy, surveillance, and other civil liberty issues that must be balanced when utilizing these new tools. My hope is that we have a robust national conversation on these issues and create sound public policy, and when needed draft the proper regulations and/or enact well-balanced laws to ensure that we can effectively deal with the societal consequences.
Drones have many positive uses in our society; however, we must understand the legal and public policy challenges inherent with their deployment. The DOJ's policy guidance is a starting point for this conversation.
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