View EFF's updated Map of Domestic Drone Authorizations in a larger window. (Clicking this link will serve content from Google.)
Some of these new drone license applicants include:
- The State Department
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
- Barona Band of Mission Indians Risk Management Office (near San Diego, California)
- Canyon County Sheriff's Office (Idaho)
- Clackamas County Sheriff's Office (Northwest Oregon)
- Grand Forks Sheriff's Department (North Dakota)
- King County Sheriff's Office (covering Seattle, Washington)
- Medina County Sheriff's Office
- Ohio Department of Transportation
- Sinclair Community College
- Lorain County Community College
As we've written in the past, drone use in the United States implicates serious privacy and civil liberties concerns. Although drones can be used for neutral, or even for positive purposes, drones are also capable of highly advanced and, in some cases, almost constant surveillance, and they can amass large amounts of data. Even the smallest drones can carry a host of surveillance equipment, from video cameras and thermal imaging to GPS tracking and cellphone eavesdropping tools. They can also be equipped with advanced forms of radar detection, license plate cameras, and facial recognition. And, as recent reporting from PBS and Slate shows, surveillance tools, like the military's development of gigapixel technology capable of "tracking people and vehicles across an entire city," are improving rapidly.
EFF hopes this list will spur more people to ask their local law enforcement agencies about their drone programs. EFF has partnered with MuckRock to make it easier to ask for and disseminate this information. We also encourage people to ask hard questions of government officials about who is funding drone development in their communities and what policies the government will demand agencies follow if they fly drones. We need greater transparency and citizen push-back to protect Americans from privacy-invasive domestic drone use.
You can find the new list here.
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter