In 2018, Congress gave the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security sweeping new authorities to destroy or commandeer privately-owned drones, as well as intercept the data it sends and receives. EFF objected to The Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018 (S. 2836, H.R. 6401) because, among other things, the bill authorized DOJ and DHS to “track,” “disrupt,” “control,” “seize or otherwise confiscate,” “mitigate” or even “destroy” unmanned aircraft that pose a “credible threat” to a “covered facility or asset” in the U.S.—without defining what many of those terms mean.
The definition of “credible threat” was left entirely to the discretion of DOJ and DHS. This means we have no real idea what the threshold would be in order to legally allow authorities to destroy your drone. And the term “covered facility or asset” was defined so broadly it could extend to all federal property. EFF was also concerned that the bill would authorize the government to “intercept” or acquire transmissions to and from the drone, which could be read to include capturing video footage sent from the drone—a major threat to journalists who use this technology.
Unfortunately, with very little public debate, the Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018 was included in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (PL 115-254), which passed Congress and was signed into law that same year. The one bright spot was that the authorities were set to expire in 2022, giving Congress another chance to define the relevant terms, provide transparency in the process, and determine the appropriate, limited authorities for these agencies, as well as their necessary safeguards.
The 2018 law was already too broad, exempting officials from following procedures that ordinarily govern electronic surveillance and hacking, such as the Wiretap Act, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
But somehow, the Administration’s This article has been indexed from Deeplinks
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