UAS News Podcast — 2013-03-22
Transcript
Okay hello everyone and welcome to podcast number 43. This one's a short one today. The title is called the drone law takeaway and basically we have a guest on who was there yesterday Mr. Chad Partridge.
Chad you out there? Yeah, hey Patrick how are you?
Good Mr. Juddy on the spot. You had me worried there but he called right in on time. That was good.
Well you know I figured we would do this podcast today and it'll be a little bit out of the norm but while it was still fresh in our memory I wanted to talk about yesterday's event the UC Berkeley Law School drone law discussion which was something that had been planned for a while. And I thought it was a good discussion but before we get rolling you've been on once before I believe on the podcast Chad but is it possible for you to give the listeners a little bit of a bio about yourself please how you got here?
Sure, sure Patrick. I am a AUVSI board member. I am also vice president of operations for 2D tree sensing. I've been working with Patrick in the Silicon Valley chapter of AUVSI for a long time and when Patrick you got the opportunity to go out and participate on that panel you know I was on that panel yesterday it was definitely something that I wanted to come out and witness.
Right, well you know I thought it was a good opportunity for us to kind of get out there and you know here's another one to clear the air a little bit and so that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today. I want to let's just dive right into this deal. So yesterday's talk and now you were sitting in the back I was sitting up front but you know maybe you could describe some of your interpretations or like kind of a high altitude of yesterday's talk how you felt what you thought when you came into the room.
Yeah so I mean I thought you know first off it was very much set up for you to come in and to be the advocate and the other individual what was his organization Freedom? It was EFF the Electronic Freedom Foundation. Electronic Freedom Foundation. It was very, the format was set up in a lot of ways for you to be the antagonist per se and that is not in fact how the event went or how it went down.
I think in most aspects in most regards they brought up multiple privacy issues, you know concerns about weaponizing drones for domestic use, particularly when over law enforcement constantly talking about Alameda County's purchase of drones kind of in a shadowy way in the way they described it. And pretty much in every circumstance Patrick you agreed with their stance on drones. Your platform all along was to have commercial applications for drones. Let's use these things for the way that people can make money but yet have no public concern.
Applications of agriculture, you know filming, filming bridges, examples that you just you know all the applications that you've been talking about for so long. I don't you know it's unnecessary for me to go through them now but you know the truth was is nobody wants drones patrolling their backyards. So in that aspect Patrick I thought you did extremely well. Well I appreciate that vote of confidence.
Now in all fairness I did kind of throw you to the ACLU wolves. You noticed that you were talking to that woman and I just kind of was like out of there but you know I think you're correct in your assumption. I mean I had the Darth Vader music all queued up because I think they were they were kind of lying in wait. I noticed that they made up these like you know you have those name tags that said hello my name is instead they said no drones on them and had a drone on them or whatever and they were all sitting up front.
But you know I learned a lot yesterday. What I learned from this event was that there are I mean there is a wide gulf of misconceptions as far as this drone thing is concerned. Would you agree with that?
Yes very much so. I think and I've seen it in the media and I really I think we need to get out and do more of this outreach in the community but you know it's like some of the capabilities are thinking it's like you know our let's say the little quadcopter that you would buy like a parrot drone and a Global Hawk have like the same capabilities. That's kind of the takeaway I got from this thing yesterday and I also noticed that you know I guess it's still kind of the anti-government thing is still kind of popular but it is Berkeley so I guess that's to be expected.
I mean I don't know I don't think that they really realize that this is just another tool in the toolbox for law enforcement or first responders or whatever else. You know people it's I don't know if this is just kind of like the touchstone or what for people that are waking up that wait a minute our privacy is gone. What do you think?
I think I think that there is a massive level of fear mongering going on right now. I 100% agree. I think and I think you could see that at the talk yesterday. The result of it was that we all recognize that the biggest problem is there is just not enough you know laws legal definition and regulatory structure.
To ease people's concerns what we absolutely cannot happen is have our government go forward and just say okay we're going to ban all drones. That would be crazy. That would put this country at such a technological disadvantage and that would eliminate all of the great things. You know the public the things that the public would take advantage of that would eliminate all those things.
What we all want and I think it's what the ACLU wants. It's what AUVSI wants is we want a very structured and fair system that says this is how you can use drones and this is how you can't use drones. And that was my takeaway yesterday. I think at the end when we were sitting at the table after the show we were talking with the girl from the ACLU it was a lot of nodding of heads that we all felt the same way.
Yeah that was one thing that I definitely got yesterday. You know I think that people from within our community let's say the pro unmanned community are like oh geez they're nuts they just want to wreck everything. I didn't really get that. I got yesterday that they understand that there are positive uses.
I think that the law enforcement thing and the privacy thing is in everyone's face right now and that's one of the reasons that I'm kind of crabbing away from the first responder use of this. And which I expressed during the talk yesterday I think that they're kind of going about it wrong. I kind of the feedback I got from the audience where I said you know that the sheriff's department there Alameda or whatever should invite the public in and say hey here's what we want to do. Take a look at it.
Here's how we're going to operate it. Here's what the video looks like. Put some daylight on it and take away some of that apprehension which I seem to get a lot of agreement out of the crowd. I think if you take the mystery out of it you take the scary out of it and you say hey this is how we want to do it.
I gave the analogy of the police dog. You know some people think a police dog's a snapping snarling wild animal but when they bring it out to the kids school everybody's petting it. You know and it's fine. It's the same type of thing you need to do with this technology and if you show people hey this is kind of what it does you know and how we're going to use it.
I mean I didn't even see much push back on like you know you have a hostage situation or a bank robbery or a heaven forbid school shooting or something else and they pull it out of the trunk and fly it. They even sounded cool with that. Yeah right. Yes.
So that was refreshing. Yeah they want a warrant when you're going to do surveillance work. I'm cool with that. I mean maybe that makes me an industry outsider but I'm an American too.
My privacy thing I think there's checks and balances in the Constitution and I'm all for it. So I didn't really feel like we were too far off of the mark. The woman from the ACLU was I thought she was kind of funny because she said well you know would you come and talk to us or whatever. I said sure you know I'll come out and talk to you and wanted me to sign on to their legislation.
I mean I got to read it first you know before I sign off on that but I didn't even think that she was too far off the mark. Would you agree with that?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Even though walking into the event and sitting down and you know listening to the early conversation I thought that that would be the type of community that could be the most like the biggest pack of wolves in a lot of ways that you know the hardest detractors from drone applications that we were walking into a community like that. And it wasn't but at the end if that was the worst that they could throw at this community then I think that there is a lot of promise that everybody can work out their differences.
You know that's a good synopsis. I felt the same way. I mean I have to be honest. I mean people were like oh my god you're going to UC Berkeley to talk about drones.
Holy moly they're going to make mincemeat out of you. I think that that was kind of the mood when I went in there but I had a big smile on my face. Hey you know glad you made it. I mean I'm going to pat myself on the back a little bit.
I do that now and again. But I mean you know even the Code Pink people split early. So I think that you know something was good. The other thing that I wanted to talk about was the capabilities.
And you noticed I didn't really get to go into that as much as I wanted to but I think that people don't understand the level of surveillance that's out there and let's say the capabilities are out there. And you probably noticed that when I kept going back to what's on state, local and federal airborne law enforcement assets now. And I was talking about the different EOIR sensors that are on there and I had mentioned a couple of different brands and I gave the group there a little homework assignment.
And I told them to go on the YouTube and look at that because most of them are under the impression that the cameras that are on these helicopters are very low power and they don't have a standoff distance or everything else. Do you agree with that?
Is that kind of the take of the crowd or am I off base? No I agree. I agree with Josh. Well I mean you know given the analogy I had this argument with my dad too and said you know what's the difference between unmanned aircraft and a helicopter and his thing was well you know I'd hear the helicopter because it'd be right out there.
But that's not the case. The standoff distances with the EOIR sensors that are available today are they could be off you know you wouldn't even hear the helicopter and they could be watching you. I don't think that people understand that. I don't think that they understand what's out there already.
I think they're thinking that the cameras that are out there like the surveillance camera video you see maybe at the liquor store or grocery store or something. And then when it comes to really what's out there people have no idea what the real deal is out there. The other thing I noticed is you know again we were talking about the different capabilities of the different say classes of unmanned aircraft and you know you get this idea that the drones can loiter up there. We got you know the one guy from EFF was talking about the one that was powered by a laser.
You remember that when he was talking about that Jen? Yeah I do. And you know I mean how did you know oh it could stay up there indefinitely and you know it can fly around and it'll never come down. Okay well you know I didn't get it to get into okay well what does it weigh you know okay that's really in some sort of developmental stage.
You know there again what does it weigh and what type of payload can it carry. The other thing I got they talked about Argus you know which is fine but most of the stuff that they're talking about or you know the cell phone monitoring systems or whatever else that they were talking about putting on the drones. It seemed like there's a big disconnect like a lot of this surveillance or monitoring technology is let's say only you can only carry it on a UAV. What do you think?
Did you get that or was I a little off base? No I got it completely. I think that the misconceptions are overwhelming. I told you you know in the past there's in a lot of ways the problems are not the drones themselves right.
They're the sensors but the amount of monitoring of people that you can do on your cell phone these days is I mean is there applications of drones where it makes those surveillance situations worse. Yes obviously but at the same time no the problem is electronic privacy in a lot of ways more than drones. Right and you know I brought that up and I even said I mean it was kind of funny some of the arguments that were brought up.
I had you know the one woman from the ACLU I had kind of brought this up you know you've got your Facebook and how I got I got scrugelled in the morning and the cell phone and you know all the rest of the let's say invasions on your privacy and not that that's a dodge you know it's not a dodge.
Yeah there could be some issues with surveillance with this technology and I think we're going to realize that. But again back to the touchstone I think that the drones are very popular in the news and they haven't been able to get traction with some of the other stuff. You know and people say well I you know I carry to or I choose to carry a cell phone. I like all the applications and everything else you know I can post pictures of my breakfast croissant on Facebook and whatnot but it's kind of it's an interesting juxtaposition of the freedom or the privacy that people are giving up.
I think that people are kind of waking up to the privacy that they already gave away. The drone thing I mean to me I think there's already laws on the books for police use of this this technology. I'm not opposed to the some common sense legislation. I think a lot of it's just knee jerk but I do think that people after we were kind of explaining it to people yesterday you know the one woman oh can a helicopter fly in the window and it's like no but you know a helicopter can see you through the window you know with an EOIR sensor EO not so much IR.
But the EO I could look you know I can look in the window I could watch it you know you better draw your curtains but even easier I could probably watch you on you know your computer or monitor what you're saying or talking about. I mean again it's just a tool. The drone itself I think is just getting a bad rap for the privacy thing. I did have another woman ask you know she said that Alameda drone she described a lot of the limitations
and kind of gave me the you know it's kind of the groovy granny thing and she was kind of giving me the the cynical eye about you know what good is this drone it can't fly in much weather only stays in the air for 20 minutes yada yada we're wasting our time and money.
And I think it was in reference to the Alameda sheriff's department and she was talking but again that misconception I'm like okay well you know that's that those are the limitations of that particular model but you know I brought up like the ScanEagle you know I think that was another thing. And you know it was kind of a thing where a lot of people have just kind of woken up to the drones and they think that this is all a new thing. What's your take on that, Jed?
Yeah I mean it's again it all goes back to the media coverage. Now that suddenly it's the hot topic in the media it's in front of everybody's faces. I mean this stuff has been around for you know 10 years. Like nothing has substantially changed in the short term with their use.
It's just now a media topic and all of a sudden they're everywhere but when the reality is that nothing's changed. Exactly and you know I gave that analogy I think that people think you know I think there's also I definitely felt apprehension in the military application part of it and let's say the beating these swords into plowshares but like I said yesterday it's kind of like well wait a minute. The plowshares got turned into swords
and then the swords are now going back to the plowshares and I tried to use the example of ScanEagle and the development of ScanEagle to find fish and I mean the looks you were in the back but you know I got a lot of feedback from people's faces and you know they looked kind of confused now wait a minute.
You know it's like yeah no there have been people out there doing this since the I would say mid late 90s. Everyone looked shocked on that. It's going on every day. Thousands of people are doing it.
You can go on to you know Google it. You can go on to the RC hobby websites. The people are taking photographs for the real estate and agriculture and science and you know there's there all these myriad of uses and people out there they're already using them and it's just nobody talks about it. It's Emperor's new clothes.
But it's going on everywhere and people looked a little shocked to me. They were like you know kind of looking around kind of confused but it's not new. It's going on. There's you know I mean I don't know.
I think it's kind of funny being an advocate for the small business use of this that so many people are out there doing it right now and the FAA kind of acts like it's not happening or you can't find these people or there's nothing going on. And it's all new. The other thing I thought was kind of funny was that you know the EFF guy Trevor when I told him you know they think it was a big revelation that they FOIA'd the COAs
and you know found all this information out and yada yada and when I told him hey you know I tried to FOIA that same information back in 2008 or 2009 because I wanted to know what was going on they looked a little surprised.
But I think there was more to it than that. I think there was more in common than there were differences really. And I hope that yesterday I mean I don't I think that there were some there was the wide spectrum in the room you know you had the hardcore you know anti-drone people and then that spectrum went to the other side. There was even one guy that was sitting back there and I don't think he was a plant but he kind of mirrored the same thing we were saying.
Hey wait a minute don't throw all of the don't don't don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Your take on the crown. I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree entirely.
I unfortunately have to jump off the call Patrick. Don't tell me you got a job to go to. No. Somebody just showed up.
I have a meeting that I have to run in. Well I think I appreciate your time Chad and I think we pretty much covered the event yesterday. Thanks for your time on that one. I hope that people listen to this and maybe use it to open their mind a little bit and then also some topics to bring up if they get into that situation.
Again Chad thank you for your time being on today and I will see you soon buddy. Thank you. I really appreciate it Patrick. It's been and again I emphasize that you did a absolutely fantastic job yesterday so you should feel very proud about that.
Thank you sir for the vote of confidence. Have a good day. You do. Bye.