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Sen. Paul proposes bill protecting Americans from drone surveillance

133 points by stfu 14y ago

noonespecial 14y ago
I think looking too closely at "drones" in particular just makes the problem more obscured. What we are really dealing with is that technology in general is making surveillance so easy that police have started using it to go out looking for crimes to prosecute. When you add that together with a convoluted law system that criminalizes a great deal of the ordinary behavior of citizens and relies heavily on selective enforcement, you have a recipe for some serious abuses.
gm 14y ago
Trying really, really hard not to make a sarcastic comment about the gov't protecting Americans from itself...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
Alex3917 14y ago
I doubt this will pass. Many have speculated that Rand is angling for the VP nomination by positioning himself as Romney's biggest competitor for 2016 (if Romney wins), meaning that nominating him as VP would be a smart way to take out his biggest competitor. He has been doing a bunch of things like this lately in order to raise his own profile.
- nirvana 14y ago
  Quite possibly you're right on both accounts. The interesting thing to me is that drones on domestic soil (and the TSA, another one of Rand's issues) has been around for years. Any politician could have made it an issue and introduced legislation along these lines at any point in time, and would have raised their profile in doing so. But they didn't. They've been silent. Where's the legislation to repeal the PATRIOT ACT? I didn't see any, but instead its been expanded and extended. Why isn't [pick-your-favorite-politician] vowing to take a stand against these evil things? I wish Rand doing this were not at all news because there were 200+ people on capital hill raising similar issues and taking a stand against violations of people's rights.
  - saryant 14y ago
    Rand did give a pretty good speech against the renewal of the PATRIOT ACT the last time it was up for a vote. I think it was about two years ago.
  - readme 14y ago
    Government was the primary cause of unnatural death in the 20th century.
- planetguy 14y ago
  > Many have speculated that Rand is angling for the VP nomination by positioning himself as Romney's biggest competitor for 2016 (if Romney wins) Who are these "Many" and what meds are they on? These people are suggesting that if Romney wins in 2012 and doesn't choose Rand Paul as VP then Rand Paul is going to run against him in 2016... and be a serious threat?
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    Actually Romney already had a private meeting with Rand recently: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/meeting-rand-paul-mitt-romney-tame-tempest/story?id=16433274#.T9kBzStYvzg http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/meeting-rand-paul-mitt-r... And shortly after meeting Rand said that it would be an honor to be Romney's VP if chosen. And here is CBS saying that he's strongly expected to consider running in 2016 or 2020: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57449843-503544/rand-paul-it-would-be-an-honor-to-be-considered-to-be-romneys-vp/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57449843-503544/rand-... It's pretty clear that the only way Rand will definitely not run in 2016 is if he is Romney's VP nomination. And right now Rand is the only Republican whose actively positioning himself for 2016 on a near daily basis, so he is kind of Romney's biggest 2016 competitor by default. I don't have a specific source for the actual claim, but I've definitely seen it repeated by many people across the blogosphere.
    - planetguy 14y ago
      Oh, certainly I'm sure that Rand Paul will eventually run for President when Ron Paul gets too old for it. If Romney loses then one Paul or the other will be up on the stage in 2016, getting 9% of the vote and eventually losing to Chris Christie (or Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal). If Romney is President in 2016 then a primary challenge from Rand Paul is no threat whatsoever. The only way the Pauls could threaten Romney is to run as a third party candidate and siphon off enough of the vote to ensure a Democrat win. I don't think they'll do that though.
      - Alex3917 14y ago
        "The only way the Pauls could threaten Romney is to run as a third party candidate and siphon off enough of the vote to ensure a Democrat win. I don't think they'll do that though." They don't actually have to do that though, they only need enough support to credibly threaten it. And since right now Ron is polling almost equal to Obama in a head to head race, the threat is certainly real.
- mayneack 14y ago
  If he's angling for VP, he shouldn't be going against the party line so hard this close to the election. If he's going for 2016, this seems like a fine idea.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    He actually just endorsed Romney a couple days ago, after the two had a private meeting. I don't think it's necessarily likely that he'll get the VP slot, but I do think that if that's his goal then he is going just enough against the platform to stand out in a positive way right now.
    - mayneack 14y ago
      Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a >0% chance that he'll be VP, but I don't think this will help at all. He doesn't have to worry about going against the platform enough. If he really wants VP he has to worry about going too far outside. It's really hard to answer the inevitable question of "Why did you introduce a bill in June that is directly opposed to Governor Romney's position on drone security?" That is, assuming (which I think is safe to do) that Romney is in favor of these drones.
mikemarotti 14y ago
I wasn't even aware this was happening. Frightening stuff.
chad_oliver 14y ago
Now how about a bill protecting humans from drone surveillance? This is like a bill that says 'torture is okay, as long as you don't torture US citizens'. I don't have any strong opinion about the moral correctness of drone surveillance, but if you admit that it's not good enough for your constituents ...
- drcube 14y ago
  Stop making sense. Next you'll start on about how people should be able to work, vote and run for office regardless of which patch of dirt their mothers delivered them on. Turning away brown people from our shores and then slaughtering them in other countries is my God-given right as an American.
mrspandex 14y ago
I understand that drones make aerial surveillance much cheaper and easier, but why specify drone surveillance and not aerial surveillance in general? It bothers me that there is such a fear around drones. Please remember that many people would like to use them for far less nefarious purposes - real estate photography, farming, etc.
- nirvana 14y ago
  I don't know the status of the legislation but I heard that a bill was introduced (and possibly passed) that criminalized use of drones by private entities, allowing only government to use them. So, the political position seems to be that its ok for spying, but not ok for mapping farmland or photography.
- mtgx 14y ago
  They could just pass a bill saying the Government is not allowed to use drone surveillance, and they can't get private companies to do it for them either. Otherwise companies (and people?) are allowed to use drones.
- planetguy 14y ago
  The difference is that manned aerial surveillance (i.e. police helicopters and the occasional plane) is sufficiently expensive that they only do it occasionally. If there's a police helicopter in the air it's probably doing some specific task. The fear is that drone surveillance could become sufficiently cheap that the police could have a constant fleet of drones circling over the city and capable of looking at anything at a moment's notice.
oinksoft 14y ago
Best of luck to him, but this really isn't Hacker News (flagged).
tzs 14y ago
Some things that would be banned under this bill: • using a drone to patrol the freeway looking for drunk drivers (well, technically they could use a drone to look but they would not be able to send a ground officer to cite the drunk driver), • using a drone to track the getaway car from a bank robbery, • searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent. In the first example, a drone COULD be used to patrol the freeway looking for disabled cars or accidents, but if any criminal activity were observed during such patrols the evidence from the drone could not be used against the criminals. This is typical Rand Paul--it is designed to sound good and make it look like he is looked out for The People on some important issue, but the bill is written to be so overly broad that it won't have much chance of actually passing--which I suspect is fine with Paul. Another example of that was an amendment he tried that would have made it so that former Congressmen who become lobbyists lose their benefits. Sounds like a good idea, right? Of course it does--but then when you check the details you find that "lobbyist" is defined so broadly as to include anyone who gets money from the Federal government or gets money by working for someone who gets money from the Federal government. For instance, if a former Congressman is a physician, and after leaving Congress goes to work at a rural medical clinic--and that clinic accepts payments from Medicare, that physician would be a lobbyist under Rand Paul's amendment and would lose his benefits. Of course that amendment went nowhere, but now Paul can paint himself if he wishes as a guy who tried to fight the corrupting influence of former Congressman becoming lobbyists.
- warmwaffles 14y ago
  > searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent. That is going to prevent the bill from passing. If they use the "protect the children" argument
- maratd 14y ago
  I don't want civilian police forces using military equipment for any reason. It's really that simple. Rand Paul gets it.
  - tzs 14y ago
    Drones are no more military equipment than are guns, cars, and radios. All of those are equipment that is used both by civilians and by the military.
tbeseda 14y ago
The discussion around the use of drones lately has risen out of the revelation that the EPA is using them to surveil cattle ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa to enforce the Clean Water Act (http://news.yahoo.com/epa-drones-spy-farmers-nebraska-iowa-150411579.html http://news.yahoo.com/epa-drones-spy-farmers-nebraska-iowa-1...). The recent panic around unmanned surveillance seems odd to me given the excellent quality of imagery from low-orbit satellites that have been around for much longer.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  The problem here is that it's 100% certain that this technology is going to be used for 24/7 surveillance in major cities. It's guaranteed. It's a giant leap forward in surveillance.
- lhnn 14y ago
  It's about the ease and cost of use. Not every local police dept. is going to have on-demand access to a LEO satellite for tracking purposes. These bulky UAVs are the tip of the iceberg. What happens when police can have $20 robotic hummingbirds with 300ft audio/visual range? The past 40 years have shown the government will always do their best to breach privacy rights to meet their (sometimes noble) ends. Their passion needs to be countered by privacy protections, sad as it may seem. I don't know about this bill (haven't read it), but something like this needs to come along to protect the people from the government.
patrickod 14y ago
So US citizens will be afforded greater protection while foreign citizens living in the US will be possibly subjected to yet further scrutiny? Human rights seem to vary greatly on your nationality and it seems that the divide grows year on year.
- AutoCorrect 14y ago
  the Constitution was written to protect the Citizens of the country.
ericingram 14y ago
I support this
scotty79 14y ago
> ... would require the government to obtain a warrant to use drones with the exception of .... or when there are risks of a terrorist attack. Great now police will have to invent more terrorists to do their jobs as efficiently as allowed by modern technology. > t would prohibit evidence collected with warrantless drone surveillance from being used as evidence in court That might lead one to funny case one day when they will have to let murder loose because there is no evidence except footage from police drone accidentally passing by. Everyone will forget about OJ.
Tichy 14y ago
If I remember correctly, the US just released a virus into the wild that is designed to collect all information it can possibly gather about anyone. How credible does that make any privacy protection laws?

133 points by stfu 14y ago

I think looking too closely at "drones" in particular just makes the problem more obscured. What we are really dealing with is that technology in general is making surveillance so easy that police have started using it to go out looking for crimes to prosecute. When you add that together with a convoluted law system that criminalizes a great deal of the ordinary behavior of citizens and relies heavily on selective enforcement, you have a recipe for some serious abuses.

gm 14y ago

Trying really, really hard not to make a sarcastic comment about the gov't protecting Americans from itself...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

Alex3917 14y ago

I doubt this will pass. Many have speculated that Rand is angling for the VP nomination by positioning himself as Romney's biggest competitor for 2016 (if Romney wins), meaning that nominating him as VP would be a smart way to take out his biggest competitor. He has been doing a bunch of things like this lately in order to raise his own profile.

nirvana 14y ago
Quite possibly you're right on both accounts. The interesting thing to me is that drones on domestic soil (and the TSA, another one of Rand's issues) has been around for years. Any politician could have made it an issue and introduced legislation along these lines at any point in time, and would have raised their profile in doing so. But they didn't. They've been silent. Where's the legislation to repeal the PATRIOT ACT? I didn't see any, but instead its been expanded and extended. Why isn't [pick-your-favorite-politician] vowing to take a stand against these evil things? I wish Rand doing this were not at all news because there were 200+ people on capital hill raising similar issues and taking a stand against violations of people's rights.
- saryant 14y ago
  Rand did give a pretty good speech against the renewal of the PATRIOT ACT the last time it was up for a vote. I think it was about two years ago.
- readme 14y ago
  Government was the primary cause of unnatural death in the 20th century.
planetguy 14y ago
> Many have speculated that Rand is angling for the VP nomination by positioning himself as Romney's biggest competitor for 2016 (if Romney wins) Who are these "Many" and what meds are they on? These people are suggesting that if Romney wins in 2012 and doesn't choose Rand Paul as VP then Rand Paul is going to run against him in 2016... and be a serious threat?
- Alex3917 14y ago
  Actually Romney already had a private meeting with Rand recently: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/meeting-rand-paul-mitt-romney-tame-tempest/story?id=16433274#.T9kBzStYvzg http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/meeting-rand-paul-mitt-r... And shortly after meeting Rand said that it would be an honor to be Romney's VP if chosen. And here is CBS saying that he's strongly expected to consider running in 2016 or 2020: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57449843-503544/rand-paul-it-would-be-an-honor-to-be-considered-to-be-romneys-vp/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57449843-503544/rand-... It's pretty clear that the only way Rand will definitely not run in 2016 is if he is Romney's VP nomination. And right now Rand is the only Republican whose actively positioning himself for 2016 on a near daily basis, so he is kind of Romney's biggest 2016 competitor by default. I don't have a specific source for the actual claim, but I've definitely seen it repeated by many people across the blogosphere.
  - planetguy 14y ago
    Oh, certainly I'm sure that Rand Paul will eventually run for President when Ron Paul gets too old for it. If Romney loses then one Paul or the other will be up on the stage in 2016, getting 9% of the vote and eventually losing to Chris Christie (or Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal). If Romney is President in 2016 then a primary challenge from Rand Paul is no threat whatsoever. The only way the Pauls could threaten Romney is to run as a third party candidate and siphon off enough of the vote to ensure a Democrat win. I don't think they'll do that though.
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      "The only way the Pauls could threaten Romney is to run as a third party candidate and siphon off enough of the vote to ensure a Democrat win. I don't think they'll do that though." They don't actually have to do that though, they only need enough support to credibly threaten it. And since right now Ron is polling almost equal to Obama in a head to head race, the threat is certainly real.
mayneack 14y ago
If he's angling for VP, he shouldn't be going against the party line so hard this close to the election. If he's going for 2016, this seems like a fine idea.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  He actually just endorsed Romney a couple days ago, after the two had a private meeting. I don't think it's necessarily likely that he'll get the VP slot, but I do think that if that's his goal then he is going just enough against the platform to stand out in a positive way right now.
  - mayneack 14y ago
    Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a >0% chance that he'll be VP, but I don't think this will help at all. He doesn't have to worry about going against the platform enough. If he really wants VP he has to worry about going too far outside. It's really hard to answer the inevitable question of "Why did you introduce a bill in June that is directly opposed to Governor Romney's position on drone security?" That is, assuming (which I think is safe to do) that Romney is in favor of these drones.

mikemarotti 14y ago

I wasn't even aware this was happening. Frightening stuff.

chad_oliver 14y ago

Now how about a bill protecting humans from drone surveillance? This is like a bill that says 'torture is okay, as long as you don't torture US citizens'. I don't have any strong opinion about the moral correctness of drone surveillance, but if you admit that it's not good enough for your constituents ...

drcube 14y ago
Stop making sense. Next you'll start on about how people should be able to work, vote and run for office regardless of which patch of dirt their mothers delivered them on. Turning away brown people from our shores and then slaughtering them in other countries is my God-given right as an American.

mrspandex 14y ago

I understand that drones make aerial surveillance much cheaper and easier, but why specify drone surveillance and not aerial surveillance in general? It bothers me that there is such a fear around drones. Please remember that many people would like to use them for far less nefarious purposes - real estate photography, farming, etc.

nirvana 14y ago
I don't know the status of the legislation but I heard that a bill was introduced (and possibly passed) that criminalized use of drones by private entities, allowing only government to use them. So, the political position seems to be that its ok for spying, but not ok for mapping farmland or photography.
mtgx 14y ago
They could just pass a bill saying the Government is not allowed to use drone surveillance, and they can't get private companies to do it for them either. Otherwise companies (and people?) are allowed to use drones.
planetguy 14y ago
The difference is that manned aerial surveillance (i.e. police helicopters and the occasional plane) is sufficiently expensive that they only do it occasionally. If there's a police helicopter in the air it's probably doing some specific task. The fear is that drone surveillance could become sufficiently cheap that the police could have a constant fleet of drones circling over the city and capable of looking at anything at a moment's notice.

oinksoft 14y ago

Best of luck to him, but this really isn't Hacker News (flagged).

tzs 14y ago

Some things that would be banned under this bill: • using a drone to patrol the freeway looking for drunk drivers (well, technically they could use a drone to look but they would not be able to send a ground officer to cite the drunk driver), • using a drone to track the getaway car from a bank robbery, • searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent. In the first example, a drone COULD be used to patrol the freeway looking for disabled cars or accidents, but if any criminal activity were observed during such patrols the evidence from the drone could not be used against the criminals. This is typical Rand Paul--it is designed to sound good and make it look like he is looked out for The People on some important issue, but the bill is written to be so overly broad that it won't have much chance of actually passing--which I suspect is fine with Paul. Another example of that was an amendment he tried that would have made it so that former Congressmen who become lobbyists lose their benefits. Sounds like a good idea, right? Of course it does--but then when you check the details you find that "lobbyist" is defined so broadly as to include anyone who gets money from the Federal government or gets money by working for someone who gets money from the Federal government. For instance, if a former Congressman is a physician, and after leaving Congress goes to work at a rural medical clinic--and that clinic accepts payments from Medicare, that physician would be a lobbyist under Rand Paul's amendment and would lose his benefits. Of course that amendment went nowhere, but now Paul can paint himself if he wishes as a guy who tried to fight the corrupting influence of former Congressman becoming lobbyists.

warmwaffles 14y ago
> searching for a child who has been taken without authorization by a non-custodial parent. That is going to prevent the bill from passing. If they use the "protect the children" argument
maratd 14y ago
I don't want civilian police forces using military equipment for any reason. It's really that simple. Rand Paul gets it.
- tzs 14y ago
  Drones are no more military equipment than are guns, cars, and radios. All of those are equipment that is used both by civilians and by the military.

tbeseda 14y ago

The discussion around the use of drones lately has risen out of the revelation that the EPA is using them to surveil cattle ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa to enforce the Clean Water Act (http://news.yahoo.com/epa-drones-spy-farmers-nebraska-iowa-150411579.html http://news.yahoo.com/epa-drones-spy-farmers-nebraska-iowa-1...). The recent panic around unmanned surveillance seems odd to me given the excellent quality of imagery from low-orbit satellites that have been around for much longer.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
The problem here is that it's 100% certain that this technology is going to be used for 24/7 surveillance in major cities. It's guaranteed. It's a giant leap forward in surveillance.
lhnn 14y ago
It's about the ease and cost of use. Not every local police dept. is going to have on-demand access to a LEO satellite for tracking purposes. These bulky UAVs are the tip of the iceberg. What happens when police can have $20 robotic hummingbirds with 300ft audio/visual range? The past 40 years have shown the government will always do their best to breach privacy rights to meet their (sometimes noble) ends. Their passion needs to be countered by privacy protections, sad as it may seem. I don't know about this bill (haven't read it), but something like this needs to come along to protect the people from the government.

patrickod 14y ago

So US citizens will be afforded greater protection while foreign citizens living in the US will be possibly subjected to yet further scrutiny? Human rights seem to vary greatly on your nationality and it seems that the divide grows year on year.

AutoCorrect 14y ago
the Constitution was written to protect the Citizens of the country.

ericingram 14y ago

I support this

scotty79 14y ago

> ... would require the government to obtain a warrant to use drones with the exception of .... or when there are risks of a terrorist attack. Great now police will have to invent more terrorists to do their jobs as efficiently as allowed by modern technology. > t would prohibit evidence collected with warrantless drone surveillance from being used as evidence in court That might lead one to funny case one day when they will have to let murder loose because there is no evidence except footage from police drone accidentally passing by. Everyone will forget about OJ.

Tichy 14y ago

If I remember correctly, the US just released a virus into the wild that is designed to collect all information it can possibly gather about anyone. How credible does that make any privacy protection laws?