alt Hacker NewsFAA institutes nationwide drone no-fly zones around ICE operations
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This is a useful measure to point the law as a weapon against drone operators who may be recording what’s going on by accident or on purpose. Any drone made in the last few years is going to be emitting its ID, which likely has been registered with the pilot’s name and contact information.
They can then after the fact come down on that person without having to get facial recognition, grab cellphone beacons, or other similar steps.
This is overreach. Congress didn't give them this power.
See Loper-Bright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...
How is an operator supposed to recognize these “MOBILE ASSETS”? For the case of ICE, ICE is reputed to try fairly hard to make it challenging to recognize their mobile assets. But the NOTAM says nothing about ICE per se, and there are lots of things that seem like they would qualify. On multiple occasions, I suspect that I have personally transported “DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY … MOBILE ASSETS”, and any drone flying nearby would have seen this as … a rental car with a couple people in it. All the DOE assets would have been in the trunk or maybe the back seat. Definitely assets and definitely mobile, but I suppose a court would need to determine whether they were MOBILE ASSETS or whether they were sufficiently associated with the DOE.
(Also, had this been in effect and if a drone had been a part of the project, which would not have been unreasonable [0], it would have been really annoying if I was carrying a portable do-not-fly zone and needed to get permission from the agency to take some photos of the equipment I was carrying.)
[0] To be fair, part of this project was in a location where operating a drone would have been inappropriate for reasons that have nothing to do with the FAA or national security.
Not shady at all. Can’t have the public see what’s going on.
> ALL UNMANNED ACFT ARE PROHIBITED FROM FLYING WITHIN A STAND-OFF DISTANCE OF 3000FT ... LATERALLY AND 1000FT ABOVE ...
> TO: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD), DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE), AND DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS) FACILITIES AND MOBILE ASSETS, INCLUDING VESSELS AND GROUND VEHICLE CONVOYS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED ESCORTS, SUCH AS UNITED STATES COAST GUARD (USCG) OPERATED VESSELS
Much more restrictive than just ICE operations.
So be a polite and compliant drone operator and when you find yourself in the middle of an operation because there was not an actual TFR, park the drone on the edge of a building roof where the camera can still operate thus the drone is silent, saving power and compliant. Being parked on the edge of a roof with props powered off is not flying.
@FAA can you tell I am still annoyed by your poorly thought out highly spoofable RemoteID implementation and lack of integration to ADS-B...
I don’t fully understand why drone operators follow these laws. Or any “no-fly” rules in general. Around an airport, it seems like common sense to not fly. Can’t someone just…buy/build a drone and fly is surreptitiously?
This is literally been the entire purpose of all drone regulations. Hobby aircraft have never been a legitimate public safety issue, but they are an issue for the state's ability to hide. There is and will always be a public interest in recording activity happening in public places, but a majority of drone laws essentially make it impossible to legally record public events from a private drone.
So, is the FAA going to provide something like IceBlock so that it's possible to obey the new regulations?
Are you saying the FAA has a permanent and up to date list of ICE operations? Because if so, that's a public list and something that some might be very interested in for knowing when and where ICE is operating.
And if they don't, there is no basis for enforcement, so we're done.
Doesn’t anything under 250g basically slip under the radar (not literally radar). Seems like most drones they care about might end up not being trackable anyway.
My understanding is that DJI drones no longer enforce no-fly zones. Supposedly they still warn you when entering a restricted zone, but hard geofencing functionality is no longer in effect. Anyone know if that's true?
I wonder if these vessels, convoys, etc. are going to jam drones or use some other anti-drone weapon and this NOTAM allows that by saying "we can intercept or destroy it if it comes too close". That way they don't have to identify how much of a threat each individual drone is.
> But how will i know where such zones are ?!
Pilot here. This is not unprecedented. The same kind of thing applies to all major sporting events. They have no-fly zones but FAA provides NO official source for getting the info of when such events occur and why. It is left to the pilots to find out all major sporting events and stadiums around and when they have events, under serious penalties. It forces pilots to care about sportsball.
Bubble of protection is 3000 feet laterally and 1000 feet vertically. From the article:
“Unlike traditional Temporary Flight Restrictions, the NOTAM does not provide geographic coordinates, activation times, or public notification when the restriction is in effect near a specific location. Instead, the restricted airspace moves with DHS assets, meaning the no-fly zone can appear wherever ICE or other DHS units operate.”
“In practical terms, a drone operator flying legally in a public area could unknowingly enter restricted airspace if an ICE convoy passes within the protected radius.”