Registration and Background Checks

The Transportation Department wants to require recreational users to register their drones, which would dramatically increase the number of drones registered with the government, compared with the FAA’s proposed rules. While the FAA has issued nearly 1,900 approvals to companies for commercial-drone flights in the U.S., industry officials estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of recreational drones in the country. One FAA official said last month that some officials expect more than 1 million drones to be sold around Christmas this year. WSJ

And how much is this going to cost?  Not just to drone owner/operators but to the taxpayer as well?  I've seen registration fee estimates ranging from free to $5 but nothing on how much it's going to cost the government to keep track of all these drones (anyone looking for a database manager position? Information Security?).  Seriously, it's going to be a database filled with names, addresses and who knows what other data, what the government refers to as personally identifiable information (PII), all of which require expensive security protections mandated by federal law.

Good idea? Bad idea? Or would just banning recreational drone use within X feet of an airport, building, highway, etc. and leaving it to local law enforcement be a better option?  

California gets it Right?

California lawmakers approve measure restricting the use of drones over private property by a 43-11 vote.

State Bill 142 introduced by Sen Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) would make flying a drone less than 350 feet over private property a trespass violation.

A person wrongfully occupies real property and is liable for damages pursuant to Section 3334 if, without express permission of the person or entity with the legal authority to grant access or without legal authority, he or she operates an unmanned aircraft or unmanned aircraft system less than 350 feet above ground level within the airspace overlaying the real property.

The bill now heads to the California Senate.

 LA Times 

 Bill Text

Dude, Where's My Drone?

Our babe in the woods president is really playing hardball with the Iranians, who managed to get their grimy mitts on one of our high tech drones.  His statement:

"Let me be clear.  Bla bla bla..."

The Iranian response demonstrates that The Wages of Appeasement is humiliation...

On Tuesday, with Putin-like contempt, Iran demanded that Obama apologize instead. “Obama begs Iran to give him back his toy plane,” reveled the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

How did Iran get our drone?

I don't believe an America-hating mole in the CIA did this, as some of the more conspiratorial-minded have suggested.  It is possible that Iran Hijacked Our Drone, as a chest-thumping Iranian is now claiming.  They are not backwards people and they have help from China and Russia.

Add in our complacency (remember learning that Al Qaeda in Iraq had tapped into our unencrypted Predator drone feeds?), and it is a real possibility.  We are just about stupid enough to fly such advanced technology naked, believing no one is smart enough to take our toys away from us.  I don't know anything about our drone programs, but what the Iranian in the CS Monitor said sounds feasible if the aircraft's networks were not encrypted or if we failed to equip it with safeguards against GPS meaconing.

When will we start punishing complacency and incompetence?

Will anyone in our government or congress investigate this?  Does anyone get fired anymore?  General McChrystal is the only person I can recall getting fired for anything, and that was because he was stupid enough to invite a Rolling Stone reporter in on his staff's bull sessions where they trash talked the president (who the general voted for).

Another Plausible Scenario...

There could be a simpler, low tech answer.  A perfidious Pastun in the Afghan Army or some other group who is ostensibly "on our side" more than likely recovered the craft inside Afghanistan and trucked it over to Iran.

The CIA’s RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone captured by the Iranians last week may have gone down in Afghanistan and then transported to Iran by friendly forces on the ground, a former officer in the elite Quds Force branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards told The Daily Caller. [...]

However, photographs and video footage released by the Iranians on Dec. 8, several days after they announced the drone’s capture, clearly show that both wings had been neatly severed and then reattached.

“This suggests that the drone landed safely and that its wings were cut off so it could be transported by truck,” the former Quds Force officer said. “I believe it was captured by the Taliban inside Afghanistan and transferred to the Iranians, who then reattached the wings,” he added. (Daily Caller)

I don't know what happened, but that seems the most likely scenario. We have no friends over there. The Afghan soldiers we train end up shooting at our soldiers, and the billions in cash we lavish on that hopeless land is split between Karzai's gang of bandits and the Taliban...

Truth be known, neither the Karzai regime, nor the Taliban warlords, want the Americans out of Afghanistan. The treasure we pour into that country sustains the ruling cabal and the Taliban alike. We are the straight man at the bazaar, the stranger fleeced by the locals. (Fouad Ajami)

We are suckers.  We're being played for fools.  We are throwing our technological pearls before swine, and we are shedding American blood for people who hate us. Obama needs to wrap up Afghanistan in the same manner he did Iraq.  We'll take our drones away and let them get back to shooting down kites.

 
What do you think?

UPDATE:  Here's a story from Aviation Week with lots of technical details:  Iran UAV Will Not Expose Latest Technology