During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) questioned Laura K. Donohue, Professor of Law at Georgetown Law, about privacy concerns of drones.
00:00for coming in late. I had another hearing in appropriations with Secretary Kennedy and I'm
00:04sorry I missed the opening. Special thanks to Ms. Daskal and Professor Donahue, our witnesses that
00:10I was not here to introduce. Thanks Senator Grassley for doing that. So I'm sure most of us
00:17were watching the Cubs Sox series in Wrigley Field this weekend and I was struck by the fact that
00:23they were doting on the capacity they had with a drone to show images of Wrigley Field from
00:31angles and perspectives never known before. It was beautiful and the Cubs won so it was a good day
00:37all around. But it raised a question in my mind that I wanted to pose to several members of the
00:43panel here. If I were sitting in Wrigley Field with a friend or son or granddaughter and I saw a drone
00:51overhead I would want to be sure that it was a safe and friendly drone. I don't know that when
00:57I'm sitting there. Somebody has to find out or at least ask the question. With over a million drones
01:03in our country today and drones possibly hovering over fields of sports and other things it raises
01:11the question of who is going to monitor that activity to make sure these are safe vehicles
01:16and air vehicles that don't endanger anyone. At the same time those drones could be gathering
01:23information. Not so much at a ball field but maybe even a wedding or someone's home. There's a privacy
01:29angle there too. Who's protecting the privacy of the people that they are broadcasting or gathering
01:36information on? So I'd like to ask Professor Donahue how do you balance this? The drones over Wrigley
01:42field? Are they friendly or not? The gathering of information in my own backyard? Is it anybody's
01:48business? Who's protecting me? Thank you very much for the question. For the as a matter of large-scale
01:56outdoor events for instance most states have regulations and laws in place that prohibit the
02:02flight of drones over certain large-scale events. They require that there be agreement some consent from
02:09the property owner or from the venue owner in order or some sort of contract in place.
02:14There in terms of how to balance those rights and the privacy most states they actually have carve out
02:20saying that you others cannot fly drones over private property without the consent of the property owner
02:26themselves because owing to this ancient doctrine of ad column property owners own the adjacent airspace
02:33over their land and so they have the right to exclude drones. Let's talk about the practical world.
02:38You've got air traffic controllers monitoring commercial aircraft other aircraft but in terms of
02:44monitoring actual drone activity to the point of knowing whether it's complying with the state law
02:49and if it's not what to do about it what's the answer there? Anything below 400 feet is within the state
02:55domain that is adjacent airspace. How is it enforced? Through state monitoring of this there are also there are
03:01agreements with the FAA for instance if you need to have a temporary flight restriction over particular areas
03:06as during for instance the Super Bowl. In those cases the way to balance the civil liberties concerns
03:12is to make sure that there are restrictions. For instance you don't extend the Super Bowl coverage
03:17for a month and you don't extend it over any land or any drone anywhere in the country but it has to be
03:23a drone that's actually adjacent to that particular site. So when the federal government is involved if there's the potential for the federal government to take down a drone
03:31or to interfere in its operation or to conduct a search of the device itself then there needs to
03:36be some nexus to the actual open air facility or the place that's trying to be protected.
03:41Professor Donohue if counter drone authorities are not drafted carefully could they permit government
03:47authorities to intercept data or communications in violation of the fourth amendment?
03:52Yes. Thank you for that. Mr. Chairman. Senator Lee. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thanks to each of you for being here. Over the last 15 years or so
