SURVEILLANCE DRONE FUTURE - Big Brother Drone Surveillance Coming to a City Near You

Reacting to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' unveiling of prototype Octocopters that would deliver items weighing up to 2.3kg to customers within 30 minutes of an order being placed online, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) cautioned that without careful regulations, "companies could use drones for information gathering whether that is taking a photograph of your patio furniture or recording the make and model of your car."

"Coloradans will accept this technology only if they are certain their privacy is protected and that Americans won't be victims of surveillance or privacy abuse by private unmanned aerial system operators," said Udall.

Many have speculated that the only way to deter theft of the drones or the products they are delivering to customers will be to attach high-tech surveillance cameras to the devices that would feed live video footage back to a central database.

"One solution that has been floated is installing cameras on the drones, but just the mention of eyes in the sky got America's privacy-obsessed sections seething," reports FirstPost.
The Octocopters set to be used by Amazon are designed to carry cameras weighing up to 5 pounds.

The U.S. Army said its latest defense technology — a vehicle-mounted laser — has passed a recent test with flying colors, successfully shooting a drone from the sky and intercepting and destroying several mortar rounds.

The technology probably won't be completely operational and ready for mission until 2022, because developers are going to be working on increasing the power and range of the lasers. And the Army still has decide whether or not to buy the system, officials said to AFP.

Customs and Border Protection, which operates under DHS, says that the Predator B drone was being flown on a "border security mission" 20 miles southwest of San Diego when it encountered an unknown mechanical failure.

By 2016, CBP wants drones flying in domestic airspace 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure a so-called "layered security strategy."

DARPA and the US Army have taken the wraps off ARGUS-IS, a 1.8-gigapixel video surveillance platform that can resolve details as small as six inches from an altitude of 20,000 feet (6km), ExtremeTech reports.

The U.S. State Department canceled its $1 billion surveillance drone competition, saying none of the proposals met its requirements, according to the U.S. government's Federal Business Opportunities website.


The State Department "plans to examine closely the requirements stipulated in the solicitation with the intent of developing and releasing a new" request for drone proposals, according to the notice.

The Texas legislature passed a bill this past weekend that would see a blanket ban on capturing moving or still images on private property with an unmanned drone.

The legislation, House Bill 912, authored by Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, will make it a Class C misdemeanor for anyone to use a drone for surveillance of an individual without their prior consent. Further distributing any images captured as a result of such activity will be a class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $10,000.

The bill states that "Each image a person possesses, discloses, displays, distributes, or otherwise uses in violation of this section is a separate offense. An offense under this section for the disclosure, display, distribution, or other use of an image is a Class B misdemeanor."

Exceptions to the legislation, known as the 'Texas Privacy Act', will be police use of drones to pursue known felons or conduct criminal investigations. Using drones to investigate misdemeanors will require a warrant. In addition, use of drones to survey accidents, disasters or potential hazardous spills will be permitted