Army Foresees Expanded Use of Drones in U.S. Airspace
The Army issued a new directive last week to govern the growing use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or “drones” within the United States for training missions and for “domestic operations.”
“The Army’s unmanned aircraft systems represent emerging technology that requires access to the National Airspace System,” wrote Army Secretary John M. McHugh in a January 13 memorandum.
Towards that end, the Army produced a revised policy on UAS operations to support “expanded UAS access to the National Airspace System.” A copy of the new policy was obtained by Secrecy News. See Army Directive 2012-02, January 13, 2012.
Much of the Army’s UAS activity will be devoted to UAS operator training conducted at or near military facilities, the policy indicates. But beyond such training activities, the military also envisions a role for UAS in unspecified “domestic operations” in civilian airspace, according to a 2007 Memorandum of Agreement between the Department of Defense and the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates domestic air traffic.
The 2007 Memorandum, which is appended to the new Army directive, was said to “allow, in accordance with applicable law, increased access for DoD UAS into the elements of the NAS [National Airspace System] outside of DoD-managed Restricted Areas or Warning Areas.”
The 2007 agreement was intended to “ensure DoD UAS assets have NAS access for domestic operations, including the War on Terror (WOT)…. This guidance applies to all DoD UAS, whether operated by Active, Reserve, National Guard, or other personnel.”
A prior edition of the Army’s “Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Regulations,” which will be updated to incorporate the latest policy, can be found on the Federation of American Scientists web site here.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation last week filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information on domestic drone operations.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.