Do we need tougher regulations on commercial drones after White House crash?

Do we need tougher regulations on commercial drones after White House crash?

The crash on the White House lawn of a drone piloted by a government employee has led to concerns about security on the grounds of the president's primary residence.

In the end, it wasn’t a big deal: a commercially produced quadcopter drone that had been bought at a store crashed on the White House lawn on Monday after its owner lost control of it nearby. But it raises some significant concerns about the Secret Service’s ability to protect the White House grounds in the modern era.

Secret Service believe the man who was operating the drone was merely a government employee toying with the device remotely from his apartment when he lost control of the aircraft, but it caused a major security headache for the service, which should cause serious concerns about how to protect the president in the midst of an exploding drone industry, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial.

Many have called for regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration to get tougher on the hobbyist unmanned aircraft industry, raising questions of not just security but also privacy as well.

Congress ordered the FAA to develop new rules back in 2012, but so far no action has been taken on units that weight 55 pounds or less, and it would take a public comment period of at least a year even after such a regulation is proposed.

There are positive uses of drones, the editorial notes, including firefighting, inspection of bridges, news reporting, agriculture, and others, but the Post-Gazette argues for “sensible” limits to those uses.

At the very least, the Secret Service may need to deploy some sort of technology that would allow it to detect drones before they can reach the White House, as unmanned aircraft represent a new way that ordinary citizens — or potentially those with more unscrupulous intentions — can bypass security on the White House grounds.

The District of Columbia has a ban on flying drones outdoors, but that likely won’t be enough to protect the White House grounds, as Monday’s incident showed, the editorial board wrote.

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