Federal Aviation Administration drone head sites to talk about current research. Are asking our viewers to call in and tell us what you think about domestic drone use. You support or oppose it . Give us a call and tell us why. If you are outside the u. S. , you can catch up with us on social media pages on twitter, facebook or email. A good friday morning to you. We will be keeping our phones yourthis morning as we get thoughts on this question. Domestic drones. Tell us why. Ew the meantime, this p Research Project finding came out. It notes that the legal and Regulatory Framework for operating nonmilitary drones is currently the subject of debate. Part of the topic we are talking about today on the washington journal heard to help us discuss and get this topic going, we are bringing in brian fong of the Washington Post heard he is a Technology Writer there. Start us off by talking about what the rules are for commercial drone use. The faa is working on more clear rules about drones. That is set up a situation where it is actually legal for commercial drones to be used at low altitudes for minor purposes. In the industry say that the faa needs to more speedily develop clear rules that need to be applied to commercial drones in a wider setting. Host how is he faa going about his process yucca . Guest it is not expected to meet its official deadline, which is august of this year. Maybe sometime after that. The hope is that by the end of this year, the faa will have some kind of formal rulemaking on small drones. Host in the meantime, what is the framework . Guest commercial drone use is not allowed. Is an exception. If youre a private citizen there area drone, exceptions there. You cant use a drone for commercial purposes. The judge in the court today the faas ban on commercial drones, saying that the attempt that the faa made to go against this one commercial was unfounded, based like. Cooper case wehe will be getting into. I want to ask our viewers to call and. Domestic use of drones, do you oppose or support them . Lets go to the phones. Outhe line for independents of battle ground, washington. Michael, you are on the washington journal. Talking about flying it is wrong. It aggravates the whole planet, pretty much. We do whatever we want. When we go to our country and have people flying around monitoring cattle, it creates propaganda and paranoia. Without specific reasons for why it is happening besides killing people in spying on American People, it creates nothing but constant drama for the whole planet. Host michael from battle ground, washington. What are some examples of a commercial use of a drone . Great example that has come up consistently is in agriculture. There are wineries that use drones abroad to monitor the soil quality or monitor the air quality, monitor when the grapes are ripe to be sprayed with pesticides and things like that. It allows farmers to be much more specific and targeted about how they produce their crops. In to ahis ties back computerized system where they to use data and analytics improve their crop yields, essentially. Agriculture is one place where a lot of drone enthusiasts have focused their attention. Toa letter that was sent members of Congress Earlier this month, there was joy being , allrs, barley growers signed onto this letter. Agriculture is one big area where drone use can be used commercially. Host becky writes in on our facebook page. We are asking our viewers for comments. Lets go to don waiting in pennsylvania on our line for independents. Caller good morning. I want to mention the noise factor. I think we have too much stuff flying around in the air as it is. Used by the police is kind of scary. Just spying by anybody is scary. I will hang up now and listen to what you have to say. Host don in pennsylvania. Guest don, to your question, that is a great criticism. During drones are noisy technology. We have to figure out how we will integrate them socially into the United States, beyond all the technical questions that we face. That goes as well for the liability question. Moment now where we dont have clear rules or clear understandings or guidelines about how we should respond. Part of that is technological. Before we can actually put drones in the air, we need to develop better sense and avoid technologies. Host the sea of tranquility question, have these liability laws been rewritten . Guest not to my knowledge. That is something that still has to be done. Host lets go to mike waiting in houston, texas, on our democratic line. I support the technology. I have a question for the guest. That there will be Second Amendment protection for citizen userivate of armed drones for selfdefense . That is a great question. Necessarily have a clear answer for that. I dont want to speculate about what the implications are. We are not quite there yet, but i will say is a very interesting possibility that i havent heard about yet. That is something worth about for sure. Host domestic use of drones. Commercial use is mostly what you talking about. Were going to be talking about one specific drug test site later in todays show. Right now were asking about domestic use of drones. Do you support it . Go to bill in st. Louis, missouri on our line for democrats. I am totally against drone use, domestic or military. What are your reasons why, bill . Caller i dont believe we should have drones flying in the air checking up on people. What is going to happen when china and russia start sending drones our way, or other countries . What were doing in yemen and other countries with drones killing people, innocent people a lot of times, i think it is crazy. If you really want to see where Drone Technology is going, watch the movie oblivion. The domesticack to use of drones and the rulemaking that is going on, talk a little bit about these test sites, these research and test sites theyre having. There are six victor on the country. We will be featuring one of. Hose later complain e often conflate military use of drones with private use. There tot sites are evaluate some of the implications that drones have for life in the United States. When drones fail, what happens when they fall to the ground or crash into something . Are places in nevada and north dakota, each of which is designed to do different tests. One in nevada is going to be looking at airtraffic control and what drones will mean for air traffic controllers. Decoders test site will be looking at data links that connect drones to the ground operators. They will be testing the security of that link. Each of the six test sites will beerfoing a slightly different function, although all of them will be interested in looking at safety very closely. Host we talked about the nevada test sites. That was announced at the end of last year. The state of nevada has its test site up air. After that was announced, dean heller, a senator from nevada, was at a hearing featuring the faa administrator. He talked about what the specific drone site would mean for the state of nevada. Theres a bit of what he had to say from that january hearing. [video clip] this makes perfect sense because we are, nevada is the birthplace of and manned aircraft System Industry in this country. We have scaled experience workforce and we have more militaryin nevada than all other 49 states combined. So i appreciate the administrator recognizing that in recognizing what nevada can contribute to this. It is also wellsuited to take on this testing. Some a projected that this could bring over 2 billion to a struggling economy in nevada and bring 12 to 15,000 good paying certainly is appreciated. However, in order for all this happened, we must do our work to make sure, as everyone has mentioned, that privacy and safety concerns are met. ,s drones are delivered hovering over the las vegas neighborhoods, we have received numerous concerns about that. Heller from nevada. Irish eyes writes on the subject. Good to julian waiting in canton, ohio. Julian, waiting in canton, ohio. Caller this is just going to snowball. Host did you say youre concerned about Police Department usage e . Can you talk about the Law Enforcement side . E . Cspan. Or guest there is lots of talk about the police application. Just surveying the scene to understand better what happened in the wake of an incident. There is definitely a lot of potential applications for Law Enforcement. Then there are a lot of privacy implications a come along with that. Were going to have to see how the United States is going to balance those two things moving forward. These Law Enforcement agencies around the country are looking at the price of drones compared to hunting a person and a helicopter above the scene, correct . Thats right. It is much more expensive to fly person in a helicopter. If a drone malfunctions, you place it. If a helicopter goes down it is a much bigger problem. Bill, domestic use of drones, do supported or opposed . . Really grateful for cspan putting it out there with no being for or against anything. That is great. The thing that really alarms me is that theyre giving a shortcut to terrorism. You can put a bomb or something one of these deals and do whatever you want to with it. It is something that should be outlawed. You know the nsa has already. Ost a drone over in iran they have control over was going on. His proliferation of spine is just leading to more unrest. It is not a good for the country. Thank you very much. Is her first name drones for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle . What is the proper term should drone echo guest the industry would prefer that everybody use unmanned aerial system. In common parlance everybody calls him drone. By now, most people using the term drone. That is probably the term were sticking with for now. One thing i do want to add is that we have not talked about potential application for drones in shipping. Is thinkingmazon about using drones to deliver isngs to the home, but there still quite a ways to go before amazon actually develops a workable Drone Technology. A differentgned delivery drones. At this point, what is more interesting to me is the use of for delivering packages from one amazon facility to another. We arty have substantial technology for autopilots. To imagine ad company like ups or amazon using drones to ship large packages in between its own facilities. Update. Heres her story according to cbs news. Were talking about those faa rules and regulations today on the washington journal as we are joined by ryan fong of the Washington Post. Joe waiting in maryland on our line for independence. Joe, good morning. I just wanted to thank you guys for putting this issue out there. It is an issue i am very interested in. We can speculate all day on the negative uses that this technology could bring about. I know theres a lot of sensationalist journalism and covers of the issue. You cant compare to other technologies such as vehicles and whatnot. When it was first introduced, we were hesitant to adopt the technology. As a person who is heavily involved with unmanned and manned solutions all over the world, one thing i would say is domestic use should be heavily regulated. This thomas a ban on arming the drones. To use it as far as border protection, Law Enforcement, crop, and everything else, is a great use that is the future of one of the upcoming future technologies. We really should utilize it, but heavily regulate. The Technology Needs to advance. You brought up earlier the parker case that is making its way through the court system. With a stunt drone pilot using estrone at the university of virginia. Were showing our viewers a bit of the video of some of his work down in charlottesville, virginia. Tell us more about this case. Rafael parker was filming a commercial. The faa fined him 10,000. So far, this is been the only case where an individual has actually been slapped with a fine. The faa has also written strong letters to other people who have used funds for commercial purposes. This was a really important test case for the commercial drone onlytry, because, as the person who has been issued a fined for using commercial drones, the outcome of the case goes a long way toward setting a precedent for how the faa and others relate to the regulation. Host what is the status of the case . Currently, most people believe that it is legal to use drones for commercial purposes below a certain threshold, although the legal gray area there is still very hazy. The faa has appealed, so now the question is going to go back to the courts. Guest i think in practice it would be hard to implement because the airspace we are considering regulating his National Airspace. The airspace above your home, technically does not belong to the nationalgs to airspace authorities. Their responsibility is to make sure that not only do the drones stay safe for consumers, but that they dont pose a danger to other aircraft and other things that are flying in the air. Michael in westville, indiana. You support or oppose drone use . Caller i oppose it. One of the reasons i oppose it is that when congress as he shall not use drones against broad,tizens, foreign or you have to ask the question of why does Congress Need to address this. Nsa is arty tapping my phone lines, and essays are doing all these things. When you start allowing the military and Law Enforcement uses drones, eventually theyre going to use it inappropriately. When, is that thing when he has all the power will eventually be corrupt. Who is watching the people who are watching me in my backyard . Most everything i do is completely benign, but eventually they will have a lot with this he cant smoke in your backyard and they use it drones. Hey he is smoking his backyard, he must have tobacco, lets go get him. Im all for a helicopter searching for that person. But drones are so easy and it is the Cost Effectiveness that i think will completely be abused. Farid in South Carolina on our line for democrats. Caller im kind of stuck between. More on domestic use. People dont take responsibility. You put people in oversight committees. Have personal responsibility. They just dont do it. Therefore, in domestic use, i think it is a bad idea. Not goingchnology is to go away. Either we are going to have it or another country is going to have it. It is just a matter of who wants to have the upper hand. International use, for terrorist activities. It forably could use , or cleaningpplies up with what is going on in different areas, but not drones. As we told you earlier, were going to go to one of those research and tech sites at the faa designated. There are six run the country. Were going to take you to somenia tech, where we did joint testing earlier this month. Well show you some video from that. We will be taking a live from that. Another one of those sites is in new york. Richard hanna, a republican congressman from new york, offered a guest editorial in his local paper about leaving that test site in griffith. He writes that through the thisboration of industry, region is one of the best in the country to test Unmanned Aircraft systems. We are on the cutting edge of research in this new field and will work with the faa to develop standards. That is still an interesting question. The new york site, like all sites, is very interested in developing standards for safety, for risk assessment, and moving the faa towards guidance along those lines. Guest there were a number of different applicants to the faa. All were competing for the chance to run these tests sites. What is interesting about it is that the six that were chosen will be able to virtually define the future of Drone Technology, just the virtue of being able to and developrones relationships with the government and the nurses that want to use the test sites for their own purposes. That is one of the interesting opportunities here. Theres a tremendous opportunity here to help shape the future of Drone Technology. Lets go to bobby waiting on the independent line in california. Go to joel in jacksonville, florida on our line for republicans. Joel, good morning. Caller i am totally for the use. F domestic drones i like the fact that the were using them in the military. I think that is a new technology that we need to press forward with. I think in the future it will prove to be a good idea. A lot of people are so afraid to idsomething new, but rather look forward to trying new things. I think that is where this will lead us to, a better country. Lets go to romney wedding in west haven, connecticut on our line for independents. I think drones are good idea, working drones. As far as forest, land management, seacoast, in the construction industry, for laying out bridges, for the engineering, stuff like that. I think amazon delivery is more like a longterm advertisement. I dont think youre ever going to see that happen. That is kind of ridiculous. , getr as working drones under bridges, over bridges, the footprint of new roads. The kind of thing, that is excellent. That is all technology. Ronnie, in west haven. The faa is coming up with these what have they said about the timing of when we will see these regulations. The gao is not confident at all. This leaves some amount of trepidation when it comes to speedily integrating these drones. Why thesereason Industry Groups are pressuring the faa to try and speed it up. Some of them are calling for an interim set of rules that are short of a full rulemaking. We called the secretary of transportation to develop standby rules on his own authority for drone use. Fong. Brian follow him on twitter at be ong. Rscore fong at b f now you want to bring on the phone chairman scott. We want to talk about what the privacy community thinks about the domestic use of drones. Jeremy scott, good morning. First, explain what etiquette is for people have not heard of your group. Group based in washington dc that focuses on private citizens and Civil Liberties institute. What about this process of regulations that go guest the first thing i said