Federal Aviation Administration

Entrepreneur Jay Bregman wants to add regulatory engineers at a new startup to help companies use drones without running afoul of products liability and privacy law, C|NET's Steve Shankland reports: "His as-yet-unnamed startup plans to bake those rules into drone control software so drone makers and operators can fly the robotic devices without fear." Bregman said that the Federal Aviation Administration just doesn't have the bandwidth to regulate thousands and thousands of drones, so technology could enforce regulations via software code.

After years of delay, the Federal Aviation Administration is close to releasing a ruling to allow smaller drones operated by commercial enterprises like media companies to fly in American airspace, National Defense Magazine's Yasmin Tadjeh reports. Jim Williams, manager of the FAA’s UAS integration office, said "we hope that it will be published before the end of this year." Under the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act, drones weighing less than 55 pounds were to be integrated into the domestic airspace by September 2015.

In an exclusive report, the Associated Press' Jack Gillum and Joan Lowy report that public safety was the ostensible reason for restricting the airspace above Ferguson, Missouri, during large protests following the shooting of a young black man by a white police officer. But the AP, through an Freedom of Information Act request, has exposed recordings in which govermental officials acknowledged the purpose was to keep news helicopters away from the street protests. The recordings "raise serious questions about whether police were trying to suppress aerial images of the demonstrations and the police response by violating the constitutional rights of journalists with tacit assistance by federal officials," the AP further reports.

The Federal Aviation Administration's new $5 billion, air traffic control system does not take drones into account despite a legislative mandate from Congress, reports Adam Clark Estes in Gizmodo: "'We didn't understand the magnitude to which (drones) would be an oncoming tidal wave, something that must be dealt with, and quickly,' said Ed Bolton, the agency's assistant administrator for NextGen. But—and this is a big 'but'—Congress specifically ordered the FAA to take drones into account." Hardware and software for the new system have been installed without providing any support for regulating and monitoring drone traffic, and it may be too late to turn course, Estes adds.

Gregory S. McNeal, a contributor to Forbes, reports that the Federal Aviation Administration is going to approve the use of drones in Hollywood film-making: "In May, seven aerial photo and video production companies asked for regulatory exemptions (known as a 333 exemption) that would allow the film and television industry to use drones with FAA approval. Those seven companies and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), were asked by the FAA to develop the guidelines and safety procedures under which they planned to operate. The FAA reviewed those procedures and is expected to approve the drone-specific rules and standards that will enable Hollywood to be exempt from existing aviation regulations."

Computerworld's Jaikumar Vijayan writes that pressure is mounting on the Federal Aviation Administration to issue rules governing private drone use with Amazon and Google working on plans to use drones for commercial purposes and trade group Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and other groups like media companies sharply criticizing the agency for moving slowly on rules to integrates drones into American airspace. The FAA is still more than a year away from releasing final rules, but a spokesman told Computerworld that the agency is on track to issue an intial draft of its rules before the end of the year.

The Associated Press reports on a trio of lawsuits filed today by "model aircraft hobbyists, research universities and commercial drone interests ... challenging a government directive that they say imposes tough new limits on the use of model aircraft and broadens the agency’s ban on commercial drone flights." Public comment was not allowed on the FAA's June directive, Brendan Schulman, a New York attorney representing the groups that filed the lawsuits told the AP.

Politico reports that President Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order to develop privacy guidelines for commercial drones. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration would be put in charge of developing the guidelines.

The Federal Aviation Administration faces criticism for lagging in developing regulations about integrating commercial drones into U.S. airspace There is a September 2015 deadline for the FAA to issues rules on the operation of small commercial drones, Politico adds.

A federal court has dismissed a Texas search-and-rescue group's challenge to the Federal Aviation Adminstration's drone policy, the Wall Street Journal reports. The D.C. Circuit ruled that informal emails from regulators, expressing a view of what the law requires, aren't subject to judicial review.

An audit by the Transportation Department's inspector general has found that the Federal Aviation Administration is going to miss the September 2015 deadline for integrating drones into the national airspace, The Washington Post reported earlier this week. While Congress legalized drones in 2012, the FAA was supposed to come up with rules by September 30, 2015.