White House drone incident prompts call for regulation of unmanned aircraft - Guardian

The discovery of a 2ft-diameter drone in the grounds of the White House on Monday – its operator a government employee who told investigators he had been drinking – has led to renewed calls for comprehensive laws to cover drone use in the US.

President Barack Obama said creating a framework for drone laws was one of his duties during his final two years in office.

“We don’t yet have the legal structures and the architecture both globally and within individual countries to manage [drones] the way that we need to,” Obama said in a CNN interview.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has banned most commercial drone operations, though that is expected to change in the next few years. Researchers and enthusiasts believe the government is moving too slowly; the FAA has estimated that the introduction of regulations could put 7,500 commercial drones in the sky within five years.

“I’ve assigned some of the relevant agencies to start talking to stakeholders and figure out how we’re going to put an architecture in place that makes sure that these things aren’t dangerous and that they’re not violating people’s privacy,” Obama said.

The White House said the drone that came down in the grounds of the executive mansion posed no threat. The president was in India with the first lady, Michelle Obama, at the time of the incident; their daughters Malia and Sasha were in Washington.

A secret service officer “heard and observed” the drone but agents were unable to stop or deflect it before it crashed.

Economists have predicted that drones will make up a global market worth $1bn by 2018. Brendan Schulman, head of commercial drone law at the law firm Kramer Levin, said regulations on commercial operations would be unlikely to stop someone with malicious intent.  Read More White House drone incident