Boeing Helps Kill Proposed Law to Regulate Drones

[marmar]

Published on Sunday, March 31, 2013 by Common Dreams
Boeing Helps Kill Proposed Law to Regulate Drones

by Pratap Chatterjee


Boeing, the aircraft manufacturing giant from Seattle, helped defeat a Republican proposal in Washington state that would have forced government agencies to get approval to buy unmanned aerial vehicles, popularly known as drones, and to obtain a warrant before using them to conduct surveillance on individuals.

Local authorities in Seattle and in King county experimented with conducting surveillance from Draganfly Innovations drones last year, only to cancel both programs in the fact of public protest. "I'm not really surprised that people are upset," said Jennifer Shaw from the American Civil Liberties Union, a human rights group that campaigned against the drones. “It's a frightening thing to think that there's government surveillance cameras overhead.”

On February 7, 2013, David Taylor, a Republican member of the state legislature, introduced a bill to regulate drone use. The proposed law quickly won support from several Democratic party politicians on the state Public Safety Committee.

Alarmed by the growing bipartisan coalition, Boeing jumped into the fray. “We believe that as the technology matures, best practices and new understanding will emerge, and that it would be counterproductive to rush into regulating a burgeoning industry,” Boeing spokeswoman Sue Bradley wrote in a statement. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/31-0

[MotherPetrie]

1. The USA - run by corporations, Wall Street, banks, and big pharma for their endless profit

With the eager collusion of venal politicians.

[longship]

2. Well, Boeing was an early developer.

Check out the Pave Tiger.
Here: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-121.html

I worked at Boeing Military Airplane Company in the 80's. I worked on the KC-135 re-engine program. But the Pave Tiger was under development (and under wraps) at the same time. Of course, nobody knew about it because it was a "black hole" project, DOD top secret, but later opened up.

The link provides details, such as they are.