As previously reported, the ACLU, on 2/9/21, issued its position on Remote ID, and the ACLU is generally ok with it. I agree with that position. For one thing, I want to be able to legally fly BVLOS, and as the ACLU puts it, “a regulatory framework permitting routine BVLOS flights was never going to happen … until the law enforcement and national security communities are comfortable with their ability to identify and track” drones.
With regard to broadcast transponders that would broadcast their unique ID numbers locally to anyone within range, the ACLU said “We think this is good; the broadcast Remote ID should be sufficient to achieve both the security goal of allowing facilities to identify and deter illegal or hostile drone flights and the privacy goal of empowering individuals to know what aerial cameras may be recording them.”
The ACLU further said: “The FAA is doing a good job in building an infrastructure that will give us the ability to know what “eyes in the sky” are observing our streets, communities, and cities. While details still need to be worked out, the agency’s goal seems to be a system in which anyone can see the “license plate” of nearby drones on their cell phones."
I certainly have some issues concerning the safety of drone pilots and I anxiously await a definitive decision by the courts on these difficult issues.