Congress seems to be inching closer to banning DJI Drones

[Droning on and on...]

So let me understand this,

I'll try... you're failing so far.

you believe if Congress passes a law that says DJI drones are prohibited from flying in the US Airspace that they control and the Supreme Court has not yet overruled, you will continue to fly your DJI drone in US airspace because you believe Congress "can't make just any old law they'd like" and because you are confident that you will "prevail in court" should a federal law enforcement officer arrest you and confiscate your contraband drone.

Yes. I was hoping you could discern the subtle hint from my reparations example, but it appeared to fly right past you. (pun intended purely for humor's sake )

There are plenty of real examples in the past of absurd congressional over-reach. They serve as an instructive example.

I would fly with confidence because the example you offered is beyond absurd as a violation of the Eighth Amendmend. The law would be stayed by the SCOTUS immediately.

Even if that didn't happen, and I got cited, again the Eighth Amendment would have the charge tossed in circuit Court. The violation of the 8th is so blatant, so excessive viewed against precedent cases, that it would very likely be tossed during preliminary hearing.

So yes, I would ignore legislation like you suggested.

However, I'm 110% certain Congress would never be so stupid as to pass such a law. The excessive nature of the penalties you propose are not even close to the margin.

 

[mobilehomer]

However, I'm 110% certain Congress would never be so stupid as to pass such a law.

You haven't been paying attention, have you? Congress IS that STOOPID!!

 

[mavic3usa]

In your opinion. Which is irrelevant. The SCOTUS has the vested authority to make such decisions.

To be thorough, I disagree with the SCOTUS on these matters from time to time too. Which is just as relevant to the question of constitutional violation and fidelity as your opinion is.

The SCOTUS decides when law violates the constitution, not you or me. I accept that. Therefore, as far as I'm aware, despite my objection to many laws passed by the state of CA, I'm unaware of any that have been ruled a violation of my constitutional rights, and therefore, as a matter of law and fact, CA is compliant, my own personal opinion notwithstanding.

Do you not respect the SCOTUS as the determining authority for what is, and is not constitutional?

Agreed, that is their role to determine the constitutionality of the laws which reach them. Doesn't mean a law is constitutional just because SCOTUS hasn't smacked it down yet. It also means (to me) there are bunch of unconstitutional laws out there that SCOTUS hasn't yet ruled on, haven't heard about, refuse to hear, etc. Cali has a ton of them; they are literally steeped it in; the courts cannot hear them fast enough.

When Congress passes a law, you just can't say it's unconstitutional until SCOTUS tells me I have to obey it. Please obey the DJI ban when/if it is signed by the President so you don't make us all look bad and make it worse for all of us, like we are criminals who won't obey the laws. There are legal ways to handle this without violating the law; we may have to get "creative."

Look I hate it myself but if the US Government says they are banning Chinese drones from the airspace and the America people agree with it, how it that going to look if I keep flying Chinese drones? My allegiance is to this country first, as you said, even if they make the "wrong decisions" sometimes.

You'll be flying with no insurance, nobody will ever cover illegal drones. You'll be flying against every local law that says you have to fly by the federal rules. You will give ammo to every karen out there that says you are now spying on them with illegal chinese spy drones. They won't say that today pre-ban but they will post-ban. I'm trying to get people to understand what will happen if we stand by and do nothing. Too many think it will be business as usual. It wouldn't be me but too many of your fellow drone law-abiding flyer who see you flying DJI drones when they cannot themselves....they'll be the very ones to turn you in. Not trying to be an alarmist.

 

[mavic3usa]

The law would be stayed by the SCOTUS immediately.

Even if that didn't happen, and I got cited, again the Eighth Amendment would have the charge tossed in circuit Court. The violation of the 8th is so blatant, so excessive viewed against precedent cases, that it would very likely be tossed during preliminary hearing.

Ok, this is new to me.

Is this some sort of foolproof new strategy? Is that what the drone community is relying on now? Keep our fingers-crossed and hope and pray a judge(s) will save us? That's not a strategy.

Let me check with some of the other recent victims and see what they think about the American judicial system coming to their immediate rescue.

 

[MS Coast]

if it's obvious the majority of the drone community and the entire American public won't have your back during that fight. I do believe in fighting the good fight on behalf of others even though they are ungrateful but the time for sensible activism is NOW *before* the law is passed.

Please don't ask what I would do personally; at this point, I am unable to share any further advice on that topic.

Sharing the drama, though.

 

[New England Droning]

I understand, brother. There are no viable options to replace the DJI drones that I own, and even if there were, I cannot afford to do so. I guess that I will just ramp up my portraits and commercial photography work to make up for the lost revenue - neither of which are as enjoyable as flying. I just wish that I hadn't wasted the time and money on the aircraft, getting licensed and carrying insurance. I despise this useless congress.

I don't fly as your kind of business, I'm a landscape photographer/artist and while my drone photography is only maybe 3% of my art sales, it is slowly growing. I don't plan to quit flying my drone unless they cause it to stop flying and become uncontrollable. I think we would have a class action suit for hurting all the business/recreational owners...
We'll see what they end up doing, but I'll give up my drone when they actually prove, that they are harmful to the US... Not because they are Chinese made so they have to be harmful or could be...

Fly on and enjoy it.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Agreed, that is their role to determine the constitutionality of the laws which reach them. Doesn't mean a law is constitutional just because SCOTUS hasn't smacked it down yet.

Yes it does.

It is presumed to be constitutional until ruled otherwise. Authorities can enforce it.

Of course, as I said above that will happen rather quickly with something so at odds with the constitution as to be blatantly obvious in its violation of the constitution wouldn't last long enough to be enforced.

A $150,000 fine and 10 years in prison for flying a drone is beyond obviously a violation of the 8th amendment. Making this case is trivial.

Had you asked instead the same question but with a fine up to $5,000 no imprisonment my answer would have been different.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Ok, this is new to me.

Is this some sort of foolproof new strategy? Is that what the drone community is relying on now? Keep our fingers-crossed and hope and pray a judge(s) will save us? That's not a strategy.

Let me check with some of the other recent victims and see what they think about the American judicial system coming to their immediate rescue.

So when you have no substantive counter-argument, you simply resort to taunting sarcasm?

 

[mavic3usa]

So when you have no substantive counter-argument, you simply resort to taunting sarcasm?

This isn't sarcasm but just genuine surprise and somewhat disappointment that we believe a court would ever second-guess Congress and save our drones. I have more counter-arguments but just saving them for another time and place where it's more applicable to where this is going; just think the conversation has run it course. Because you believe whatever law a state or city decides to pass, it's constitutional and they can enforce it as long as they can get away with it until someone challenges it or someone bigger and stronger than them tells them to stop it. I disagree but I can see where you get this idea from (a state which starts with a C). We tried that before, our country has a long rich history of doing that. The speed of the resolution is irrelevant, that's not what protects us from tyranny. Luckily we have sheriffs that understand this and refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.

If Congress bans drones because they say it's a national security threat against a Chinese adversary, there's no courtroom in this country that will block that. Can we at least do something before we get there? I don't want to go to a circuit court to get charges against me thrown out. I don't want to depend on SCOTUS to eventually overturn a DJI drone ban one day.

 

[Jurgen]

Don't get me wrong... I am a fighter against injustice by nature. However, I cannot continue to solicit commercial aerial business and invest in aircraft with this cloud of idiocy hanging over me and the rest of us. The next thing you know, the congressional morons will go after iPhones, Android phones, tablets, computers, and more... all of which are manufactured in China.

Given that cell phones and TikTok are bigger security holes that remain unplugged, I'm not convinced this Congress can get out of it's own way long enough to agree on a drone ban. And even if DJI was a risk, they are pin pricks compared to other surveillance methods. If the ban goes through, it accomplishes nothing other than ticking off a tiny subset of the population. Is it worth it? Only if they're looking to be able to say they actually "did something".

I believe (and fear) their attention will quickly turn to equipping the nation's bridge and tunnel infrastructure with airbags.

We have real problems to address. Airborne cameras aren't among them.

 

[Mrprop365]

Someone I was speaking to about this topic, asked me: right now the drones are not transmitting any data, that has been proven without a doubt, but what's stopping them from putting out a firmware update and then have drones transmit data back to China like Congress is so afraid of? I don't want to sound like an anti droner but this sounds like a very valid point.

 

[Dmcvey]

did anyone notice NTSB flying Phantom at ship crash?

 

[Dmcvey]

The thing is the bill does not ban DJI drones by saying you can't fly DJI ...... it removes their FCC license, the controller no longer coms with drone.

 

[Meta4]

what's stopping them from putting out a firmware update and then have drones transmit data back to China like Congress is so afraid of? I don't want to sound like an anti droner but this sounds like a very valid point.

What's stopping that is that the drone has no ability to transmit anything beyond the range of the controller.
China can't listen in to your drone, Washington can't either unless they are sitting somewhere within a couple of miles of where you are flying.
Furthermore, the link between the drone and controller doesn't have enough bandwidth to send imagery anywhere while you are flying.
And just because some people still think that there's actually some espionage value for China to listen in to your drone or see where you fly ... that idea is beyond ridiculous.

 

[AZDave]

Someone I was speaking to about this topic, asked me: right now the drones are not transmitting any data, that has been proven without a doubt, but what's stopping them from putting out a firmware update and then have drones transmit data back to China like Congress is so afraid of? I don't want to sound like an anti droner but this sounds like a very valid point.

There is literally nothing valid about that claim.

 

[voxelman]

I am not panicking. I am preparing for the future. I do not believe that anything will stop these bozos from going after the drones. If I am proven wrong, good... great, even. However, I do not think that it makes sense for me to spend any more time or money investing in the aerial segment of my business when it is under a cloud of uncertainty. Instead, I choose to put my money into other segments of my business that are not at risk, such as portraiture, events, commercial photography, publication photography and writing articles. I know that I can rely upon these sources to pay my bills going forward.

The question is, is it really under a cloud of uncertainty? I think that this legislation only applies to government agency use not private use.

 

[voxelman]

What's stopping that is that the drone has no ability to transmit anything beyond the range of the controller.
China can't listen in to your drone, Washington can't either unless they are sitting somewhere within a couple of miles of where you are flying.
Furthermore, the link between the drone and controller doesn't have enough bandwidth to send imagery anywhere while you are flying.
And just because some people still think that there's actually some espionage value for China to listen in to your drone or see where you fly ... that idea is beyond ridiculous.

I think most DJI drones are connected to the internet at one time or another so I'm not sure your thesis holds. But I think the most valid concerns apply to government agency use that is quite extensive.

 

[WanderLost]

I think most DJI drones are connected to the internet at one time or another so I'm not sure your thesis holds. But I think the most valid concerns apply to government agency use that is quite extensive.

I don't understand why more folk on the government side don't understand how the Enterprise drones work (which are the ones usually used for surveillance, etc). DJI enabled encryption that allows the data being collected in flight to be saved in an encrypted format. They can all be flown without connecting to the Internet. Firmware updates are downloaded to a computer and then side loaded off line to the drones. No data is passed back to DJI. After the initial login to register the drone in use and activate the warranty, there should be no further need to login again. (I think a lot of people would like that change).

 

[Meta4]

I think most DJI drones are connected to the internet at one time or another so I'm not sure your thesis holds. But I think the most valid concerns apply to government agency use that is quite extensive.

Instead of going through several reasons why your idea wouldn't work, I'll just repeat the last point from the post you referred to.

Although some people unrealistically imagine that there's actually some espionage value for China to listen in to your drone or see where you fly ... that idea is beyond ridiculous.

 

[Cafguy]

China has all the info they need for whatever they need by simply hacking the internet!
Something that for them would be much easier than slowly introducing a product to Americans that secretly provides information.
If for some reason hostilities Break out between our two countries China will simply get all of its info from hacked internet sites. No need to inject secret spy vehicles into America to gain info that they already have.
Therefore Why Ban a product simply because info might perhaps be taken from it? Will this stop with drones? if we stop with drones I must ask our government what exactly did we achieve? How am I safer?
This all reminds me of a story:

• There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."
• Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."