Since last month, when [the Electronic Frontier Foundation] released a list of the sixty-odd public agencies that have already received from the FAA approval to fly domestic drones, the issue of drone surveillance has reached front and center in many Americans' mind. Yet barely any information is known about what law enforcement agencies plan to do with these unmanned flying vehicles. So we want your help to gather this information into one place….
The FAA has so far not released any information on which model of drone or how many drones each public entity flies. We also don't have much information on the type of data these drones will collect. So we need to find this information out.
We've made a simple form for the questions we want these police agencies to answer. We need you to call your local police department and ask them these questions. Check your local police department's website for the "Public Inquiries" or "Community Relations" contact, and call or e-mail them these questions.
Our list of drone certificates includes police departments that we already know have a drone authorization from the FAA.
This is just the first step. Once we've collected the data, we will release it and tell you how you can contact your local municipal government to demand that they ban law enforcement drones or install robust privacy safeguards that will protect citizens from unwanted—and unconstitutional—surveillance.
