Braasch interview excerpt in: “Drone aircraft use spreads to Northeast Ohio, privacy advocates express concern” by Sabrina Eaton, Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 12, 2013

The Medina County Sheriff’s Office hopes to use this drone to help it find missing persons and assist its SWAT team and local fire departments. Courtesy of the Medina County Sheriff’s Office

The use of unmanned drone aircraft is spreading from the battlefields of the Middle East to the exurbs of Ohio, prompting concerns from privacy advocates about potential overhead surveillance by police, universities and even the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The Medina County Sheriff’s Office, ODOT, Lorain Community College, Ohio University in Athens and Sinclair Community College in Dayton are among more than eighty public entities nationwide that the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared to fly drones, according to records released last week by a California digital civil liberties organization.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which obtained FAA records through a public records request and lawsuit, says it fears that drone surveillance could be misused, says the group’s media relations director, Rebecca Jeschke. She said the group released its information to the public so people will know who’s using drone technology and ask questions about how it’s being used and how privacy is being protected.

“We want to make sure that the constitutional rights we have in the physical world go along with us into the digital world,” says Jeschke.

The use of drones by civilian law enforcement agencies has proven controversial throughout the country. Last week, the mayor of Seattle, Washington ordered its police department to abandon its planned use of drones after protests from privacy advocates, and Charlottesville, Virginia passed a resolution to limit the use of police spy drones within city limits.

Ohio organizations that have obtained FAA permission to fly drones say their use is limited and won’t violate anyone’s privacy. Many of their machines are more like remote controlled model planes than the military drones used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unmanned aircraft owned by the Medina County Sheriff’s weighs about two pounds and can’t be used for surveillance because it only stays aloft for 22 minutes before its battery must be replaced, says Medina County Sheriff Tom Miller.

He said the machine is “like a remote-control helicopter” equipped with a video camera. It was donated to his department in 2011 by a local business that manufactures the drones and hopes to sell them to other law enforcement agencies. So far, Medina County has flown it only to train officers in its operation, says Miller.

Miller envisions the drone being used to scan wooded areas of the county for missing children or elderly people, aid the county’s SWAT team in crisis situations, and to help local fire departments get an overhead view of fires or train wrecks. His department has a six-page written policy for its use and would have to obtain a warrant if it ever wanted to try using it for surveillance.

“There is a legitimate concern about privacy,” says Miller. “If I’m having a barbecue in my backyard, I don’t want this thing flying over it, but I sure want it up in the air if my grandson is missing, The public has every right to know how these are going to be used by agencies that serve their communities.”

Seville-based Vista UAS LLC makes the Sheriff’s Department drone and several larger models that it designed to help fire departments with water rescues by carrying floatation devices to drowning people who may have fallen through ice. National sales manager Bryon Macron says the small business employs 10 people, and has sales pending to three other law enforcement agencies in Northeast Ohio.

“There is a lot of misinformation about drones,” says Macron.. “People watch the news and see pictures of drones in Pakistan that are armed with missiles. This doesn’t have that capability and we wouldn’t be part of anything like that.”

ODOT says it has has secured the FAA’s permission to survey road construction sites with a small model airplane made of polystyrene foam that has a camera strapped to its underbelly. Spokesman Steve Faulkner said the agency hopes to save tax dollars by using the 1 lb. airplane with a 2 ½ foot wingspan to make topographical maps. It currently uses a conventional airplane for that purpose, which costs $450 to $500 an hour to operate. He said ODOT would like to use the cheaper model plane for smaller jobs and use the regular airplane only if it’s needed.

He said ODOT has not yet used the remote controlled airplane, and is still formulating policies – including privacy policies – for its use.

Lorain County Community College says its use of drones is similarly non-threatening. School vice president Tracy Green says a group of its students are working with a professor to develop an unmanned aerial vehicle that can be used to inspect wind turbines. The school got its FAA certification to operate the drones this fall.

“This is a recent development for us,” she said.

Sinclair Community College has obtained permission to fly unmanned aerial systems for educational and training purposes in an area “about the size of several football fields” at Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in Springfield, says school spokesman Adam Murka.

Murka says the Dayton region – which has a tradition of aircraft innovation that goes back to the Wright Brothers – believes unmanned aerial systems will soon become a multi-billion dollar industry and is lining up economic resources to promote its development. The community college is training workers for that expanding industry, he says.

“We don’t like the word drone – it implies a mindless worker bee,” says Murka. “These things are responsive to commands.”

Professors at Ohio University’s Avionics Engineering Center are doing research to make unmanned aerial vehicles safe for civilian applications such as assessing disaster site damage, monitoring large crop expanses and searching for resources in hard-to-reach areas, says the school’s director of external relations, Colleen Carow.

The devices they’re using are “literally model airplanes,” the largest of which has a six-foot wingspan, says Michael Braasch, an electrical engineering professor at OU.

He said the FAA came out with a ruling several years ago that said anyone using a remotely controlled airplane for any purpose other than a hobby would need a certificate of authorization from FAA. OU had to get the FAA’s certification because it’s using its models for research purposes.

“We are flying them within the model aircraft rules, which means that you fly less than 400 feet above the ground, you fly over unpopulated areas and you keep the plane within the line of sight of the operator on the ground,” Braasch says.

An FAA spokesman said hobbyists that want to fly model airplanes don’t need its permission, as long as they abide by the rules that Braasch listed. Businesses that want to develop unmanned aircraft, even if they are tiny, must obtain experimental airworthiness certificates from FAA. Public entities, like law enforcement groups and universities, must obtain an FAA Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) if they want to operate drones. Those are the records released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Small unmanned aircraft are likely to grow most quickly in civil and commercial operations because of their versatility and relatively low initial cost and operating expenses,” said a fact sheet released by the FAA. “The FAA is working on a proposed rule governing the use of a wide range of small unmanned aircraft systems.”

ACLU of Ohio spokesman Gary Daniels said his organization will seek passage of legislation in Columbus that would set policies for when drones cam be deployed and how the information they collect can be used. He said his group had not heard of any abuses of drone technology in Ohio.

“This issue of drones is very much in its infancy right now,” said Daniels. “I suspect that in one or two years, it is going to be a much different environment out there with respect to drones and how widespread they are, which is why we are trying to get some commonsense legislation in place to govern their use.”