Drone curbs find support in state House

Unmanned aerial craft are considered the next key tool for law enforcement, and a bipartisan group of legislators is considering how police might still use the technology without intruding on law-abiding citizens' right to privacy.

But some who use drones for research and other non-law enforcement reasons are worried the proposed restrictions go too far.

The use of drones by law enforcement and other public agencies is not widespread in Minnesota, but it's not unheard of. The Department of Public Safety said last year it had borrowed unmanned aircraft from the U.S. Border Patrol to look for marijuana growing operations. And the Department of Natural Resources flew Predator drones on several missions that were quintessentially Minnesotan -- counting ice houses on Lake of the Woods for a fisheries study.

The state House Public Safety committee approved two drone-related measures Tuesday. One, from Rep. Brian Johnson, R-Cambridge, would require law enforcement agencies in Minnesota to get a search warrant before using what the bill calls "unmanned aerial cameras" to gather evidence or other information about people. The bill provides exceptions: A judge's approval would not be needed if authorities need to act fast to thwart a terrorist attack, or to prevent imminent danger to life or damage to property.

Johnson, a former sheriff's deputy, says the bill strikes a balance between protecting public safety and individuals' civil rights. He says law enforcement agencies are asking for clear legal boundaries about the use of unmanned aircraft.

"They don't want to lose this tool. It's too valuable of a tool for the safety of the officers and the safety of the community. But if agencies keep using it without guidance and improperly, it could create some problems for them down the road," Johnson said. "I'm trying to avoid that issue."

Another measure, from Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, would go much further in restricting the use of unmanned aircraft. The legislation prohibits the use of facial recognition technology on drones, except with a warrant. It also requires government agencies to provide annual public reports about how they use the aircraft. Even buying a drone would require special approval.

Critics say that measure is overly broad and would affect people who have nothing to do with law enforcement, including Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, who teaches aerospace engineering at the University of Minnesota. He says his students have to build and fly unmanned aircraft for their final project -- or at least try to fly them.

"They tend to crash them a lot. They tend to be designed poorly sometimes, and we have to go out and buy new ones and build them again," he said. "And with some of the wording, and the way things are written right now, if we have to go back and get approval and permission to buy these every single time, that would make things very hard from a teaching point of view."

Cassandra Isackson, the aviation director for the state Department of Transportation, says she also has concerns about restricting the use of drones. The department does not use them now, but she says they could be extremely useful in the event of a natural disaster. For example, when Highway 210 in northeastern Minnesota flooded in 2012, MnDOT hired an aerial photographer to survey the damage. She says unmanned aerial surveillance would have been faster and much cheaper.

"The cost of that -- it would take about four weeks for us to get that information -- was around $90,000. If we were to utilize [unmanned aerial surveillance], we could have done that same activity in about two weeks at a cost of $6,500."

Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, favors restricting drones. But his concern is solely about law enforcement -- not the use of planes by MnDOT or fledgling aeronautical engineers.

"We are interested in the Fourth Amendment, which requires probable cause and search warrants in criminal investigations. And that's the alpha and the omega for us. We also want to make sure that the data that they collect -- the fact that they've applied for a warrant -- that stuff is made public and is in the public eye," he said.

The measures will face more scrutiny in committee before they can get to the House floor. The Public Safety committee also approved two other bills yesterday that would require a search warrant to track the location of a person's mobile phone.