Little lobbying opposition to bill opening up U.S. airspace to drones

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/little-lobbying-opposition-to-bill-opening-up-us-airspace-to-drones/2012/04/25/gIQAPIrphT_story.html

Big things can happen in Congress — as long as no one is watching.

Lobbying records released last week show that there wasn’t much opposition this winter when Congress quietly opened up U.S. airspace to aerial drones, which some advocates for civil liberties say raise a host of concerns about privacy.

Drone technology, advanced by the military for surveillance and elimination of terrorists in war zones, is set to come back to the home front in a big way in coming years, with possible uses for law enforcement, first responders, and agriculture and environmental monitoring.

Select companies and local governments around the country already have permission to test drones, which can sometimes stay aloft for days at a time at a fraction of the cost of helicopters and airplanes.

Several big manufacturers of “unmanned aircraft,” as the industry prefers to call them, each spent millions of dollars during the first quarter of this year, in part lobbying for language tucked inside the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration requiring the agency to allow drones into airspace with other planes in the next three years.

Another big push came from the military, which is preparing to bring home drones that were used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under current law, the military is restricted in moving drones around the country and using them for training operations.

The opposition to the bill was negligible, leaving its outcome virtually predetermined. The American Civil Liberties Union, which spent $500,000 on lobbying during the first quarter, listed privacy concerns with the bill among hundreds of other issues it was tracking. It was the only organization to do so.