Flight Restrictions Threaten to Smother Drone Journalism

Flight Restrictions Threaten to Smother Drone Journalism Subscribe to the Free Future Newsletter Or get immediate notifications of new posts via Substack Free Future home The FAA has proposed a set of rules that would allow the operators of certain types of facilities to apply for a drone flight restriction over their property. Obviously, given the very real security threat that drones can pose, it makes sense to impose certain restrictions over, say, a nuclear power plant or chemical facility. At the same time, there is a very real danger that these rules will squelch important independent drone journalism if too broadly applied or lacking in provisions to protect journalism. We (joined by our allies at CDT, EFF, and EPIC) have submitted comments to the FAA making those points. One of the things we emphasize to the FAA is that aerial photography is a form of power. It can reveal information that can’t be obtained from any other vantage point, and already in the relatively short history of this technology, we have seen drones used by journalists and activists around the world and in the United States. For example: - An amateur drone photographer in Texas discovered a river of pig’s blood from a slaughterhouse flowing into a waterway, violations that led to the filing of criminal environmental charges. - During the Standing Rock pipeline protests of 2016, journalist Myron Dewey captured aerial video of police activities, including the authorities spraying protesters with fire hoses in sub-zero conditions. - Journalists have used drones to document aerial views of immigration detention facilities, including the infamous Florida “Alligator Alcatraz.” In April 2025, a Reuters drone captured detainees in red jumpsuits spelling out “SOS” with their bodies in the yard of a Texas facility. Aerial footage has also provided a crucial public window into the authorities’ reactions to protests outside detention centers - Drones can also be used for data journalism through such techniques as heat mapping, 3-D terrain mapping, pollution detection, or the 3D modeling of buildings. Many of the kinds of facilities that would qualify for UAFRs under this rule—such as data centers, chemical plants, meatpacking facilities, private prisons and detention centers—are for-profit private enterprises that nonetheless can have enormous impact on the public good. Publicly traded and other companies face enormous pressure to increase profits, which can create pressure for safety or environmental shortcuts or other violations that can harm neighboring communities and the nation as a whole. For example, after a giant 2019 fire at a chemical storage facility in Texas resulted in toxic contamination of the air and water, an investigation by the Texas Tribune and Public Health Watch revealed that the company and regulators had ignored warnings and overlooked illegal chemical emissions for almost two decades. Similar disasters have resulted from corporate negligence and cost-cutting, such as the Texas City Refinery explosion, which killed 15 people and injured 180, and the West Fertilizer explosion that damaged community buildings, including a middle school and a nursing home, killed 15 people, and injured over 160 after the company actively deceived regulators. Journalists in general, and drone journalists in particular, won’t always be able to uncover the kind of wrongdoing that can lead to such disasters, but they’re a reminder of the national interest in preserving space for journalism and its ability to uncover threats to the public good. And of course, facilities with something to hide have an even stronger incentive to apply for a UAFR than others. In our comments to the FAA, we urge the agency to more explicitly recognize journalistic uses of drones and to incorporate into its evaluation criteria. For example, the FAA rules allow for drone companies and the like to get exceptions to the drone no-fly zones over facilities — but nowhere is journalism mentioned. Overall, the FAA's review process isn't designed to weigh press freedom interests against security claims. In addition to pushing the FAA to recognize the importance of journalism, we also urge the agency not to allow for too many protections to be created, lest the sheer number of restrictions make the airspace a confusing patchwork that imposes significant barriers to the use of drones by ordinary people and for journalism. In its proposed rules (which Congress directed the FAA to create), the agency does propose to impose some commendable limits on the granting of UAFRs; most significantly, perhaps, it requires that applicants demonstrate that “damage or disruption to, or destruction of, the facility” would have a national or regional “debilitating impact” on “security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.” Much will probably hinge on how strictly the FAA interprets the word “debilitating” over time. There are probably few facilities within the above categories that cannot argue that public harm would result if they were attacked by a drone, but most are a far cry from the movie-plot scenario of an attack on a nuclear power plant or the like that is often evoked in discussions of drone attacks. No doubt an attack on, say, a transportation equipment manufacturing facility (eligible for a drone ban) would cause problems, but the likelihood and disruption level of such an attack must be closely scrutinized and carefully balanced against countervailing values, including the openness of our skies and more broadly the openness of our society. We recommend to the FAA that it lay out more detailed criteria for what, exactly, it will treat as a debilitating disruption in order to reduce the chances that the meaning of the term broadens over time or under political pressure. Our full comments to the FAA can be found here.