Beware Repugs Bearing Civil Libertarian Gifts

NKY is teabagger Thomas Massie territory, so I doubt this bill's sponsor shares the ACLU's concerns about surveillance drones. Especially if they're operated by, say, Walmart as opposed to the ATF.

Tom Loftus at the Courier:

A Northern Kentucky lawmaker on Thursday pre-filed a bill to greatly restrict government drones and ban private drone flights over Kentucky.

In the first bill pre-filed for the 2014 General Assembly, Rep. Diane St. Onge proposes to prohibit drone flights other than those used for military training or those authorized by a search warrant for a specific criminal investigation.

“I am alarmed by media reports that the FAA predicts between 10,000 to 30,000 drones could be lurking in our skies by 2020,” said St. Onge, a Lakeside Park Republican.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., recently brought attention to the issue of drone use within the United States with a filibuster demanding to know whether the president has authority to use military drones to kill Americans.

St. Onge said she was concerned about armed military drones, but her primary concern is surveillance drones. “The potential use of this technology as an ever present eye in the sky poses an extreme threat to the privacy of Kentuckians and our rights as Americans,” she said.

Concerns about drones come from not just the political right, but the political left.
Derek Selznick, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said he was glad a state legislator has brought attention to the potential of the threat drones pose to constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. “The technology of this is moving fast, and I don’t think the law has caught up.”

Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer declined to comment because he said he had not yet seen the bill. Brewer did say that the state police has no drones.