Documents: DoD’s Domestic Drone Missions

By Dan Gettinger On January 11, the U.S. Department of Defense published new statistics on domestic military drone operations. According to the data, which cover missions that were authorized during Fiscal Year 2018, the U.S. military engaged in 11 domestic missions. Most of the these missions fall under “Defense Support …

Drones at Home: Drone Incidents

Today the Center for the Study of the Drone published “Drone Incidents: A Survey of Legal Cases,” an in-depth study on over two dozen legal cases that have been prosecuted by authorities other than the FAA. This is the third installment in a three-part series on drone use and regulations at the local level in …

Interview: Lisa Ellman

A version of this interview is available at Drone360.  Lisa Ellman understands the challenges of regulating domestic drones. Between 2009 and 2014, Ellman served in a variety of high-level positions within at the White House and at the Department of Justice, where she worked on policy initiatives on issues spanning from open …

Drone Sightings and Near Misses

This post was originally published on August 28, 2015 and updated on September 10, 2015. By Dan Gettinger and Arthur Holland Michel As domestic drone use has expanded in recent years, so too has the number of incidents in which manned aircraft have come into close contact with drones, as well …

The Drone Exemptions

We have published an updated database of FAA commercial drone exemptions here. By Dan Gettinger On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration released the names of 30 new companies that had approval to use drones commercially. Although the announcement was made quietly, in terms of numbers of companies, this new round …