Let’s be clear about limits of drone use

The drones are coming.

After 10 years of war in which drones have deployed with many civilian casualties beyond the attack target, the technology has a tarnished image, to say the least.

The recent national furor over the National Security Agency surveillance practices with private data hasn’t helped ease anyone’s concerns about the invasiveness of government.

Even with the assurance that the planned testing of unmanned aerial systems in Hawaii is about flight operations and not weaponry, the very notion raises both interest in the potential for technology training and jobs, as well as trepidation about what’s to come.

It is at this early stage of developing commercial applications that government leaders here, as well as the general public, must help draw the parameters for the use of the robotic flying vehicles, guidelines that have protecting privacy at their core.

Following a 10-month federal selection process vetting 25 proposals from 24 states, Hawaii will be among the places where drone systems will be tested. That’s because The University of Alaska submitted a winning proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration to participate in the research and testing project, a proposal that included four Hawaii test locations.

Alaska is one of six states running various test programs, all of them aimed at guiding the FAA in regulating the systems’ safety, data gathering, environmental impacts and other repercussions of their use.

Hawaii’s potential role in drone development already sparked the beginnings of a discussion at the state Capitol, one that deserves more attention in the coming session. Republican state Sen. Sam Slom last year introduced Senate Bill 783 aimed at the privacy concern. This measure, as well as other vehicles tackling the issue of drones, should get a hearing in the coming weeks.

SB 783, which was co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Russell Ruderman and Malama Solomon, seeks controls on state and local government agencies using the unmanned vehicles for data collection, making exceptions for emergency situations or if a warrant or court order is secured. Slom said a new draft of the bill with some clarified language is being finished this week.

"I’m not conspiratorial or paranoid; I’m not against drones," he said. "I’m just saying because we do have the NSA fiasco, because we do have secret government operations, if our state government regulates our businesses, they darn well better regulate what law enforcement and government is doing."

That’s undoubtedly the right frame of mind lawmakers should bring to the table — and it doesn’t preclude considering, at the same time, legislation that promotes the positive developments the technology could bring Hawaii.

The state already had a memorandum of understanding with officials of the Alaska government to begin a formal working relationship in state aerospace activities serving the Pacific region. The University of Alaska has dubbed its selection of test locations, also including three in Oregon, the "Pan-Pacific Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Range Complex," so there’s some powerful regional synergy in play here.

The end result could be very beneficial to all the states. Hawaii, which has longed for a niche in high-technology business and careers, may be finding one in the aerospace fields.

But there is a lot to be settled here, beyond the technical workings of the robots. The Hawaii locations do avoid residential areas: They will include Wheeler Army Airfield on Oahu, Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island, the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, and the ocean between Hawaii and Alaska and the mainland.

Still, the FAA needs a clearer sense of how these unmanned vehicles should be governed once commercial applications are developed, because the drive to use them in populated areas will be powerful. Already the online retail giant Amazon has openly discussed its research into using the technology for package delivery. Even without the repercussions of that in job reduction, society has to consider: Do we want these things making such a close approach to our homes?

Nobody can deny the utility unmanned vehicles could bring in conducting remote surveillance — of lost hikers, of migrating populations of animals and, if warranted, of illegal activities.

But we are not all to be considered suspects by default, and vulnerable to robotic invasions of our private sphere. The future may soon be here, but that aspect doesn’t have to be an inevitable part of the futuristic landscape.