 Ten years ago, drones were military industrial technology, extremely expensive, some of it classified. And then what happened over the last ten years is that basically the revolution in your pocket has made that technology so cheap and easy and ubiquitous that regular people can do it. You know, with the right cable, you can basically fly a plane with a smartphone. The truth of the matter is that for a long time now, surveillance technology has outpaced privacy law. But part of the issue is that it's really hard for Americans to picture what a privacy violation looks like. Maybe pieces of data are being correlated someplace in some server. It's hard to visualize. But drones, we have this really visceral reaction to drones. We can really picture what it's like to be watched by these flying robots. And as a consequence, I think it's really sparked a conversation about surveillance that we haven't had in some time. Some of the uses are going to be scary. There's a technology called Argus, which can view an entire city at once, and it automatically tracks when it sees a vehicle or a pedestrian moving. It traces where it started and where it ends up and where it goes in between and saves that data. And so it has the potential to build up a real database of people's comings and goings and location and movements, which is a very revealing thing about you. A lot of the technologies to pilot a drone used to be covered under what's called export control, which is to say they were regulated as military technologies. But there is a provision in the laws, the export control laws, that exempts public domain. And no one had thought public domain drone technology, and yet here it is. Because this stuff became so easy and so cheap that suddenly regular people could do the stuff that only defense contractors could do before. Skycatch is a security company that uses drones to secure private property. It's basically rather than having multiple cameras going around in your backyard or in your big private property, you spread out sensors around. And as soon as they're triggered, the drones deploy and they fly out to the location and start streaming video and sending pictures to your iPhone app or your Android or any endpoint. People have been putting cameras on remote control helicopters for going on 20 years now. I don't think that there are hundreds of thousands of would-be criminals that have just been waiting for the perfect technology to go spy on their neighbors. I mean, there's so many positive uses for these that I think we will see far outweigh the negative uses. Once you start seeing them be used for some function, agriculture I think is going to be the most likely, and you drive down the road with farms on either side and you see the drones serving the crops or spraying, you're like, oh, that's a drone. And then you start to associate it with farming rather than military use, and that's how we change the narrative. What we've learned is that a lot of people who are in government, it's just a matter of education. A lot of them don't know what these drones are capable of, and they don't know much about our community and what we're planning on doing. So part of it is working with them and letting them know what these guys are capable of. What we don't want is really strict regulations that prevent us from automating and creating an opportunity for the drone market. The fact that drones are capable of doing a lot of aerial surveillance at low cost wouldn't be that big a deal, but for the fact that privacy law isn't largely up to the task of responding. For instance, there's a famous case involving a helicopter that was flying over someone's property, and in fact looked into not even their yard, but looked into some missing panels in a greenhouse and spotted the fact that they were growing marijuana. Well, the Supreme Court said that that wasn't even a search, because you have no reasonable expectation of privacy of something viewable from a public vantage. People don't often know that, but that kind of doctrine is going to be applied likely to drones as well. With drones, because of the very serious safety issues they raise, the FAA has really been holding back the deployment of drones. Commercial use is banned, it's very difficult even for police agencies to get permission to fly drones, and they can only use them in very limited ways. I think that people in the industry have no problem with regulations. We actually want regulations so that we don't just have anyone going out grabbing remote control helicopters and flying around. We're using full-scale helicopters to get a tight shot on the Santa Monica Pier for a movie and backing away when we could easily have an unmanned system doing that same shot. And as it backs away, if the unmanned system fails and crashes and falls in the water, who cares, right? But if I have three guys in a helicopter doing that same shot and they're hovering outside the velocity chart, and their engine fails while they're hovering outside the chart, chances are all three of those guys are dying. So I think what's happening right now is just that the technology is far outpacing the regulatory process.
 Ten years ago, drones were military industrial technology, extremely expensive, some of it
 classified.
 And then what happened over the last ten years is that basically the revolution in your pocket
 has made that technology so cheap and easy and ubiquitous that regular people can do
 it.
 You know, with the right cable, you can basically fly a plane with a smartphone.
 The truth of the matter is that for a long time now, surveillance technology has outpaced
 privacy law.
 But part of the issue is that it's really hard for Americans to picture what a privacy
 violation looks like.
 Maybe pieces of data are being correlated someplace in some server.
 It's hard to visualize.
 But drones, we have this really visceral reaction to drones.
 We can really picture what it's like to be watched by these flying robots.
 And as a consequence, I think it's really sparked a conversation about surveillance
 that we haven't had in some time.
 Some of the uses are going to be scary.
 There's a technology called Argus, which can view an entire city at once, and it automatically
 tracks when it sees a vehicle or a pedestrian moving.
 It traces where it started and where it ends up and where it goes in between and saves
 that data.
 And so it has the potential to build up a real database of people's comings and goings
 and location and movements, which is a very revealing thing about you.
 A lot of the technologies to pilot a drone used to be covered under what's called export
 control, which is to say they were regulated as military technologies.
 But there is a provision in the laws, the export control laws, that exempts public domain.
 And no one had thought public domain drone technology, and yet here it is.
 Because this stuff became so easy and so cheap that suddenly regular people could do the
 stuff that only defense contractors could do before.
 Skycatch is a security company that uses drones to secure private property.
 It's basically rather than having multiple cameras going around in your backyard or in
 your big private property, you spread out sensors around.
 And as soon as they're triggered, the drones deploy and they fly out to the location and
 start streaming video and sending pictures to your iPhone app or your Android or any
 endpoint.
 People have been putting cameras on remote control helicopters for going on 20 years
 now.
 I don't think that there are hundreds of thousands of would-be criminals that have just been
 waiting for the perfect technology to go spy on their neighbors.
 I mean, there's so many positive uses for these that I think we will see far outweigh
 the negative uses.
 Once you start seeing them be used for some function, agriculture I think is going to
 be the most likely, and you drive down the road with farms on either side and you see
 the drones serving the crops or spraying, you're like, oh, that's a drone.
 And then you start to associate it with farming rather than military use, and that's how we
 change the narrative.
 What we've learned is that a lot of people who are in government, it's just a matter
 of education.
 A lot of them don't know what these drones are capable of, and they don't know much about
 our community and what we're planning on doing.
 So part of it is working with them and letting them know what these guys are capable of.
 What we don't want is really strict regulations that prevent us from automating and creating
 an opportunity for the drone market.
 The fact that drones are capable of doing a lot of aerial surveillance at low cost wouldn't
 be that big a deal, but for the fact that privacy law isn't largely up to the task of
 responding.
 For instance, there's a famous case involving a helicopter that was flying over someone's
 property, and in fact looked into not even their yard, but looked into some missing panels
 in a greenhouse and spotted the fact that they were growing marijuana.
 Well, the Supreme Court said that that wasn't even a search, because you have no reasonable
 expectation of privacy of something viewable from a public vantage.
 People don't often know that, but that kind of doctrine is going to be applied likely
 to drones as well.
 With drones, because of the very serious safety issues they raise, the FAA has really been
 holding back the deployment of drones.
 Commercial use is banned, it's very difficult even for police agencies to get permission
 to fly drones, and they can only use them in very limited ways.
 I think that people in the industry have no problem with regulations.
 We actually want regulations so that we don't just have anyone going out grabbing remote
 control helicopters and flying around.
 We're using full-scale helicopters to get a tight shot on the Santa Monica Pier for
 a movie and backing away when we could easily have an unmanned system doing that same shot.
 And as it backs away, if the unmanned system fails and crashes and falls in the water,
 who cares, right?
 But if I have three guys in a helicopter doing that same shot and they're hovering outside
 the velocity chart, and their engine fails while they're hovering outside the chart,
 chances are all three of those guys are dying.
 So I think what's happening right now is just that the technology is far outpacing the regulatory
 process.