News Media Amici in support of respondant Rapheal Pirker
Another topic for Jim Williams to speak to at the sUSBExpo later this week. News organisations are now asking questions of the FAA. Read it in full here News Media Amici in support of Rapheal Pirker
Some excerpts:-
The Amici Curiae file this brief in support of Respondent Raphael Pirker with the consent of all of the parties, as provided for in 49 C.F.R. § 821.9. The written consent of the parties is attached as Exhibit A.
The Amici Curiae are newspaper and magazine publishers, broadcast and cable television companies, wire services, website operators and nonprofit journalists’ associations (“News Media Amici”), who share an interest in ensuring that United States law provides maximum opportunities, and only narrowly tailored restraints, for the safe and lawful use of unmanned aerial systems (“UAS”) for newsgathering purposes. The U.S. Supreme Court, Congress and the Executive Agencies have long recognized that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the public’s interest in the gathering and dissemination of news and other information.
The News Media Amici underscore the critical need for the National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”), as it reviews the Administrative Law Judge’s decision in this case, to safeguard the public’s First Amendment interest in the free flow of information.
ARGUMENT
I. A COMPLETE BAN ON THE USE OF UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS VIOLATES THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO GATHER NEWS.
The FAA, in a series of threats of administrative sanction, and in derogation of the First Amendment rights of the public to receive news and information, has flatly banned the use of UAS for newsgathering purposes. The FAA will not approve licenses for UAS use for news operations. It has threatened fines against university-conducted student experimentation with drone journalism. And it has even suggested that a newspaper “err on the side of caution”—a chilling warning of impending punishment—and refrain from lawfully publishing photographs taken independently by a UAS hobbyist and provided after the fact to the newspaper. In each case, the FAA has averred to its restrictions on the use of UAS for “business purposes.”
The FAA’s position is untenable as it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding about journalism. News gathering is not a “business purpose”: It is a First Amendment right. Indeed, contrary to the FAA’s complete shutdown of an entirely new means to gather the news, the remainder of the federal government, in legislation, regulation and adjudication, has recognized that, in the eyes of the law, journalism is not like other businesses
