The drone ban: Little Jimmy the spy

No one wants a drone snapping photos of the backyard at the precise moment one is bent over to pick up a pile of leaves. Rest easy, beltless yard workers, the New Hampshire House of Representatives is on the case! (Sort of.)

The very idea of robots surveiling us from the sky is creepy. It sounds like something George Orwell would warn us against if he were alive today – and a Hollywood screenwriter. Yet on Wednesday the House tabled a bill that would have prohibited the use of drones in New Hampshire skies for the purposes of surveilance and attack. Why? Ah, details, details.

House Bill 619. sponsored by Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, the House guardian of personal privacy, had a simple title: “An act prohibiting images of a person’s residence to be taken from the air.” As introduced by Kurk, it was a simple bill, too. It would have banned the photographing of the exterior of any dwelling if the photograph was taken by or with the assistance of “a satellite, drone, or any device that is not supported by the ground” and revealed “forms identifiable as human beings or man-made objects.”

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20130331/OPINION01/130339973