June 2018 Bar Bulletin
By John-Michael Seibler and Jason Snead
Since Christmas 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued new, burdensome regulations on small recreational and commercial drones, ostensibly because these devices carry inherent and unique dangers that only the FAA can safely regulate. Since June 2015, however, the city of Seattle has been quietly proving the FAA wrong. A Seattle municipal court recently convicted a drone operator for reckless endangerment, and sentenced him to 30 days in jail.1 This case decisively shows that states and localities are fully equipped to regulate local drone operations through the enforcement of existing, technology-agnostic civil and criminal...