Brown OKs massive state-run retirement program

Happy Friday! It’s also the last day for Gov. Jerry Brown to sign legislation, so expect a flurry of signatures and vetoes.

Thursday had quite the flurry of signatures as well. One of the most consequential measures signed into law yesterday makes it so that most workers in California will be automatically enrolled in a private retirement account run by the state, starting around 2018.

Through a legislative measure, signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday, most workers in the state who don’t have access to an employer-provided retirement plan will automatically join the Secure Choice Retirement Savings Trust through their work, although employees can opt out.

Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León, who championed the bill, argued that while anyone already has the option of enrolling in a private account, many are not. 

The legislation also has provisions to block the state and employers from incurring any liabilities associated with the new program. However, critics are unconvinced that enough safeguards are in place.

CalWatchdog has more.  

In other news:

• “A bill reining in abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws by law enforcement agencies was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday, marking a significant victory for advocates of civil liberties,” reports CalWatchdog.

• “In a win for lobbying efforts in a budding industry, California has made it through another year with few limits on drones in its skies. Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed legislation that protects emergency responders and volunteers from liability should they damage a drone in the course of their work. But he vetoed the last four pending drone bills, saying he found it “more prudent to explore a more comprehensive approach” to the regulation of unmanned aircraft systems.” The Los Angeles Times has more. 

• “Many faces have changed, but much about the California Legislature remains the same as a decade ago: Lawmakers consider thousands of bills and other measures, which frequently pass or fail strictly along party lines. But those lines were notably fuzzier in the just-completed session compared with a decade ago, legislative voting records show.” The Sacramento Bee has more.

• “Single-user restrooms to become gender neutral in California,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Republican voter registration advantage in Orange County continues to narrow. The Orange County Register has more. 

Legislature:

• Gone ’til December.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @fionama

Public and private interests have combined in California to discourage statewide legislation regulating the use of personal drones, putting the prospect of new rules on ice indefinitely.

Gov. Jerry Brown went out of his way to sink prior legislation that would have applied a layer of state law to California drone operators. “But not every governmental authority feels that it has enough power to deal with drones,” as the San Francisco Chronicle noted. “An increasing number of California cities, worried about the safety and privacy of their citizens, have passed laws restricting drone use. The result is a patchwork, and one that might be thoroughly cleared up with state legislation. But this year, it seems highly unlikely that legislation will even make it to the governor’s desk.”

0 and 2

Supporters of the rules Brown vetoed had hoped to find a way forward. But this year, “the pushback to new rules is coming not from the governor but through the lobbying efforts of a budding industry that hopes to influence policy at the state Capitol and nationwide,” according to the Los Angeles Times. 

“As drones multiply in number and category, cities and states want to set boundaries. But drone manufacturers and associations this legislative session boosted their politicking, successfully beating back several bills they said would create a patchwork of laws that vary by state and hinder innovation.”

Although each bill initially passed, both were killed off in committee. “Senate Bill 868 failed on a vote in the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, while Assembly Bill 1820 was voted down by the Senate Judiciary Committee,” as the Electronic Freedom Foundation, which opposed the legislation, enthused. With consumer interest in drones growing and going mainstream — the gadgets can now readily be acquired online or in big box stores like Target or Best Buy — lobbyists would appear to have public opinion on their side, at least until the volume of drones in the skies reaches a considerably greater size.

Fire focus

The impact of drone law on the Golden State has come under greater scrutiny this summer as a grueling fire season has dangerously attracted amateur operators. As CNBC recently reported, “Firefighters battling the Sand Fire in Southern California had to shut down aerial firefighting operations for about 30 minutes after an unauthorized drone entered airspace that the FAA put under temporary restriction due to the active wildfire.” To the frustration of firefighters nationwide, wildfire intrusion incidents involving drones have “more than doubled from 2014 to 2015,” the network noted, citing the U.S. Department of the Interior.

To address the problem, the federal government has taken the first step toward a comprehensive new approach. The Interior Department recently rolled out a “national system intended to prevent hobby drones from interfering with planes and helicopters fighting wildfires,” the Associated Press noted, with a pilot project offering a “smartphone app and real-time wildfire information to create virtual boundaries, or geofences, that drones can’t cross.”

The Interior Department partnered on the project with drone navigation data companies AirMap and Skyward and the leading manufacturer of civilian drones, DJI, opening up its Integrated Reporting Wildland-Fire Information database. Through the new program, “information contained in the database is immediately pushed to drone pilots through apps on their smartphones, with the smartphones themselves typically used to navigate in combination with the drone’s GPS,” according to the AP.

A California edge

In fact, the onset of new federal regulations around drone usage has helped strengthen California’s lead in drone technology and performance. As the California Council on Science and Technology recently observed, “The new rules on commercial drone usage allow farmers to use drones to help more precisely monitor water usage, allowing more efficient use of water.” In the interest of pushing similar functions ahead, the Tesla Foundation has partnered with the San Bernardino International Airport to launch a national center for commercial drone research, the National Commercial Drone Research Center, the CCST reported.

What to watch for in Sacramento this month

Good morning, and welcome to August, which is sure to be a busy month in Sacramento as legislators fight to get their priorities passed before the legislative session ends on August 31. 

While a large number of bills will be debated, there are four major things to watch for: Environment, transportation, affordable housing and overtime for farmworkers.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• The Los Angeles city attorney is warning three area (crisis pregnancy centers) that they’re breaking a new state reproductive disclosure law and could face fines of $500 if they don’t comply,” which represents the first time steps have been taken to enforce the seven-month-old Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act. Rewire has more. 

• A bill in Sacramento looks to cap environmental lawsuits against large development projects at nine months, which supporters see as a big boost for development around the state, reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Why experts say drone education isn’t working, reports the San Bernardino County Sun.  

• Oops: “A half century after building the largest water-delivery system in America, California officials say they now realize they put their giant straws to capture Delta water in the wrong place.” The San Jose Mercury News has more. 

Assembly:

• In at 1 p.m.

Senate: 

• In at 2 p.m.

Gov. Brown: 

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @LABJnews

“The law expands the state’s definition of invasion of privacy to include sending a drone over private property to make a recording or take photos,” as BBC News reported. It was passed as Assembly Bill 856 and introduced by Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier.

Wielding the veto

Just weeks ago, Brown had refused to sign yet another bill that would have extended trespassing law to include similar activity. The bill, Brown warned, “could expose the occasional hobbyist and the FAA-approved commercial user alike to burdensome litigation and new causes of action,” the Los Angeles Times noted.

Three other drone-curbing bills vetoed by Brown “would have prohibited civilians from flying aerial drones over wildfires, schools, prisons and jails,” the Times reported separately. “The governor rejected those and six other bills that would have created new crimes or penalties for misconduct including using bullhooks to handle elephants, allowing explosions in drug labs and removing GPS tracking devices from paroled sex offenders. Brown said in a veto message that there are already laws available to deal with any problems addressed by the bills.”

In his veto statement, Brown complained that the drone bills fell into the pattern of “finding a novel way to characterize and criminalize conduct that is already proscribed. This multiplication and particularization of criminal behavior creates increasing complexity without commensurate benefit.”

Legislative frustration

The author of the three bills, state Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, made his dissatisfaction plain in recent remarks to the press. “I think it’s dumb,” Gaines said, according to Southern California Public Radio. “Aren’t we supposed to be protecting the public? If I’m an elected official — he’s the governor, I’m a senator — isn’t one of our key roles that we play in public service to protect the public, and certainly Cal Fire employees?”

The discovery that hobbyists’ drones had interfered with firefighting this summer had fueled the push for criminalizing that activity. “The U.S. Forest Service has repeatedly posted reminders warning people that a collision between a hobbyist drone and the low-flying aircraft and helicopters used to fight wildfire could cause damage to the aircraft and injuries to the pilots and people below,” Ars Technica reported. “Despite the warnings, drone sightings keep happening over wildfires, causing the U.S. Forest Service thousands of dollars in aborted flyovers.”

But the private use of drones raised broader concerns including the safety of commercial aircraft. “A couple years ago, it was 200,000, so it is increasing geometrically, and I think it was a mistake for the governor not to see ahead into the future in terms of the chronic aspect of drone use, in the wrong way, in the state of California,” added Gaines. Along with Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, Gaines had hoped to increase the penalty for interfering with firefighting to $5,000 and up to six months in jail “if the drone interference was ruled reckless and intentional,” Ars noted.

Analysts sympathetic to the legislation suggested that lawmakers were justified in their impatience with the federal government’s pace in crafting drone regulations of its own. “In the state of California, it is already a misdemeanor to ‘engage in disorderly conduct that delays or prevents a fire from being timely extinguished’ or to prevent emergency responders from discharging their duties,” noted Justin Peters in Slate. “Legislators’ attempts to get specific are a function of frustration, both with drone operators whose actions too often defy common sense and with a federal government that is taking its sweet time to come up with comprehensive regulations for an industry that desperately needs them.”

Deflating anxiety

“Drone technology certainly raises novel issues that merit careful examination. This bill, however, while well-intentioned, could expose the occasional hobbyist and the FAA-approved commercial user alike to burdensome litigation and new causes of action,” Brown noted in his veto statement, as the Los Angeles Times reported.

Amateur drone enthusiasts have recently taken heat for interfering with emergency responders and posing a hazard to air traffic. But a recent study conducted by hobbyists’ advocacy group the Academy of Model Aeronautics challenged that blanket judgment. “Hobbyists who scrutinized reports to the FAA of alleged close calls with drones found that pilots reported near misses in only a small fraction of the cases,” as USA Today reported. “The study found that of the 764 close-call incidents between drones and other aircraft, only 27 were actually described by pilots as a ‘near miss,'” with pilots taking evasive action just 10 times.

The governor also cautioned that the legislation’s height restriction would criminalize drone use “whether or not anyone’s privacy was violated by the flight,” the Orange County Register observed.

State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, took the defeat stoically. “I am obviously disappointed that the governor vetoed my drone privacy legislation, but pleased the bill launched an important discussion on our privacy and private property rights and drones,” she said in a post to Facebook, according to Wired.

Industry advocates, on the other hand, showed little restraint in hailing the move. “Brendan Schulman, the vice president of policy and legal affairs for drone maker DJI, called the veto ‘a huge victory for drone innovation,'” Wired added.

Big implications

Fearing a slippery slope, prominent names in news media also jumped into the fray, warning Brown of insurmountable difficulties if he signed the bill into law. “The groups, including professional organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists and outlets like CNN and the parent company of the Los Angeles Times, said in a letter Thursday to Gov. Jerry Brown that this restriction will make it incredibly difficult for reporters to use drones for newsgathering purposes,” The Hill reported. The would-be hurdles threatened “the public’s right to receive news,” the letter cautioned, especially during the early moments of breaking news coverage.

Although Brown’s decision was also seen as a big win for companies like Amazon and Google, which are poised to incorporate drones into their businesses, neither of those tech titans have come forward with comment. Significant questions remain as to how they could proceed with possible innovations like drone delivery of packages under current FAA regulations.

Legal uncertainty

The government agency recently turned its attention to laying out strictures that could govern a more drone-heavy future. “The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed rules for commercial drones that would restrict flights to below 500 feet,” as the Wall Street Journal reported. “Above that level is generally reserved for manned aircraft. Under those rules, the bill would have left commercial drone users just a 150-foot ribbon of airspace over much of the state. If companies wanted to fly lower, they would have needed to get permission from dozens of landowners for some flights, which could be a logistical nightmare.”

Brown’s decision increased the likelihood that Washington, D.C., would move faster than Sacramento in getting new rules and guidelines through. “The Federal Aviation Administration is moving toward finalizing rules for drone use, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is leading stakeholder discussions to develop best practices for using drones,” The Hill observed.

In the meanwhile, according to the Journal, the FAA has insisted that its regulations preempt state law, a stance that likely tees up judicial intervention. Some 17 states have passed laws of their own setting limits on drone use.

Privacy vs. productivity

The bill cleared both chambers of the state Legislature “despite bipartisan concern about regulating the budding drone industry,” Courthouse News reported. “If signed by the governor, the bill would make it a trespass violation to fly an unmanned drone over private property without consent.” Any drone flying below 350 feet above private property without “express permission” would run afoul of the would-be law.

Drone industry figures and pro-tech activists have warned that excessively restrictive regulations would throw a monkeywrench into the explosive, lucrative and potentially very useful application of UAV technology. In a joint statement reported by Courthouse News, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Consumer Electronic Association lambasted the bill. “SB142 would damage California’s leadership and handcuff innovation, just as this largely California-based and dynamically expanding industry is poised to bring major job growth to the state — adding roughly 18,000 new jobs and more than $14 billion in economic impact in the first decade once federal guidelines are implemented,” they warned.

In remarks supplied to Inc. magazine, Mike Winn, CEO of San Francisco-based software developer DroneDeploy, complained that the bill “doesn’t meaningfully address privacy issues,” instead “arbitrarily reducing the ways drones can create value. We’d encourage California and other law makers to enforce existing laws that prevent trespassing and provide remedies for privacy violations and focus on the bigger issues in the states,” he suggested.

But Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, a supporter of the drone-curbing bill SB142 introduced by state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, claimed that “the 50-foot zone between private property and federally controlled airspace could potentially be used as a corridor for commercial drones performing such functions as delivering packages,” McClatchy reported.

Drone politics have not divided neatly along party lines. In the Assembly, the bill drew opposition from both sides of the aisle.

Improvising solutions

In the absence of statewide guidance, law enforcement officials availing themselves of drones have had to improvise a public relations and public safety strategy.

In Ventura County, where the police force became the first in Southern California to receive FAA drone authorization, the sheriff’s department had to use “the reverse 911 system [in the] immediate area to notify residents we were about to deploy a UAV,” Cmdr. Chris Dunn told lawmakers in a hearing of the Joint Legislative Committee of Emergency Management, according to the area paper the Moorpark Acorn.

“We do that so that, one, they won’t be shocked at the sight of the device in their area, and two, in hopes that they don’t interfere in the operation of the device by throwing things at it or trying to launch their own device in support of our mission,” he said.

Although SB142 would lift the burden of sorting out drone protocols from city and municipal officials, critics insisted that the problem of inconsistent, confusing and conflicting law would only be pushed upward. Without nationwide standards of guidance supplied by the FAA, “states will continue to set laws that will inevitably conflict with each other and will cause confusion about where and how operators can fly,” Christian Sanz, CEO of San Francisco drone manufacturer Skycatch, told Inc.

The FAA has slowly turned its attention toward the nationwide commercial use of drones. “In April, the Federal Aviation Administration granted Amazon authorization to test drones outdoors for its yet-to-be-launched Prime Air service, which hopes to use drones to deliver products to a customer’s doorstep within 30 minutes of an online order,” as the Sacramento Bee reported. But the proliferation of drones among hobbyists, rather than corporations, has remained the foremost preoccupation of legislators in California and elsewhere.

In an all-too-real conflict between man and machine, a string of high-profile clashes between drones and public servants has helped spur an effort to crack down on the airborne bots in California.

But at the same time, civil libertarian concerns have prompted a parallel controversy over law enforcement’s desire to use more drones to fight crime.

Crossing the line

Along with Golden State legislators, members of California’s Congressional delegation have grown concerned that so-called recreational drones, flown by private citizens, have become a serious threat to the state’s ability to safely operate in its own airspace. “Without common sense rules, I believe it’s only a matter of time before there’s a tragic accident,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in an emailed statement reported by Emergency Management:

“Feinstein and other lawmakers are demanding that regulators revise existing law to plug a loophole sparing recreational drones from the regulations. They are also are seeking the use of software that would prevent drones from flying in prohibited areas.”

In Sacramento, meanwhile, lawmakers faced a battery of drone bills. One group focused on invasions of privacy; as the Orange County Register reported, state Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, offered bills aimed at clearing the skies over public schools, prisons and jails — measures that have already passed the state Senate and await a vote in the Assembly appropriations committee. Other bills would extend trespassing and other privacy laws to cover the use of drones over private property and in otherwise private areas. 

Gaines has also partnered up with Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, to target drones flown over wildfires. As CalWatchdog reported previously, drones disrupted aerial firefighting in California four times over the course of the month of July alone. The Gaines-Gatto bills would make that kind of interference a misdemeanor and exempt firefighters from liability for neutralizing offending drones.

A spreading problem

In addition to complicating California’s efforts to fight fires, dismaying drone-related incidents have begun to spread across the country. As the Washington Post noted, “drones have smuggled drugs into an Ohio prison, smashed against a Cincinnati skyscraper […] and nearly collided with three airliners over New York City.”

“Earlier this summer, a runaway two-pound drone struck a woman at a gay pride parade in Seattle, knocking her unconscious. In Albuquerque, a drone buzzed into a crowd at an outdoor festival, injuring a bystander. In Tampa, a drone reportedly stalked a woman outside a downtown bar before crashing into her car.”

But California has remained a drone hotspot a cut above the rest. Drug runners have begun testing out the use of drones to ferry payloads across the border. “Drones as a drug-smuggling tool made news in January when one hauling meth crashed in the parking lot of a Tijuana shopping center, two miles from the U.S. border,” according to U-T San Diego. “It was loaded with about seven pounds of drugs and was likely being ferried from neighborhood to neighborhood, Mexican law enforcement said.”

Just this month, U-T added, two men pleaded guilty to picking up 28 pounds of heroin delivered by drone near Calexico, “a pickup that was captured on Border Patrol cameras on April 28, according to court records.”

Also this month, a helicopter air ambulance taking a patient to the hospital “had to take evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision with a drone aircraft Wednesday afternoon north of Fresno Yosemite International Airport,” according to the Fresno Bee. 

Police interest

The sense of uncertainty pervading the airspace has been compounded by Sacramento’s inability to deal with the prospect of expanded law enforcement drone usage. One bill underscoring the problem, AB56, set out to strike a balance by requiring warrants for drone surveillance over private property and new police standards for privacy, including the storage and deletion of video footage recorded by drone, as the Associated Press noted. 

But the bill hit against opposition from both sides, with the ACLU and law enforcement organizations both expressing displeasure over the attempted compromise. The bill’s author, Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, expressed his frustration to the AP. “There’s a middle ground that nobody likes,” he sighed. 

Fire politics

By making the crisis official, Brown boosted the state’s ability to fight the fires in two ways. First, as the Sacramento Bee noted, he triggered the mobilization of the National Guard. Second, in a move likely to deepen the frustration of climate change activists, he “relaxed some regulations like environmental rules” and prohibitions on trespassing.

In a statement, Brown praised the state’s responders, but warned that the situation was critical. “California’s severe drought and extreme weather have turned much of the state into a tinderbox,” he said, according to the Sacramento Bee. “Our courageous firefighters are on the front lines, and we’ll do everything we can to help them.”

Fighting meddlers

California’s fire trouble has been compounded by residents interfering with operations — or, at times, necessitating new ones. A Redding resident, for instance, was recently arrested on suspicion of starting 14 small fires in the area.

But to date, the most sensational problem caused by meddlesome individuals has been drone related. In three separate instances, private drones floating overhead posed enough of a threat to firefighting airplanes that their missions were delayed. “After the unmanned devices were spotted flying above flames and smoke from the blazes this year — which altogether burned about 36,000 acres — fire crews were forced to ground water-dropping aircraft,” the Los Angeles Times noted. “Officials said the delays allowed the fires to spread, resulting in devastating property losses.”

As a result, San Bernardino County officials have now ponied up $25,000 apiece, one reward per incident, for details about who’s responsible. “We want to know who was flying drones, and we want them punished,” said Board of Supervisors chairman Jorge Ramos, according to the Verge. “Someone knows who they are, and there is $75,000 waiting for them.”

California lawmakers, Slate reported, “proposed a pair of bills that would make flying drones over fires a misdemeanor carrying up to $2,000 in fines and shield emergency personnel from liability for swatting them out of the way.” And in Congress, Rep. Paul Cook, R.-Ca., introduced legislation that would make similar interference a federal crime worth up to five years behind bars.

Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, said SB168 would indemnify emergency responders who damage a drone during firefighting, air ambulance or search-and-rescue operations.

Earlier this month, aerial fire crews responding to a blaze that swept across Interstate 15 north of San Bernardino had to pull back after five drones were spotted above the fire.

It was the fourth time in a month that a drone had disrupted wildfire response in the region, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service. Gaines introduced SB167 earlier this summer to increases fines and introduces the possibility of jail time for drone use that interferes with firefighting efforts. Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, co-authored both bills.

“Private drones don’t belong around these emergencies. That is the first message I want to get out,” Gaines said in a news release. “But if one gets damaged or destroyed because it’s in the way then that can’t lead to financial penalty for the people trying to save lives and property. It’s unfortunate, but that’s all it is. People can replace drones, but we can’t replace a life. When our rescuers are risking their own lives to protect us, I want them thinking about safety, not liability.”

Gaines also said it’s his hope that the advent of effective “jamming” technology could keep drones away from emergency response areas and flight paths.

He went on to say that “public education efforts could ensure that the safest, least-damaging methods for avoiding or disabling unauthorized drones will be the primary methods used in these crises.”

In a phone interview on Friday, Gaines said its his understanding that the federal government is working on a technology that would jam a certain frequency used by private drones.

Some government agencies are already using drones, or have plans to do so, to monitor areas including wildfires.

Contact reporter Chris Nichols at chris@calwatchdog.com or on Twitter @ChrisTheJourno

According to CB Insights, the Los Angeles Times reported, “Northern California is the headquarters of six of the 10 American commercial drone companies that have attracted the most venture capital.” The economic consequences of drones’ ascendance in Silicon Valley have attracted attention along with the cash. Drone firms “are creating high-paying work for engineers, including those designing ever more sophisticated software to operate the machines,” the Times noted.

But, as the Times observed, the Silicon Valley pattern of big innovations in small groups was likely to repeat itself with drones:

“Competition from Chinese manufacturers has already pushed 3D Robotics and some other American drone companies to make their hardware in other countries. Anderson’s company has an engineering center in San Diego, but manufactures its drones in Tijuana and Shenzhen, China, where there is cheap labor.”

Hopes and fears

California’s unique challenges have supplied drone manufacturers with an immediate market and proving ground. Given the state’s vast size, rugged terrain, and drought-era risk of massive fires, drones have emerged as a new source of hope for keeping residents safe. Taking inspiration from their own approach to monitoring outer space for important events, Bay Area astrophysicists have embarked on a project called Fuego — short for “Fire Urgency Estimator in Geosynchronous Orbit.”

“The idea is to enable early location and identification of fires using drones, planes, and satellites mounted with special infrared cameras,” Wired reported; “once fully operational the system could spot new wildfires anywhere in the Western US barely three minutes after they start.

“‘All year round is going to be fire season now,’ says Carlton Pennypacker, an astrophysicist at UC Berkeley and lead researcher on Fuego. ‘That makes this more urgent.'”

But the city of Huntington Beach recently provided the backdrop to a video dramatizing the legal and cultural uncertainty around drones. As the Orange County Register observed, the viral clip caught one resident ruining what a local drone company called an instructional video. After “yelling that he’ll be angry if ‘you put that over my house,'” the man sent a hovering drone crashing to the ground with a single swat of his t-shirt. “I don’t even think that’s legal,” he added.

Lucky7drones, makers of the $1,000-plus drone, have filed a police report. In the absence of federal regulation, the Register noted, municipalities have crafted rules restricting or banning drones’ use, while Huntington Beach, among others, has done neither.

Drones’ awkward, changing status in California has aroused residents’ hopes and fears in a complex combination. In Southern California’s beach communities, for instance, drones have begun to emerge as a solution to the age-old threat of shark attacks.

But with the new knowledge they afford has come a new way of sizing up the risks of everyday life.

“A new drone that is being utilized by Southland lifeguards reveals a chilling look at how many sharks are just feet from the shoreline at one beach,” CBS Los Angeles reported. Within minutes of launch, a Seal Beach lifeguard told CBS LA, “we knew there were 10 to 12 sharks all in the Surfside area.” The impact on beachgoers was also swift — calling into question whether Californians’ more carefree attitude toward sharks could survive the advent of drone patrols:

“‘I was planning on going surfing tomorrow and definitely not now,’ one woman said, while another said: ‘Sharks are kind of like my biggest fear so that’s like very daunting for me.'”

Protecting privacy

If Californians have had to give added thought to their new status as watchers, the rise of drones has also forced them to consider how more often they’re willing to be watched. In an effort to shore up the state’s privacy protections against invasive drone use, Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, has pushed a new piece of legislation through several key committees. The bill, AB56, “would place strict regulations on law enforcement use of drones, and prohibit drone surveillance of private property without a warrant in most situations,” according to the Tenth Amendment Center.

Under proposed regulations, the Center noted, only so-called exigent circumstances, like natural disasters, public emergencies or the imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm, would permit law enforcement to deploy drones without a warrant or the express permission of property owners.