The FAA has backed down on its threat to impose criminal penalties on drone operators flying in the vicinity of federal law enforcement vehicles, after a journalism rights group sued the agency in federal court to strike down its flight restriction.
The former advisory had included penalties for UAV pilots found to be in violation, including the threat of federal criminal prosecution and of FAA administrative action, including the imposition of civil penalties and the revocation of FAA certificates or authorization to operate.
Instead, the new, and less explicit, advisory removes the specific flight spacing restrictions around government assets and vehicles and instead urges drone pilots to “exercise caution when flying in proximity,” of federal agencies’ mobile assets. It also takes away the threat of criminal prosecution but warns that federal agencies “may take action that results in the interference, disruption, seizure, damaging, or destruction of unmanned aircraft deemed to pose a credible safety or security threat to covered mobile assets.”
An attorney for the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press (RCFP), which had sued the FAA to overturn the original NOTAM on First Amendment grounds, hailed the regulatory change as a victory.
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