Ayotte to Drill Down on Drones

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), chair of the Aviation Operations, Safety and Security Subcommittee, has scheduled a March 24 hearing on drones, including their safety, privacy and economic impact.

That comes in the wake of a drone landing on the White House grounds, but also of the Administration's effort to come up with privacy rules of the road as entertainment and news media begin to leverage the killer shots from the unmanned aircraft systems.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is scheduled to provide perspective on implementation issues.

Witnesses for the hearing are Margaret Gilligan, associate administrator for Aviation Safety, Federal Aviation Administration; John B. Morris, Jr., associate administrator, Office of Policy Analysis and Development, National Telecommunications and Information Administration; Dr. Gerald Dillingham, director of Civil Aviation Issues, GAO; Prof. John Villasenor, nonresident senior fellow, Brookings Institution; Paul Misener, VP of global public policy, Amazon; Jeff VanderWerff, from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.