Joining a Handful of Other Cities, Lincoln, Nebraska Bans Police Drones

In two sentences, Mayor Chris Beutler of Lincoln, Nebraska has grounded any aspirations for unmanned aerial vehicles within his police department. As part of a comprehensive executive order on police surveillance activities, Mayor Beutler curtly singled out drones as clearly prohibited.

"Drones are not authorized under this policy or any other Lincoln Police Department general order," reads Executive Order 86746, signed by Beutler on December 18 and effective as of January 1. MuckRock obtained a copy of the executive order via public records request as part of its Drone Census project in partnership with Motherboard.

The order’s text goes on to define drones as any “unmanned aerial vehicle controlled autonomously by a computer or by remote control and equipped with a camera or lens in order to aid in surveillance.” These two sentences are the only that address unmanned vehicles. The ban can only be overturned by subsequent executive order.

Lincoln Police Chief Jim Peschong said that his department had no desire to pursue drone technology at present, telling the AP that the process of obtaining a Federal Aviation Administration waiver is too time-consuming to bother.

While Lincoln police claim no designs on drones, the nearby University of Nebraska-Lincoln has spent the past year navigating the FAA approval process for its Drone Journalism Lab. The FAA shut down the lab last year, citing its lack of proper waivers to fly drones as a government agency.

Beutler’s four-page order also clarifies police protocol for more common surveillance technologies, like in-car cameras, automated license plate recognition scanners and covert video devices. While it doesn't ban these devices, the order explains that "Cameras will be used within accepted legal & community practices regarding privacy and in a professional and ethical manner," that officers must be "appropriately trained and supervised" in the use of such equipment, and that recordings must not be released to the public or used for personal reasons. The measure comes years after many of these other monitoring tools and methods have become widespread.

Lincoln now joins such like-minded cities as Syracuse and Charlottesville in getting out ahead of the law enforcement drone trend. Making little headway in Congress, activists and skeptical lawmakers are pushing at the state and local levels to establish “no drone zones,” or at least temporary moratoriums on drone use, to allow breathing room for policy debate and consideration.

Read the full order at MuckRock, and see the rest of our coverage in the Drone Census.