This year’s blanket approval is a step in the right
direction, Baldwin said, but he said the Defense
Department should simply cede authority over
the drones to the Guard.
“We think we can do a lot more with the
unmanned systems if the Pentagon would just
delegate the authority to us at the state level.
We’ll be able to respond faster and maybe save
more lives,” Baldwin said.
The new technologies sound like they “could
have a great social impact and net social good,
but it’s really the operators of these technologies
that raises a few flags,” said Camille Fischer, an
attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
which advocates for privacy protections. “What
is the real oversight to make sure that these
technologies are only being used by CalFire
and during fire season? We’ve seen multiple
instances of cross-mission creep.”
The Guard mainly uses MQ-9 Reapers, a
propeller-driven drone about the size of a four-
seat Cessna aircraft, said Col. Victor Teal, the
Guard’s operations director. It has more than 20
of the Reapers at a Riverside County base.