John Goglia

Contributor

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

On the last day to challenge the FAA’s new drone registration rule, a Washington, DC think tank, TechFreedom, has filed a petition for review in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals seeking to overturn the registration requirement. This is the second lawsuit filed against the FAA’s regulation which mandates that hobby flyers of model aircraft weighing between half a pound and 55 pounds be registered. As I wrote about previously, the first lawsuit was filed by John Taylor this past Christmas Eve.

The FAA’s rule, which applies to children as young as 13, has been particularly unpopular because the registry would make drone owners’ names and home addresses available to the public. For those who owned their drone before December 21, the deadline to register is Friday. For those who bought after December 21, the rule requires registering before the first flight. According to a February 16 FAA press release, more than 342,000 people have registered. If that figure is correct, it’s a far cry from the almost one million drones the FAA anticipated would be sold before Christmas last year. So, either a lot of people are waiting until the last minute, not planning to register at all or the FAA’s drone sales predictions did not materialize.

According to the petition, the think tank challenges the FAA’s action as violating Section 336 of a 2012 law that prohibits the FAA from promulgating ”any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft.” It also claims that the FAA exceeded its authority to regulate aircraft registration as the new rule requires the registration of “persons who own model aircraft,” not aircraft themselves. In addition, the lawsuit claims that the FAA’s failure to provide the public with notice of the new regulation and an opportunity for comment before it was implemented was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion.”

According to its website, FreedomTech’s mission is “to promote the progress of technology that improves the human condition and expands individual capacity to choose by educating the public, policymakers, and thought leaders about the kinds of public policies that enable technology to flourish.” The foundation is headed by Berin Szoka, an internet and communications lawyer who previously worked at the Center for Internet Freedom.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2016/02/17/think-tank-sues-faa-in-federal-court-over-drone-registration-rule/#54d9ad42ab90