Drone Expo Draws Protesters
A speaker at a commercial drone conference in Los Angeles on Saturday was shouted down by a protest group blaming him for up to 3,000 deaths caused by Predator drones in Pakistan, the Contra Costa Times has reported. Another group protested police use of drones for surveillance. “Nobody here is even remotely interested in using [drones] as weapons,” said Austin Blue, who was targeted by some of the protesters because his family owns General Atomics, which produces the Predator drone.
A speaker at a commercial drone conference in Los Angeles on Saturday was shouted down by a protest group blaming him for up to 3,000 deaths caused by Predator drones in Pakistan, the Contra Costa Times has reported. Another group protested police use of drones for surveillance. "Nobody here is even remotely interested in using [drones] as weapons," said Austin Blue, who was targeted by some of the protesters because his family owns General Atomics, which produces the Predator drone. The one-day event, the first Expo organized by the Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle Systems Association, focused on the use of drone technology for hobbies and commerce.
The UAVSA is a division of the Tesla Foundation Group, a nonprofit based in California. The association aims to promote the commercial use of UAVs and help users to fly their aircraft responsibly. According to the group's website, the small UAV industry doesn't much resemble the traditional aviation industry and is more like "the personal computer industry gone aloft." The Tesla Group also is working to develop a "Safe Flight System" that it plans to submit to the FAA in response to a request for proposals for a method to register and track UAVs in the national airspace. The group's website says its solution could monitor all drone flights in the U.S. and ensure that the flights are conducted safely.
