If there is one thing federal agencies excel at, it is discovering brand-new frontiers to secure against theoretical threats! Even better when it’s behind closed doors, uses non-disclosure agreements and requires special government security clearances.
So when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a notice in the Federal Register soliciting industry representatives for a series of “technical roundtables” in last month, I was curious. The agency’s stated goal with these roundtables is to establish “model language” for TSA-approved security programs governing commercial drones operating Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).
Now here’s the kicker: The roundtables are strictly closed to the public. To get in the room, participants must be vetted by the TSA, obtain clearance to handle “Sensitive Security Information” (SSI) and sign a non-disclosure agreement promising never to speak of what transpires inside.
For commercial drone operators who have spent years watching routine BVLOS permissions stall (keep in mind it’s been more than a year since the proposed BVLOS rule was published), the TSA’s eager entry into drones — beyond regulating what you can pack onto a commercial aircraft — should set off alarm bells.
What is the point of TSA anyway?
The TSA was established in the frantic aftermath of September 11, 2001. Since then, the TSA has spent a quarter-century perfecting top-down risk management on the ground. It’s best known for requiring footwear removal at airport checkpoints (happily it did finally due away with that rule last year), as well as enforcing arbitrary liquid limits that don’t do a whole lot except throw away perfectly good toothpaste and suncscreen.
Now, as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) works toward finalizing 14 CFR Part 108 — the long-awaited regulatory framework intended to normalize routine commercial BVLOS flights — the TSA is continuing to add its own flavor of bureaucracy into how you fly drones.
Under the joint notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published alongside the FAA, the TSA has proposed a security apparatus, which rests on two primary pillars:
- Mandatory vetting of personnel: This would extending federal background checks and clearance requirements to commercial drone pilots, ground crews and software developers.
- TSA-approved Sscurity programs: This would require that commercial drone service providers (DSPs) and enterprise fleets maintain formal, agency-dictated security protocols.
Why drone pilots should be skeptical here
One reason to be dubious of what’s going on here is purely the closed doors this is happening under. In its Federal Register notice, the TSA explicitly states that these technical roundtables will not seek “consensus recommendations” or operate under standard public advisory rules. Instead, the agency is restricting attendance to a select group of pre-approved corporate representatives and legacy trade associations.
By classifying the proceedings under “Sensitive Security Information” (SSI), which a legal designation under 49 U.S.C. 114(r) that shields materials from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosures without requiring formal military classification, the TSA effectively ensures that independent developers, small business operators and civil liberties advocates are not able to have a voice.
And then you have to dig into broader questions: do commercial drone flights really need TSA oversight?
A 10-pound delivery quadcopter dropping off groceries or a mapping drone inspecting a agricultural fence line does not carry the same risk profile as a 100,000-pound commercial airliner carrying 200 passengers. Yet here we are, in a position where administrative agencies routinely stretch the definition of “transportation security” to justify expanding oversight across emerging technologies like drones — regardless of scale.
This could hurt small businesses, who don’t have the resources to comply with complicated legal hurdles. And even for bigger businesses — who might actually have the resources — the cost of compliance has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is very likely costs passed on to consumers.
As the FAA and TSA moves toward finalizing Part 108 (something that is expected to happen all too soon), the commercial drone industry shouldn’t just ask when BVLOS flights will finally be legal. It should ask how much red tape operators will have to clear just to take off. If the TSA’s closed-door roundtables are any indicator, the cost of launching is about to get a lot higher.
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