More UAV’s Coming New legislation will dramatically increase the number of drones in US airspace GCN 6/29 Government Computer News, June 29, 2012, “Domestic drones can be hijacked, turned into weapons, researchers show” http://s.tt/1gmqT Keep your eyes on the skies. A bill working its way through Congress could dramatically increase the number of drones allowed in U.S. airspace, the Wall Street Journal reports. The House of Representatives on Feb. 3 passed a Federal Aviation Administration funding bill that would ease restrictions on the places unmanned aerial vehicles are allowed to fly. The robotic aircraft have mostly been used by law enforcement agencies and by the military in combat zones, and the FAA has limited their widespread use in national airspace because of concerns that their lack of "detect, sense and avoid" technology could raise the risk of midair collisions, according to the Los Angeles Times. The bill would direct the FAA to find a way of bringing many smaller UAVs into general and commercial air traffic by September 2015. It would set up six test areas around the country for demonstrating safety technology to minimize the risk of UAVs colliding with larger aircraft. The military has used drones in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the Homeland Security Department has employed them along the U.S. border with Mexico, according to the Washington Post. As of Dec. 1, the FAA reported more than 270 active authorizations for the use of several types of drones. The Defense Department held 35 percent of the permissions, NASA held 11 percent, and DHS had 5 percent, the Post reported. The rest were granted to other law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, academic institutions and companies that manufacture UAVs. The Wall Street Journal reports that if the drone provision becomes law, state and local governments and private companies could launch large drone fleets in the foreseeable future.
We s ableism GPS key to streamlining mass transit for passengers with special needs Barbeau ‘08 [Sean J., et al – Center for Urban Transportation Research & Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering – University of South Florida; “The Travel Assistant Device: Utilizing GPS-Enabled Mobile Phones to Aid Transit Riders with Special Needs,” Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems (NYC): November 16-20; p. 10-11] CONCLUSION The design, implementation, and field testing of TAD, a software application for commercially available GPS-enabled mobile phones that announces a transit rider’s upcoming bus stop, has been successful. The rider’s real-time location can be viewed on a website, which is also used to create new trip itineraries. Alerts can be automatically issued in case the rider has deviated from his or her planned route. TAD has been field- tested in the Tampa, Florida area on the HART transit bus routes for over one year, including an evaluation with special needs transit riders from USF’s STAGES program. These tests successfully demonstrated the proof-of-concept of TAD and inspired areas of future TAD research. The accuracy of bus stop inventories provided by transit agencies is a critical requirement for TAD to work properly on a transit system. Future work will focus on improving the bus detection algorithm to increase the general system reliability and adding new services through the integration of TAD with live bus location data. The capability to receive the “Get ready…” and “Pull the cord now!” prompts through a Bluetooth™ wireless headset will reduce the risk of the auditory alert being lost in a noisy transit environment, and will protect the user’s privacy. Future research is also needed in integrating TAD into travel training curriculums. While the TAD was designed to aid transit riders with special needs to increase their level of independence, any new transit rider can benefit from its service.
A2: Privacy K Plan only works within existing frameworks: Patriot Act gave the green light for electronic surveillance Karim ‘04 [Wassim, Attorney, former associate editor of Washington University Journal of Law and Policy; Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Vol. 14; p. 505] Legislation pertaining to electronic surveillance has been modified repeatedly over the years,133 the most recent development of which has been the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, or the USA PATRIOT Act.134 Generally, this legislation broadens federal law enforcement’s authority to use surveillance and eliminates barriers in retrieving intelligence information.135 In particular, by lowering the standard of proof and reducing judicial oversight, the Act broadens the FBI’s ability to obtain the information that a business maintains about an individual when the FBI is conducting an intelligence investigation.136 Furthermore, the Act broadens the government’s ability to conduct searches in secret.137