When Will Someone Fly a Drone over Ferguson?

By most accounts, Ferguson, Missouri is wracked by chaos, while many have taken to calling it a police state. At the very least, things are more than a little tense right now, after police shot an killed Mike Brown, an unarmed, 18-year-old black man. Resulting protests have been quashed by force and journalists arrested, with all-important live feeds shut down by the police. Know what would help the country get a handle on what's going on? A drone.

Right now, we've been flooded with a deluge of snippets from the media, social media from on the ground, hogwash and analysis from talk radio schmoes, and an overall zoomed-in look on the protests that are occurring right now in Ferguson. This situation is begging for some perspective—on the scale of the protests, on the size.

The police are shooting crowds with rubber bullets, they're arresting journalists and religious figures. Protesters are throwing molotov cocktails at police and police are throwing tear gas canisters and pointing assault weapons right back at them.

The work that journalists and citizens on the ground are doing to show this horrible situation to the world is laudable, but it's not enough. Aerial images could show the scope of the situation, the sheer numbers on each side, the destruction, the smoke, the flames, the police roadblocks in a way that people on the ground simply can't.

This is why it's such a huge deal that the Federal Aviation Administration issued a no fly zone over Ferguson earlier this week. The news helicopter might be on its last legs, but it's not dead, and getting them in the sky is crucial to bringing light to the situation.

But, for all the FAA's hemming and hawing about them, small drones—model aircraft—aren't and haven't been subject to no fly zone restrictions. The FAA has said so itself.  Just months after 9/11, the FAA said that "Federal Aviation regulations do not apply to [drones] …general operating and flight rules do not apply to model aircraft. Model aircraft may operate in controlled airspace without air traffic control authorization, transponders, or altitude reporting equipment."

The FAA said Ferguson's no-fly zone was for safety reasons, suggesting that police helicopters had been shot at. But Think Progress reported earlier this week that it wasn't just a safety thing:

"It's just for a no fly zone because we have multiple helicopters maneuvering in the area and we were having some problems with news aircrafts flying around there," the dispatcher, who identified himself to Think Progress as "Chris," told the publication.

Well, at what point does "law enforcement safety" become "police state preservation" or "militarized restriction of Constitutional rights?"

Police in Ferguson have tanks, they have helicopters, they have assault rifles, and other military technology. Journalists are being arrested for the high crime of "trespassing at McDonalds." People are being shot. They're being tear gassed and arrested on their front lawns. Michael Brown is still dead.

If drones are going to be used to report the news (and 15 major media companies have formally said that they will be), this is the sort of thing that needs to be covered. The FAA may not like it, the journalist may be arrested, but precedent, and the law, is on the side of the media.

While journalists have been arrested for protecting their sources, in Ferguson they're being arrested for reporting the news, which is a mortal blow to the First Amendment. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has reportedly said he'll remove St. Louis PD from Ferguson, but when there is (or at least was) an effective media blackout in place, oversight is fleeting. It's time for someone, anyone, to take the risk, fly a drone, and show the world what's really happening in Ferguson.