CRITICAL PHOTOJOURNALISM

Prior to becoming an attorney focusing on media law, First Amendment law and copyright, Alicia Calzada was a professional photojournalist for over 20 years, working first for various newspaper staffs and for over 10 years as an independent photographer. She is a past president of the NPPA and currently serves as NPPA’s Deputy General Counsel.

The interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.

AC: When it comes to using drones, there's still a lot of unsettled law. But the first thing a photographer who wants to use drones for journalism needs to do is get an FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) Part 107 drone license, so you can fly drones commercially in the United States. It’s essentially a pilot's license to pilot a drone. The FAA has put out a whole set of regulations related to the commercial use of drones, and they interpret ‘commercial’ to mean anything where you're making money.

At one point,  we were teed up to argue the meaning of ‘commercial,’ but then they came up with Part 107, which created a path for journalists to use drones professionally. It’s not a hard path and it creates standards, so it was not a huge negative. So there's this path now for journalists to get drone pilot licenses. That's the first step. You also have to register your drones with the FAA.

The FAA controls airspace—it certainly controls the airspace in regards to airplanes. What's being sorted out right now in the courts, including in Texas, is how far that goes—meaning how extensive the FAA's control is and whether the States have any rights at all to assert laws related to drones. So, a state like Texas which …put forth this really oppressive drone law that we got overturned. But now other states are trying to regulate drones, as well, but they don't go quite so far as Texas did, and so it's not ripe for a challenge.

JW: So, as always, in the United States, it's important to look at your local laws, as well as the Federal regulations?

AC: You have to look at State law and municipal law. Some municipalities have drone laws. More and more states are passing preemption laws, too, which makes a super patchwork of different drone laws. Ironically, the whole point of having the FAA is so we don't have different aviation laws in every State, because that would be difficult to manage, right?

JW: So the point of the FAA is to do that on a federal level. 

AC: Yes. But then the FAA has also said that there may be some space for States to address privacy. But having said that, just make sure you've got the Part 107 license, you’ve registered the drone and that you know what your local laws are around flying drones. And gosh—people need to behave! Just because there isn't a law that prevents you from doing things that are super invasive with your drone doesn't mean you wouldn’t violate laws related to invasion of privacy if you go too far. People need to be responsible with flying drones, and the less responsible people are, the more you're going to see politicians trying to reign drones in.