The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has revealed that no one really knows how many licenses the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued to domestic drone operators – thus leaving us with no idea how many entities are allowed to fly drones over the United States.

Earlier this month, I reported on the most recent FAA drone list that revealed over 80 public entities cleared to fly drones domestically but the list did not include entities like the Oregon National Guard and others who also fly drones in the U.S.

The oversight of the massive domestic drone program is far from satisfactory, especially when it comes to the military’s use of drones in concert with law enforcement, something which will likely only expand in the future.

A recent article by the Los Angeles Times revealed that since 2007 1,428 permits were issued by the FAA and 327 were still listed as active.

This led the EFF to ask, “Just how many agencies have applied for drone licenses? How many licenses has the FAA issued since it started issuing licenses (which was earlier than 2007)? And how much has domestic drone use increased over the years?”

The EFF concludes that the FAA has made it impossible to answer these burning questions despite their two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the FAA.

While they have uncovered a wealth of information on domestic drone use, the use is still far from entirely transparent or even as close to transparent as one might expect.

“But thanks to discrepancies among various drone numbers the FAA has released—to EFF, to the Government Accountability Office and to members of Congress—it’s anyone’s guess exactly how much drone authorizations have increased over the years,” the EFF states.

The EFF gives the following table showing just how little sense the FAA’s numbers actually make:

Continue reading at:  http://endthelie.com/2013/02/21/revealed-no-one-really-knows-how-ma...