Bill banning drones from flying too close to prisons, military installations advances in SC Senate

COLUMBIA — Every year, hundreds of drones fly over the state’s prisons and military bases, but officials can do little to stop them.

A bill a Senate panel advanced unanimously Tuesday would make it easier to punish the people operating them. The proposal, which the House passed unanimously last month, would expand no-fly zones and give state law enforcement more authority to arrest pilots.

As more people start using the technology, more drones fly onto or near sensitive areas, said Aubrey Richardson, who oversees a unit countering drone technology for the State Law Enforcement Division.

“Quite frankly, we have a problem,” Richardson said.

Some drone operators worried the bill goes too far by confiscating pilots’ drones if someone accuses them of flying over a private property with the intention of invading a person’s privacy or flying too close to more common structures.

Flying a drone too close to a state prison is already illegal under state law, and federal rules prohibit operating over a military installation or an airport.

But “there is no law enforcement teeth to prosecute any of this stuff,” Richardson said.

Under the bill, no drone would be allowed to fly within 1,500 feet of a prison, military base or airport without special permission. Other no-fly zones, with varying ranges, would include large events, the Statehouse grounds and the Governor’s Mansion.

Flying in a prohibited area other than a prison could bring a fine of up to $1,000 and up to 30 days in prison. Flying a drone over prison boundaries would be punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine on a first offense.

The 2018 state law that banned drones from flying 500 feet over a prison or within 250 feet of a prison’s property line hasn’t stopped people from using the aircraft to sneak contraband to prisoners, agency director Joel Anderson said.

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Since January, corrections officials have caught 75 drones flying onto the property of the state’s 21 prisons, Anderson said. They drop packages typically camouflaged as grass or other benign items that contain illicit cellphones and drugs.

“We fight these drones every night, bringing poison into our institutions,” Anderson said.

Inmates can then sell or use those items. State corrections officials have fought for years to get cellphones out of prisons, saying they allow inmates to create violent crimes while locked up.

The bill would also ban drones from flying over local jails, which are not included in existing law. SLED has no idea how often people use drones to sneak contraband into county-run detention centers, but officers know it’s happening, Richardson said.

Military concerns

Security also poses a problem at the state’s military bases, representatives of several installations said.

Foreign adversaries may try to learn secrets about national security, or they could use drones equipped with weapons to target the bases in attacks, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Thompson, who oversees a security squadron at McEntire Joint National Guard Base.

Many drones that fly near the Columbia-area military base have a legitimate purpose, Thompson said. Nearby farmers use drones to spray crops, real estate agents use them to take aerial views of properties, and wedding venues use drones for photos.

Often, the pilots don’t realize they need special permission to fly within the base’s vicinity and ignore the warning that pops up when they launch their drone, Thompson said.

Sometimes, though, suspicious drones take off nearby without a clear intention, Thompson said. Even if Thompson and his team are able to track the drone’s registration to its owner, the base can’t do anything but report an incident to the Federal Aviation Administration, he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration can only issue fines, and the process is often slow, Thompson said.

“This legislation would have created a clear deterrent and provided our local law enforcement partners the authority to take more decisive action,” Thompson told senators.

The base has responded to 147 reports of drones coming too close in the past year, Thompson said. Each of those requires security staff to monitor them and track down the registration if it exists.

“If we get some deterrents, perhaps you can spend your time on other things,” said Sen. Greg Hembree, a Little River Republican.

Joint Base Charleston has a similar issue, said Bailey Vincent, a lobbyist for the military base.

In the past 60 days alone, 118 drones have come within 1,500 feet of the North Charleston air base. The military installation’s concern reaches beyond its own property and to nearby utility providers and water systems, which the base needs to continue its operations.

If a drone took out one of those locations, that would pose a different kind of threat to the base than a direct hit, she said.

“The proliferation of small, unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, presents a rapidly growing security challenge,” Vincent said.

But drone operators worried the bill’s inclusion of “critical infrastructure,” which includes communications antennas, water treatment plants and power facilities, was too vague.

Concerns of accidental violations

The bill would exempt people operating a drone with a license under all federal regulations from the rules about coming too close to critical infrastructure. Still, that could cause confusion among drone operators, said Alexander Peabody, a past president of the South Carolina Society of Professional Land Surveyors.

Land surveyors rely on drones to help them safely collect accurate data surveyors need for development, floodplain management, construction and real estate deals, Peabody said.

“Drone technology is not optional in our profession,” Peabody said.

The change would affect hobbyists, too, said Tracey Green, a Columbia attorney who uses a drone to photograph trains in his free time. He steers clear of prisons, airfields and military installations, but he worried he might accidentally fly too close to a wireless antenna.

Although the exception would help, Green said he might still run into trouble if someone accused him of trying to photograph a power plant or other sensitive piece of property, which the bill bans.

Police might then have to confiscate Green’s drone until he could prove he wasn’t doing anything wrong under the bill, he said.

“This takes a lot of train tracks and stuff completely out of play for me,” Green said.

Regardless, the state needs to do something to crack down on rogue drones, Richardson said.

“An attack or surveillance of these facilities leading to an attack would be devastating to both the citizens and the economy of South Carolina,” Richardson said.