Congressional DJI Drone Ban

I'm not sure why the main-land Chinese government would need drones to gather intel on critical infrastructure.

*cough* google maps *cough*
 
Shepherd said:
Anyone here care if DJI drones are banned in the US.
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I definitely care. Been using them for years. Very happy with them and their ecosystem. Would be super annoying to have to change for, as far as I can tell, no reason.

Show me a reason to ban them and I'm willing to reconsider. The reason so far seems to be "China bad", but in this case they have a practical monopoly by doing nothing but outcompeting the hell out of the competition.
 
Shepherd said:
Anyone here care if DJI drones are banned in the US.
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Yep, I care. Sure saves me a lot of wear and tear on my body dragging a ladder around. I also get photos I couldn't get with a ladder.

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Shepherd said:
Anyone here care if DJI drones are banned in the US.
https://apnews.com/buyline-shopping/article/dji-drone-ban-in-the-us

I couldn't find anything newer except the people sponsoring this in Congress are all owners of the largest US of A Drone manufacturer.
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The wheels of Congress move sloooowly....here's an excerpt from a 2019 discussion in Civil Air Patrol (which flys 3 versions of DJI drones)

"Legislation currently pending before the U.S. Congress would ban the use of Chinese produced sUAS for federal entities, and concurrently ban the procurement of Chinese produced sUAS with federal dollars (including grant dollars). This has the potential to significantly impact our fleet, which is 60%+ DJI (a Chinese based firm). Considering that DJI owns ~80% of the commercial sUAS market in the U.S., this has the potential to change the way everyone does things."
 
DJI owner here; I don’t think China will change the balance of power with shots of my pasture & 20 beef cattle.
Or of my house roof zooming by at 45mph (love that sport mode).
 
I'm usually little on the paranoid side, but what information is being gathered by monitoring these drones that couldn't be gathered in other ways.

I'd also imagine the sheer amount of data being gathered would be nearly impossible to manage or screen for valuable information. Granted China might have the population to do so if anyone could, and AI could take some of the guess work out of it.

Too paranoid or not paranoid enough...only time will tell. Too bad no one in the US has been able to keep up technology wise.

Signed a Part 107 DJI Captain
 
wanttaja said:
There are almost 2,600 DJI drones listed in the FAA registry. Does the government plan to reimburse these people, or...?

Ron Wanttaja
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Don't get me wrong, if they want to give me my money back, I'd be happy to invest it in a drone that is 5 years newer with added tech.
 
I'd be unhappy if my Mavic 2 Pro is suddenly an illegal thing. Mind you, I've got genuine concerns about the Chinese, but it should be up to the consumer to use it responsibly, like every other potentially surveilling piece of Chinese electronics we currently use. Mobile phones, anyone?
 
I’m a lot more worried about my cell phone illegally gathering information to sell to our corporate overlords than the ol’ drone that comes out maybe once every other month. I’ll keep flying my drone; this is allegedly a free country after all. (HA!)
 
wanttaja said:
There are almost 2,600 DJI drones listed in the FAA registry. Does the government plan to reimburse these people, or...?

Ron Wanttaja
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that's all? I would have thought the number to be much much higher.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I'd also imagine the sheer amount of data being gathered would be nearly impossible to manage or screen for valuable information. Granted China might have the population to do so if anyone could, and AI could take some of the guess work out of it.
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You don't have to analyze the data in real time, although AI is capable of that task. You could just throw it in a big reservoir and pull out footage from interesting times and places. You could designate certain locations, say a test track in Detroit, and send all footage from near that location for competitive analysis....
 
wanttaja said:
There are almost 2,600 DJI drones listed in the FAA registry. Does the government plan to reimburse these people, or...?
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I didn't see a way to look that up directly. But...

DJI has a 74% market share.
The drone registry has 864,000 total drones listed.

Which would be 640,000 DJIs.
 
I've read the bill and it's pretty clear this Congresswoman has been lobbied by US Drone makers. I'm all for buying US products, but not if it's going to cost 3 times as much and be an inferior product. I paid $1K for my DJI drone and 3 batteries. Many years later, I'm still loving it.
 
From reading the law and the amendment specific to DJI, it looks like it only covers drones paid for by the federal government. It has no authority over private purchases or government agencies below the federal level that aren’t using federal money.
 
ateamer said:
From reading the law and the amendment specific to DJI, it looks like it only covers drones paid for by the federal government. It has no authority over private purchases or government agencies below the federal level that aren’t using federal money.
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So I wouldn't be allowed to buy them with my tax refund? :D
 
172andyou said:
So I wouldn't be allowed to buy them with my tax refund? :D
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No, that's just the government saying, "Hey, when we took all that money, we accidentally took some of it that we weren't supposed to (ie. theft). So I guess rather than the government getting arrested, we'll give it back."
 
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