Tim Skubick

Look! Up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane.

No it’s not Superman. It’s a drone. Thousands of ’em.

They are everywhere. They carry Amazon products literally to your front porch. Real Estate agents use the video from the drones to hawk their homes. Utilities save money by using drones to inspect power lines instead of using more expensive choppers. The law uses them to find missing persons in the backwoods or crooks on the run.

But on a more ominous front, GOP Rep. Will Bruck thinks its not a question of if, but when, the bad guys from foreign lands will pepper the skies with drones to destroy our way of life. “It’s only a matter of time before we have a 9-12,” he fears which is why he’s leading a legislative effort to bring some sanity to the drone phenomena before it’s too late.

“It is the wild, wild West right now in the United States,” the 31 year Army veteran observes as the drone industry on a statewide level is unregulated. (The feds are regulating them.) He and a strong bi-partisan group 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans have 14 bills set for a house hearing on the 16th of this month.

If enacted “No Drone Zones” would be created around critical infrastructure while allowing owners of those potential fat targets the right to install drone detection and geofencing systems to ID the intruders. And here’s one law you would assume is already on the books but it’s not.

“If there was a nefarious drone flying say over the Woodward Dream Cruise (which draws hundreds of thousands of rabid vintage car fans to Oakland County) and the authorities knew it was a bad drone, they knew it was nefarious and weaponized but there is nothing they can do legally or anyone else” to shoot it down or use other electronic means to disable the fleet from inflicting widespread harm even death. That’s cause it’s illegal the good guys to do that right now!

The two term lawmaker reflects that all you have to do is watch the evening news to see the hoards of drones descending on Ukraine or Gaza and then transpose that to any vulnerable spot in Michigan from the Bridge, to the nuke plants, to the sports venues. In fact one of his personal worse fears is that enemy drones would invade the Big House in A2 with 107,000 unarmed sitting ducks below.

“We have drones flying over our prisons, power plants, all critical infrastructure, at airports. They are interacting each and everyday in Michigan,” he sends out a clarion call for action.

The package is also aimed at protecting the rights of those who have legit reasons for using them in addition to those listed above including farmers who tend their crops with drones and a whole host of would-be fly boys and girls who purchase cheap drones for recreational purposes. “They are fun,” he admits but in the wrong hands? It’s another story.

But the harsh reality these days in the Michigan House is that no legislation, repeal no legislation has any chance of seeing the light of day until and unless King Matt Hall a.k.a. the GOP House Speaker, gives his blessing.

This is the leader who single-handily shutdown the Michigan House from doing any business during the last hurrah for Democrats two years ago when they had Lame Duck control of the house but couldn’t use their power. Mr. Hall got all of his members and one Democrat to boycott house sessions in a masterful way of bringing all legislating to a grinding halt with a thud.

So the question to Mr. Bruck was to the point. Do you have the speaker’s support?

Turns out he has not asked for it, but he quickly adds, not to worry.

He’s already had three audiences with His Majesty and “I’ve been working with Speaker Hall. He is very high on homeland security; on oversight (of critical issues) and has a high priority on drones.”

Which is to say, the Speaker will not be a road block.

Given the gravity of the potential ticking time-drone out there in the “wild, wild West” , you would think everyone will scramble to say yes.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch is a good guideline when dealing with 148 different players in both the house and senate each of whom has their own take on how to address this issue.

But if you were a betting person, based on this first blush 30,000 foot analysis, the debate may drone on but in the end they will do something. (Sorry.)