What's the FCC's statutory authority for this? This adds mobile LIDAR units to the FCC's "Covered List". The CFR entry for the Covered List [1] claims this is under the Secure and Trusted Communications Act of 2019, [2] or the FCC's authority to regulate RF emitters. RF is generally considered to end at 3 terahertz, per the ITU. Whether the FCC has jurisdiction over non-communication uses of lasers is not at all clear. Lasers are usually regulated in the US by the Food and Drug Administration.

Expect lawsuits.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A...

[2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-116publ124/pdf/PLAW...

The government's response to the security threat of drones has been illogical and negligent at every turn.

For example, the Big Beautiful Bill only appropriated $800M for counter-UAV systems. That's insanely low given the broad threat exposure and the fact that they've literally changed what ground combat looks like. For perspective, we spent $400M on the Qatari 747 retrofit and appropriated $400M on the hope that "naval shipbuilding autonomy and AI" might be a thing.

Stop manipulating our markets under the guize of national security or protecting Americans. If we need to be protected from bad behavior we need to be protected by all bad behavior regardless of it's origin. Has back doors? Ban it. Has awful security around sensitive data? Ban it. Makes technology available to the masses that is a national security risk? Ban it(if you most). Why give US companies a pass on this? It's because the US government wants in on using the products with bad behavior while still trying to stop other governments the same power.

American consumers are stuck with crappier and much more expensive tech. Thanks Mr President! I'm sure that's what your voters were asking for!

Another dumb move how do you expect to keep up to the rest of the world, which will just move on, another thing that’s bad is that most of the local US drone companies are not exactly moving all that fast to make drones for civilian use within America, they all want to cater/make military drones to sell at a high price to the American government at the expense of the American taxpayer.

What about Lidar-equipped (and why not, even cameras) foreign cars that scan every one of the country's roads and everything around them? Cars are increasingly packing this kind of tech and telemetry.

Related:

National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095714

Aaaaand this "ban" will be just as incompetently executed as the ban that happened like, what, a couple weeks ago about drones? Literally all the manufacturers did was create some shell companies, change the branding a bit, and boom. So much for banning things, amiright? Not to mention the shear amount of customer confusion because now they have to figure out what differentiates all these new brands nobody has ever heard of.

> Conversely, the notice also details the billions that domestic drone makers like Skydio, which has committed $3.5 billion to US manufacturing, have raised since the original ban

I'm so fucking tired of Adam Bry's fucking bullshit. Show me the consumer drone I can buy from Skydio.

Another move to remove competition for Don Jr.?

FCC's move is fair .. an adjacent view to this is best summed up by Palmer Lucky in this interview (https://www.hoover.org/research/palmer-luckey-wants-america-...?) ...

“Imagine if there had been a novel … like a Tom Clancy novel” where, during the Cold War, the Pentagon’s most secure electronics would be made by the Soviet Union under Kremlin supervision ..

Imagine running an aerial LiDAR/SLAM over gov sites .. mil bases .. ports .. airports .. power plants ... eeven if the system is completely benign .. ur talking about a technology whose output can be an extremely detailed representation of the physical environmen.

How’s a Lidar is a national risk?! (It’s easy to build a lidar based drones in a weekend project) Also, knowing plenty of US based drone manufacturers, most of their stuff are dependent on Chinese parts, the radio communication is on top of that list. If I were DJI, I would make Lidar and similar components modular, so they can still sell these drones while consumers can buy these modules later or DIY it, like literally most of the drones, which will be great for other consumers in the world for the easy repairability.

We're quickly reaching the point where Lidar isn't needed, pure vision workflows are getting much better.

Even if one accepts this argument as valid, an outright ban on an entire technology is the most freedom restricting, invasive, economically disruptive remedy possible. There are more targeted remedies which can be equally effective for national security purposes but, coincidentally, those remedies aren't as protectionist.

Palmer Luckey owns a drone company. He can't have an objective opinion on his competitors being banned.

> the Pentagon’s most secure electronics would be made by the Soviet Union under Kremlin supervision

What electronics here are among the Pentagon's most secure? Why would the Pentagon have to buy LIDAR from a Chinese company?

Will we ban every import of something the Pentagon might buy?

> Imagine running an aerial LiDAR/SLAM over gov sites

> a technology whose output can be an extremely detailed representation of the physical environmen.

How do you evision those things happening? How are either of those things prevented by this ban?

This move has nothing to do with national security. It, like everything else this administration has done, is protectionism where some groups that have bribed Trump or have his halfwit children as beneficiaries get to move into the vacuum left by vastly superior options being banned from the market.

> best summed up by Palmer Lucky

Oh gosh, by the guy with the drone company? Surely 100% sincere, honest commentary! No way it's self-serving nonsense.

> Imagine running an aerial LiDAR/SLAM over gov sites .. mil bases .. ports .. airports .. power plants ... eeven if the system is completely benign .. ur talking about a technology whose output can be an extremely detailed representation of the physical environmen.

For most of this they could find any number of commercial providers with extremely precise maps. I mean, you understand that satellites are doing this now, right? I'm sure Palmer just forgot to mention that. China's last gen satellites we know create a 3D map within 10cm accuracy, and they're probably better now.

I don't think it's LiDAR itself that is the risk. The FCC note read more like the cause is trade and supply-chain protectionism. (https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/robots-nsd.pdf)

The obvious concern would be China building high-res maps of every inch of US cities.

Steel manning this argument:

  Electronic warfare resistant loitering munitions. They would transmit sparse point clouds to the enemy for training.

Not saying I support it.

> How’s a Lidar is a national risk?!

The anti-flock community believes it's because they can destroy image sensors from a distance. And banning the foreign ones means they can order domestic-made drones to have firmware that prevents them from operating in certain ways or in certain (government) areas, among other things.

The finance community thinks they just don't want competition that might rival or sell better than domestic ones, similar to the ban on Chinese EVs.

The privacy community thinks they only want surveillance to be possible from within, likening it to previous bans on DJI drones and Chinese routers. And the administration is currently working on trying to ban other kinds of networking gear as well as cellular modems from China (which is basically every phone in the country).

Would love to hear other theories. Perspectives are fun.