Drone Espionage Act Updates Federal Law to Cover Video Recording of Defense Information

The newly proposed Drone Espionage Act is short, but it makes a necessary technical change to a very old law. It’s not introducing new crimes or penalties, but it’s making sure that existing federal espionage law is dragged into the 21st century.

The Law Gets a Software Update

This legislation specifically amends Section 793 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. That’s the federal statute that deals with illegally gathering or sharing national defense information. Think of it as the core law prohibiting espionage. The problem is that this law was written in an era when people used film cameras, not smartphones and drones.

Currently, the law criminalizes taking or transmitting a “photographic negative” of defense information. The Drone Espionage Act simply replaces the outdated term “photographic negative” with the word “video” wherever it appears in that section. This is a crucial modernization.

From Film to Footage: What This Means

In the real world, this change closes a potential loophole the size of a drone camera lens. If you illegally record sensitive military or defense information—say, using a drone near a restricted facility or simply using your phone—the law will now explicitly treat that video footage the same way it treats an old-school film negative or photograph. For federal prosecutors, this ensures that capturing sensitive material on video is explicitly covered under the existing statute.

For the average person, this doesn't change anything about your daily life unless you happen to be flying a drone over a military base or trying to secretly record national defense assets. The underlying prohibition against sharing defense secrets remains the same, but the legal language is finally catching up to modern technology. It ensures that the government’s ability to prosecute the unlawful sharing of defense information is maintained, regardless of whether the evidence is captured on film or high-definition video.