A bad actor has become an excuse for the government to ruin everyone’s day. Or that’s how some drone pilots in Missouri feel right now, after self-described “rat king” and “cult” leader Jomo Johnson offered pay-per-view surveillance of St. Louis and the city he responded with clumsy restraints.
The St. Louis Board of Aldermen voted last week to require any drone pilot flying commercially to have a city license. (This is in addition to the Federal Aviation Administration license that commercial drone pilots already need.) The bill would also ban drones from flying within 25 feet of people without their consent or near public buildings and emergency vehicles .
Mayor Tishuara Jones says yes pending to turn it into law. The DroneDJ website calls the move “another example of an isolated and obnoxious drone operation that produces regressive rules for all users.”
While the bill places barriers in the way of activities like real estate photography, it exempts “members of the press who use drones to collect video footage or photographs for journalistic purposes and activities protected by the Constitution,” which leaves room for exactly the kind of livestreaming which the aldermen were trying to ban in the first place.
“We want to respect privacy, but there is also the right to photograph in public,” Johnson told a local NBC affiliate. “This is covered by the First Amendment.”
The bill was a response to Johnson’s company, SMS Novel, advertising paid livestreams of surveillance of St. Louis neighborhoods. SMS Novel offers the ability for users to send surveillance requests for specific locations. Johnson described his service as “a unique opportunity for both entertainment and safety.”
It is unclear whether surveillance existed in any significant form. Local news station First Alert 4 tried to pay for SMS Novel’s live stream on the first day of streaming but he never had access to the video. THE two samples of SMS Novel movies that are posted on YouTube shows jerky, almost unwatchable handling.
Surveillance wouldn’t be Johnson’s first disturbing business venture. Different versions of the SMS Novel site have offered various services. One version allowed people to pay $200 to audition for a film about “the mythical story of the dog who followed Jesus.” Another version sold AI-generated books for nearly $100.
In a video, SMS Novel described himself as a “cult of writing” around Johnson, a “submissive rat king of writers devoted to the Almighty Word, joined in the queue by the power of artificial intelligence.”
Speaking in defense of his drone venture, Johnson presented himself as an honest crime fighter rather than a cult leader. He said during a Feb. 29 council meeting that “we should not demonize Black voices trying to create solutions to crime in St. Louis and other cities.”
Johnson said he spoke “as someone who has been around St. Louis a lot and also as a future resident.” Other people at the meeting were shouting, “He doesn’t even live here!”
In his Jan. 29 interview, Johnson also called himself “a drone businessman who represents drone pilots.” Many in the drone community, however, see Johnson as a threat to their ability to self-regulate.
“If you’re in the drone industry and you’re trying to create a drone business that’s going to create this kind of chaos, be aware that there’s going to be an overreaction,” flight instructor Greg Revardiau said during his weekly Pilot Institute news . video. “Everyone in St. Louis in this case may owe him a debt [Johnson] who may now be unable to fly in some areas.”