ACLU national headquarters does not support drone company working with Macon-Bibb

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The American Civil Liberties Union does not support the drone company that is trying to make an agreement with Macon-Bibb County.

The organization claims the company’s CEO made false statements during his presentation to commissioners last week. The company owner tells 41NBC he doesn’t have an agreement with the national office, but a working relationship with state affiliates.

“To my knowledge, we’re the only drone company in the world that’s aligned with a major civil rights organization. The ACLU will participate in this with us,” Ted Lindsley told 41NBC last week.

This is the comment that made Stacy Sullivan from the ACLU headquarters in New York give 41NBC a call.

“That statement gave the impression that the ACLU endorsed his product and that we have some kind of agreement with the company and we do not,” Sullivan said.

Olaeris is a drone company that is trying to make an agreement with Macon-Bibb to bring in “Aerial Electric Visual Assistants” to help with public safety. The ACLU asked Lindsley, the CEO of the company, to remove its logo from the presentation he used for the county.

“We’ve worked with the ACLU for at least 16 months in several other states, but we made the mistake in that we used their logo without their permission and didn’t realize that was going to be an issue,” Lindsley.

Lindsley says he didn’t try to show his company and the ACLU have an agreement.

“Commissioners could have been misrepresented saying that we had a partnership with the national office when we don’t,” Lindsley said. “What we have is a working relationship with state affiliates.”

Macon-Bibb Commissioner Mallory Jones feels he was mislead during the presentation, but not intentionally.

“It showed the handshake, one of ACLU and one of their company, Olaeris, like they had agreed and it had passed and his explanation was independent and evidently they’ve gotten some indication that they were ‘We’re fine with what you’re going to do,’” Jones said.

Lindsley believes the ACLU’s concerns stem from a lack of communication between the national office and its state affiliates.

“The ACLU is somewhat of a fragmented organization and each state has a separate entity and is responsible for doing their own action,” Lindsley said.

But the ACLU and Olaeris both agree on privacy rights.

“We like his views on privacy protection, and we are aligned on that, but that does not mean that we support his company,” Sullivan said.

Lindsley will continue to invite the Georgia ACLU affiliate to work with him on any drone system he makes for a government entity because he wants people to feel their privacy rights are protected.

The county is expected to vote on the $5.7 million agreement with Olaeris during its meeting tomorrow night. Jones plans to ask if the price was negotiated at all. He think $96,000 a month for five years for about 16 drones is a big commitment.