Concern about these unexplained flying objects is entirely understandable, as is the call for investigation and regulation of drone flights. There may be laws being broken here, and if no laws are being broken, perhaps we need better laws. At its core, however, this is primarily about the need to better protect our privacy.

New Jerseyans, like all Americans, don’t want others snooping into their private affairs, whether through mysterious flying video cameras hovering over their patios, data brokers tapping into their health and location data, or old-fashioned peeping Toms. We don’t like it when other people invade our privacy – and for good reason. As I have already written, our privacy is very important.

Privacy is important because information is power, and information about people means power over those people, whether it’s drone cameras watching us in our homes, social networks sharing sensitive data about us with advertisers, or to artificial intelligence algorithms that use our data to generate assessments about our eligibility for health insurance, employment, or access to credit.

To be sure, we already have a number of laws protecting our privacy from snoopers, whether those snoopers are tracking us online, following us home, or flying through the air. Old laws on trespass and invasion of privacy protect us from unwanted intrusions into our private affairs. States – including New Jersey – often have criminal protections against unwarranted invasions of privacy.

In 2012, Rutgers freshman Dharun Ravi used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate Tyler Clementi and posted it on social media. Clementi later took his own life by jumping off a bridge, and Ravi eventually pleaded guilty to attempted invasion of privacy.

And there are already many rules for drone flights, depending on how big the drone is and where, when and how high it flies. Even basic recreational flyers must pass a basic FAA safety test. Almost all drones must be registered. As such, many of the current calls for the FAA to ban drone flights have less to do with the safety of commercial aviation and more to do with nebulous privacy concerns, although untracked or unauthorized drone flights may well pose a risk to the safety of airline passengers and flight crews alike .