Private drones are a growing menace

[Humpy]

It's funny to me that people are freaking out about these RC toys. Of all the dangers and violations of privacy out in the world today this is something that needs attention?

Even funnier is how many goobers think that shooting at them is a good idea. Fucking simpletons.

 

[Darwin333]

Agreed, except on the Internet anonymity is simple and widespread. Some drone operator can easily post embarrassing footage without being personally identifiable.

While we could talk about the ways to be truly anonymous on the internet we are talking about criminal law and not civil. The vast majority of people posting that crap would be very easy to identify.

And 250 feet is pretty damn high, what sort of cameras do you think these things carry? A gopro from a football field away isn't exactly going to show your fat rolls as you sunbathe in your backyard.

Granted, you can pull up an absurdly expensive commercial drone that could zoom in on your wife/kid/whoever from that altitude but if you have people spending 10's of thousands to spy on you the thing that you can see and easily hear spying on you would be the least of my concerns.

 

[Darwin333]

Flying in publicans and taking video of people on public land is legal. The proble is I can see a lot of not public land from 400ft.

I'll also point out you have no right to shoot it out the air anymore than you have a right to shoot the neighbors RC car when he crashes it on your property.

I do think the penalties for surveillance are fine, I just want an exemption for recreational flying. When I fly at the local parks there's still private property around. The views would be similar to google maps satellite view. So I don't see how that invades anyone's privacy.

Quite frankly we have Apache helicopters flying overhead around here anyway, it's not like they aren't taking video over private property. No ones going to shoot at them either.

I can get better resolution from google maps than I can from my drone at 250+ feet. It's not like these consumer drones are flying around with DSLR's and telephoto lenses. You did make a very good point though, if they were flying around with telephoto lenses they wouldn't need to be directly over your property anyway, giving you no "right" to shoot it down.

Regular privacy laws with fairly strict consequences are all that is required. A couple of nerds get 5-10 in the pokey and the rest will cut that shit out quick. Besides, people think that they are so self important these days. If someone is flying an RC aircraft over your house it MUST be because they want to spy on your boring ass (to them) life or your ugly ass wife or whatever. You can take a drone to the beach and get far better footage if that's what you are after. Of course you can do the exact same thing with a handheld camera.

As far as airports, as I said, manufacturers are already implementing software that will not allow you to fly them in restricted zones. Sure this can be defeated but it must be done deliberately which takes away the "I didn't know defense" and we have plenty of laws on the books already to take care of those assholes.

 

[Paratus]

@Darwin.

Yup there's a huge difference between this:

And this:

 

[shira]

That's a great idea right up to the point when you shoot down a drone that is being used by law enforcement and you find yourself at the sh*t end of a SWAT team. Be sure to tell us all how that works out for you when you get out of prison. :awe:

If brought down with an otherwise benign device like a fish-line shooter, the homeowner would be completely within his or her rights if the drone was trespassing.

 

[DrPizza]

If brought down with an otherwise benign device like a fish-line shooter, the homeowner would be completely within his or her rights if the drone was trespassing.

You do not own the airspace above your house. It wouldn't be trespassing UNTIL you brought it down.

 

[Paratus]

If brought down with an otherwise benign device like a fish-line shooter, the homeowner would be completely within his or her rights if the drone was trespassing.

I still don't think you're totally in the clear. It's for the same reason you can't take a crow bar to a bike left by a kid on your property or even a car someone parks in your driveway.

You can call the cops for trespassing but you'll be on the hook for property damage if you bash in the windows and slit the tires.

Now if it really is the case where there's a drone hovering by a bedroom window with the camera pointed at it then I don't think anyone's going to have problem if you take it out. (Me included - other than with a slug )

 

[Paratus]

Anyway for people who feel the need to get medieval about their airspace, the Kentucky drone shooter is selling "Drone Slayer" t-shirts for his legal bills.

:hmm: The drone operator released video and telemetry showing it was only over Kentucky guys house for 20 seconds before being shot down. That guy must have had his shot gun right by the door.

You guys don't think that could have been.....Spidey... :ninja:

 

[Blackjack200]

You guys don't think that could have been.....Spidey... :ninja:

I don't know... was it a black, queer, atheist drone?

 

[werepossum]

Flying in public and taking video of people on public land is legal. The problem is I can see a lot of not public land from 400ft.

I'll also point out you have no right to shoot it out the air anymore than you have a right to shoot the neighbors RC car when he crashes it on your property.

I do think the penalties for surveillance are fine, I just want an exemption for recreational flying. When I fly at the local parks there's still private property around. The views would be similar to google maps satellite view. So I don't see how that invades anyone's privacy.

Quite frankly we have Apache helicopters flying overhead around here anyway, it's not like they aren't taking video over private property. No ones going to shoot at them either.

Personally I think if you are over public land, then what you can see is public domain. It's really only over private land that I get antagonistic. And hey, this is Tennessee; I have a God-given right to shoot anything annoying me on my land.

When we lived on the farm, ultralights would fly over, basically a lawnmower with a prop and a wing or parasail. Take freakin' forever to go overhead, but it's a somewhat social event. I wave. He waves. Life goes on. Not really the same with a camera-toting drone. But if it's just flying over, I'll live and let live.

As far as the "just twenty seconds" defense, absolutely no one believes that drone was shot down the first time it came over. Some people just have to be annoying pricks with whatever is at hand.

I don't know... was it a black, queer, atheist drone?

Worse. It was a black, queer, atheist, Obama-loving drone. G-d hated that drone and wished it smited. Um, smote. Smitten. Fuck it, G-d wanted it dead.

 

[werepossum]

While we could talk about the ways to be truly anonymous on the internet we are talking about criminal law and not civil. The vast majority of people posting that crap would be very easy to identify.

And 250 feet is pretty damn high, what sort of cameras do you think these things carry? A gopro from a football field away isn't exactly going to show your fat rolls as you sunbathe in your backyard.

Granted, you can pull up an absurdly expensive commercial drone that could zoom in on your wife/kid/whoever from that altitude but if you have people spending 10's of thousands to spy on you the thing that you can see and easily hear spying on you would be the least of my concerns.

Sir, you do an injustice to my fat rolls. I assure you they are 250' capable.

Actually 250' was selected because it's an altitude at which I'm fairly sure it would not annoy me.

 

[BoberFett]

The highly restrictive law mentioned is from Texas and was done to protect big business from lefty types. Talk about getting things 100% backwards!


Brian

What a complete and utter failure of comprehension.

 

[woolfe9998]

You do not own the airspace above your house. It wouldn't be trespassing UNTIL you brought it down.

I believe this is incorrect.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...metz_arrest_how_much_airspace_do_you_own.html

According to an old SCOTUS case, we own at least 83' of airspace above our homes. This is up to a maximum of 500', above which the FAA says is navigable airspace. It remains ambiguous how much more airspace above 83' we may own, but it's at least 83' feet.

 

[davmat787]

I believe this is incorrect.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...metz_arrest_how_much_airspace_do_you_own.html

According to an old SCOTUS case, we own at least 83' of airspace above our homes. This is up to a maximum of 500', above which the FAA says is navigable airspace. It remains ambiguous how much more airspace above 83' we may own, but it's at least 83' feet.

In another thread I had a link where the FAA reiterated the 500' rule specifically because of drones increasing popularity. Will link it again later.

 

[woolfe9998]

In another thread I had a link where the FAA reiterated the 500' rule specifically because of drones increasing popularity. Will link it again later.

This was your link:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights

I think 500' is the limit of airspace we may own above our property, and the minimum was set by SCOTUS at 83'. Where the limit may be between the two distances remains ambiguous but I have a feeling the growing drone controversy may ultimately result in some clarification.

 

[Muse]

I'm not even getting into drones used by terrorists here. That's another issue entirely, and perhaps even more scary. But if people insist on using drones, they must be held accountable for their actions and the aggregate actions of all those pursuing the hobby.

I didn't get a chance to follow up on the story the other day, but it was about the threat of terrorist use of drones. That would seem to be obvious and a huge concern. I think it obvious that drone usage will have to be regulated. You can't just let anybody do what they want with a drone, not that they do now. And what's a drone? Even a remote controlled flying gizmo sold as a toy is a kind of drone and poses a threat.

 

[woolfe9998]

Anyway, my prediction is that the number 1 issue with the drones won't be causing air crashes, but pervs using them to peep through windows at women undressing, showering, etc. While they may be too loud to record conversations, they can certainly take video and stills.

 

[Paratus]

In another thread I had a link where the FAA reiterated the 500' rule specifically because of drones increasing popularity. Will link it again later.

This was your link:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights

I think 500' is the limit of airspace we may own above our property, and the minimum was set by SCOTUS at 83'. Where the limit may be between the two distances remains ambiguous but I have a feeling the growing drone controversy may ultimately result in some clarification.

And as I've linked before, direct from the FAA:

http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=76240

Myth #1: The FAA doesn't control airspace below 400 feet
Fact—The FAA is responsible for the safety of U.S. airspace from the ground up. This misperception may originate with the idea that manned aircraft generally must stay at least 500 feet above the ground

 

[shira]

You do not own the airspace above your house. It wouldn't be trespassing UNTIL you brought it down.

I agree that I don't own infinite airspace above my property. But I own the airspace below SOME altitude, and any intrusion below that altitude is trespassing:

How much airspace do you own?

Up to a point. Before the advent of air travel, landowners owned an infinitely tall column of air rising above their plot. (The Latin doctrine was Cujus est solum ejus usque ad coelum, or “whose is the soil, his it is up to the sky.&#8221 In 1946 the Supreme Court acknowledged that the air had become a “public highway,” but a landowner still had dominion over “at least as much of the space above the ground as he can occupy or use in connection with the land.” In that case the court held that a plane flying just 83 feet in the air—the commotion was literally scaring the plaintiff’s chickens to death—represented an invasion of property. The justices declined to precisely define the height at which ownership rights end. Today, the federal government considers the area above 500 feet to be navigable airspace in uncongested areas. While the Supreme Court hasn’t explicitly accepted that as the upper limit of property ownership, it’s a useful guideline in trespass cases. Therefore, unless you own some very tall buildings, your private airspace probably ends somewhere between 80 and 500 feet above the ground. Paragliders and hang gliders can easily soar above that height, so your ability to exclude a snooping gliding enthusiast appears to be limited. (It should be noted that the vast majority of complaints about trespassing hang gliders result from their landing on, not flying over, private property.)

The question then becomes what - if any - immediate actions by a homeowner are legal when a drone trespasses? In those jurisdictions that have castle laws, it would be very interesting to see what recourse a drone-owner has if the trespassing drone is destroyed by the trespassed home-owner.

Consider a case where naked homeowner in his/her bedroom sees a drone with a GoPro camera hovering just outside the window. Compare that to a scenario where a peeping tom was standing outside the bedroom window filming. Are you saying that a totally passive response is the homeowner's sole recourse in the first case, but a more aggressive response would be legal in the second case?

 

[Humpy]

Anyway, my prediction is that the number 1 issue with the drones won't be causing air crashes, but pervs using them to peep through windows at women undressing, showering, etc. While they may be too loud to record conversations, they can certainly take video and stills.

If the number 1 issue is something that millions of people living in large cities have learned to defeat by pulling the curtains then I'm not too worried about it.

 

[TuSpockShakur]

Get out of my airspace, now damn it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-xBtVU4lg

 

[Blanky]

I think most people worried about spying on these have never been near one. They are extremely loud. Quite easy to hear from even 100m if the thing is loud enough to carry a camera. It's impossible for one to be near your bedroom window with current technology without you knowing about it.

They present some mild risk, but the media is blowing it out of proportion of course. Many of the sightings are almost certainly nonsense and these present a fear smaller risk than non-commercial aviation, which has hundreds of deaths/year across the US.

 

[Paratus]

I think most people worried about spying on these have never been near one. They are extremely loud. Quite easy to hear from even 100m if the thing is loud enough to carry a camera. It's impossible for one to be near your bedroom window with current technology without you knowing about it.

They present some mild risk, but the media is blowing it out of proportion of course. Many of the sightings are almost certainly nonsense and these present a fear smaller risk than non-commercial aviation, which has hundreds of deaths/year across the US.

While I agree it's unlikely you wouldn't know if one of these was flying by your window, (I basically posted the same thing you did earlier), there is a privacy concerns for folks in their backyards. The teen girl by her pool problem.

There does need to be privacy laws put in place. Similar to but better defined than the Texas Privacy Act. With positive exemptions for recreational flying in public areas regardless of indirect views of private property. Defining malicious surveillance as purposeful flight/hovering less than X number of feet AGL over private property with a camera equiped drone.

@ Shira.

Looks like they are going to run drone ingestion engine tests. (Should have already done it quite frankly.)

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/engine-makers-havent-tested-drones-n408711

The FAA is finally developing a test regime for drone ingestion.

 

[werepossum]

And as I've linked before, direct from the FAA:

http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=76240

That's certainly definitive. I mean, it's not like government would ever try to grant itself powers it does not have.

I think most people worried about spying on these have never been near one. They are extremely loud. Quite easy to hear from even 100m if the thing is loud enough to carry a camera. It's impossible for one to be near your bedroom window with current technology without you knowing about it.

They present some mild risk, but the media is blowing it out of proportion of course. Many of the sightings are almost certainly nonsense and these present a fear smaller risk than non-commercial aviation, which has hundreds of deaths/year across the US.

I'm guessing that the problem is much more irritation than fear.

 

[shortylickens]

Its weird because we've had RC planes and cars and helicopters and rockets for decades.

Why all of a sudden is this a "problem"?