Court Upholds Domestic Drone Use in Arrest of American Citizen
A judge denied a request to dismiss charges Wednesday against Rodney Brossart, a man arrested last year after a 16-hour standoff with police at his Lakota, N.D., ranch. Brossart’s lawyer argued that law enforcement’s “warrantless use of [an] unmanned military-like surveillance aircraft” and “outrageous governmental conduct” warranted dismissal of the case, according to court documents obtained by U.S. News.
John Villasenor, of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, says the legality of domestic drone use likely stems from two Supreme Court cases that allow police to use “public, navigable airspace” for evidence gathering.
So now that you pathetic little sheeple know that you have no legal recourse, be advised that you shall pay for your insolence!!!
I wonder how long it will be before they start storing jars of human scent from every citizen so that the dogs won’t have any trouble finding you either?
They don’t need dogs, we’re gonna get GPS trackers in our heads, and the elimination of our evil backwards tax cuts will give them the money they need to give us all our own personal tracker drones too.
But it’s for us and the good of our children. And opposing it makes you racist. And not having a GPS chip in your head will give you cancer and make you dumb and cause global warming.
:mad:
I’m gonna go cling to an assault rifle and quote scripture in my evil gas-guzzling truck while thinking about clubbing baby seals. Maybe then I’ll go steal food from homeless people. I’m a crazy libertarian conservative who won’t listen to the good people of the US federal government and ignore that dusty old constitution, so that’s clearly what I do right?
I dislike that so much focus is on the type of aircraft being used. It would not be a story if LE had flown a manned plane or helicopter over during the standoff, because it was appropriate LE use of an aircraft.
The facts here just don’t add up to the hype. The aircraft was used to provide intel during an armed standoff. It was not used to gather evidence. The standoff happened because the Sheriff with a search warrant was allegedly confronted by armed family members.
Bring me the long term surveillance of an individual without a warrant being used for PC/evidence if you want me concerned, but I won’t be concerned about the type of aircraft used…
No, its a big deal, a very big deal! It opens up a whole new Pandoras box of police state totalitarianism, the Gestapo, Stasi, NKVD, Khmer Rouge et al… theyl would all know exactly what such invasive technology was intended for. LE in the USA needs to be halved or better, this was all too predictable…I’m looking forward to the upcoming civil war, there is no hope for liberty other then that, none at all…
My concern is that the legal system is already apparently on board with drone surveillance based on precedent established for manned aircraft, and abuse will happen (you can count on it).
Using a manned surveillance aircraft requires you involve at least one more person. That person or persons might object if he was being asked to violate another person’s Constitutional rights. That is one more chance that an illegal and unConstitutional use of a surveillance aircraft will be stopped before it happens.
An unmanned drone cannot object to violating someone’s rights. It obeys at the push of a few buttons. It gives the person controlling it an “instant search warrant” if you will.
That is why the type of aircraft is important, IMHO.
Agree or disagree, that’s what we’re here for.
Personally, I very much see the utility in unmanned drones for search and rescue.
My problem is that the device will be an irresistable temptation for some marginally (or outright) dishonest government entities to use it to skirt the rules.
Just out of curiosity… What is the difference between a helicopter, plane, unmarked car, decoy vehicle, boat, satellite, bike, motor cycle, jet ski etc, etc and a drone when used by LE?
The person controlling the unmanned aircraft is no different than the person flying a helicopter, airplane or what have you. It’s not all push button and off it goes. There’s still a human being that can think and reason behind it. Will there be abuses of this technology? I have no doubt there will, but it’s still a human pilots responsibility.
Probably has something to do with the fact that UAV programs evolved from the clandestine services for spying and assassinations. UAVs can and will monitor private property with much greater loiter times than a LE helicopter. They are on par with NRO’s satellites in this regard with the exception they don’t have to contend with the whole pesky Earth rotation thing.
I think we really need to differentiate between government use of drones, and drone use by LE.
The use of drones by the government to essentially “spy” on random individuals, track their movements, track their patterns, and LOOK for wrongdoing does indeed scare me. Drones are easier to use use of this type of surveillance, like satellites.
However, in the use of drones in situations like those presented in the OP’s story, I don’t see it being that big of a deal. As long as the drone’s aren’t collecting data and evidence to convict, but are simply surveilling what is going on, I see nothing wrong. As was noted before, unmarked cars, boats, helicopters, planes, undercover officers, ect. have been used for decades to surveil possible criminals and surveil while actions are being taken to take down said criminals.
The fact that these planes are “unmanned” and have previously been used only to target and surveil terrorists and the like, scares most people. However, there are plenty of very helpful scenarios where these planes can be effectively used domestically, most notably in search and rescue. Larger planes may be built to help fight forest fires eventually.
Drones are simply the product of advancements in technology. While they are essentially “unmanned” in the air, they are still fully controlled by some guy(s) on the ground. They aren’t robots mindlessly surveilling.
The issue I have is that you can get a mass of automated drones out there collecting information. I think our legal system is based on people actually observing or filing a complaint about someone breaking the law. At the extreme you have speed limit laws that are violated by almost everyone and life goes on just fine. Cops pull over, for the most part, the most egregious violaters- there are just many violators to pull everyone over. Automation of survielance means that you can start to issue citations to everyone that breaks the law. But like I said, our legal system wasn’t really set up to capture every single violation and prosecute it.
How many laws do we have? The number is not really known. If you can inexpensively monitor people so that you can cite them for every violation of every law with out incurring the expense of limited manpower- that is a pretty scary proposition. That will keep the Post office busy.
OR you have a scenario where people are singled out for 100% law enforcement- which no one could survive.
We are at this ‘carbon fibre sky’ scenario when people are getting cuff’d and stuff’d for using their iPhones to video police officers.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not an SME on unmanned drones. I seem to remember hearing or reading that some of the modern ones are not much bigger than a hummingbird. Technology keeps changing. There may very well be some “fire and forget” drones out there. Push a button, and it comes back with pictures three days later. I’m not saying that exists yet, because I don’t know, but even if it doesn’t I do not believe it’s that far off.
Couldn’t the state LE simply go HUMNIT and gather the same intel as they could get from the drone? If it’s doing the same task that a person using a different tool would be doing, how is it anymore invasive?
Lets say a drone is used to find a crop of pot, does it matter that a drone found it instead of an airplane, field agent or helo? How would using the drone be more invasive than the alternatives? It just seems to be a natural progression in technology, it’s doing the same thing that they are currently doing, but this time its doing it by remote control.
Genuinely curios, and I’m not just trying to start a shit storm with the black copter, tin foil crowd…
Interesting point. Using that point, wouldn’t it be similar or the same as a traffic cam? It catches every offender, where without it you only get caught by “chance”…
Hey that whole black helicopter thing is null and void now after the OBL raid.
No shit storm on my end, just a friendly chat.
You bring up some valid points and the whole thing appears to be harmless when you look at the current and past modes of LE in this country. With drones we have issues concerning Consititional rights; warrants, probable cause, et al. I believe there was a thread on the legal aspects already but I could be mistaken.
While I have no doubt there is some sort of conceptual/prototype out there for a so called ‘fire and forget’ UAV, I can say with dead certainty that those that are currently in use have a human pilot controlling them. The reason I know this is because I’m a certified operator for 2 of the small UAVs the Army uses. Technology does keep changing, but currently the systems that I know of in use with LE are the same systems I’m certified on. What the next 10 yrs have in store I have no clue.
Think if the red light cams checked speed, seatbelts, registration, headlight status, tire tread depth… and then take that level of investigation and make it happen anywhere- and realize how often automated systems make mistakes.
One complaint about police service is that it is minutes away when seconds count. What if the govt tries to get into the ‘seconds from protection’ business with drones that will interfere in criminal activity- or what it considers criminal activity. You could then get people saying that we don’t need the right to fire arms because the drones are there to protect us all the time. Or pressure to open our lives more to surviellance in the name of security. People trade freedom for security all the time.
I know that is far fetched, but perhaps not far off. When you start to roll out this new technology you have to consider where it is going, not just what it replaces.
Drones are a great technology. If it were cheap enough and reliable enough I’d have one running top cover for my kids 24/7 whenever they leave the house by themselves. It is just how they are used.
