What’s visible from public spaces, including the air, is not considered a search of your persons, houses, papers, and effects. Or at least not an unreasonable search.
What’s visible with the naked eye. If using a dog outside an apartment door to smell weed is unconstitutional, I imagine doing a flyover with a drone is too.
Police are not allowed to use anything other than the ‘naked eye’ (their own senses) without a warrant.
If this includes police dogs (it does, the SC ruled on this and a conservative justice wrote the majority opinion), it includes drones (with or without thermal cameras).
How do you think they catch grow-houses? They thermal scan neighborhoods for heat signatures from the grow lights. Cops are masters of subverting the law to do whatever they want.
I know thermal imaging has been used to look for marijuana farms, back when grow lamps were incandescent and houses would stand out as hot. But I don’t know if they had warrants for those or not.
But to actually use imaging, whether it’s thermal, radio, or X-ray, to see through a wall, is definitely considered a search.
Your property rights do not stop at the ground. No one has the right to fly a drone over your property. There’s just usually not much you can do about it.
This is not correct. Navigable airspace is controlled by the FAA alone. Part 107 rules state that in fact you must fly a small unmanned aircraft less than 400 feet above ground level or within 400 feet of a structure. So, if someone is flying a drone around, they must fly it fairly close to the ground (though a little quadcopter at 400 feet would be pretty hard to notice).
You may be thinking “the airspace above the surface that could reasonably be used in connection with the land” seems noticeably vague. At what point does my airspace end and the public highway begin? Unfortunately, there is no exact answer to this question, but generally, the government considers the public highway to start around 500 feet in uncongested areas, and 1000 feet otherwise. Flight over private land cannot interfere with the enjoyment and use of the land.
What about the airspace below 500 feet? Can helicopters, drones, or hang gliders legally fly above my property? In 1946 in the case of the United States v. Causby, a large military aircraft flew 83 feet above a farmer’s land startling his chickens, causing them to kill themselves by flying into walls. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the farmer. So we are at least entitled to 83 feet. What about the space between 83 and 500 feet?
Well… this appears to be rather unclear and is still undecided.
Like I said, navigable airspace is controlled by the FAA, but what is “navigable airspace” is not quantified. And the rules say small unmanned aircraft cannot exceed 400 feet.
Sorry, I forgot which way I was using the negative when writing that sentence. I’ve fixed it. You have to stay under 400 ft, or within 400 ft of a structure.
Is having a large party supposed to be illegal? Either way doesn’t sending drones to someone’s backyard constitute unwarranted search?
What’s visible from public spaces, including the air, is not considered a search of your persons, houses, papers, and effects. Or at least not an unreasonable search.
So if I got a drone and live streamed some cops backyard pool party that’d be ok?
Depends, are you a cop?
It would probably be legal.
Possibly not advisable, they tend to be quite … shootie
What’s visible with the naked eye. If using a dog outside an apartment door to smell weed is unconstitutional, I imagine doing a flyover with a drone is too.
So they can use thermal imaging from outside the house to watch the people inside? That’s bs
Police are not allowed to use anything other than the ‘naked eye’ (their own senses) without a warrant.
If this includes police dogs (it does, the SC ruled on this and a conservative justice wrote the majority opinion), it includes drones (with or without thermal cameras).
NYC will see a lawsuit out of this for sure.
How do you think they catch grow-houses? They thermal scan neighborhoods for heat signatures from the grow lights. Cops are masters of subverting the law to do whatever they want.
I know thermal imaging has been used to look for marijuana farms, back when grow lamps were incandescent and houses would stand out as hot. But I don’t know if they had warrants for those or not.
But to actually use imaging, whether it’s thermal, radio, or X-ray, to see through a wall, is definitely considered a search.
Thermal cameras can’t see through glass, but they could be used to see if a building is significantly warmer than the surrounding structures.
Your property rights do not stop at the ground. No one has the right to fly a drone over your property. There’s just usually not much you can do about it.
This is not correct. Navigable airspace is controlled by the FAA alone. Part 107 rules state that in fact you must fly a small unmanned aircraft less than 400 feet above ground level or within 400 feet of a structure. So, if someone is flying a drone around, they must fly it fairly close to the ground (though a little quadcopter at 400 feet would be pretty hard to notice).
https://www.landsearch.com/blog/property-air-rights
Hope their drones go higher than 500 feet.
Keep reading. The very next bit from that page:
Like I said, navigable airspace is controlled by the FAA, but what is “navigable airspace” is not quantified. And the rules say small unmanned aircraft cannot exceed 400 feet.
No one is flying the drones 400+ feet off the ground for surveillance… The cameras would have to be far too good/expensive for that to be practical.
Sorry, I forgot which way I was using the negative when writing that sentence. I’ve fixed it. You have to stay under 400 ft, or within 400 ft of a structure.