[aklug] Re: Legal protection from drone surveillance

On 07/02/2012 11:12 AM, Christopher Howard wrote:
> On 07/02/2012 08:29 AM, Mike Tibor wrote:
>> On Sat, 30 Jun 2012, Christopher Howard wrote:
>
>
>
>> What most people forget when this topic comes up is that airborne
>> drones are really only effective when the surveillance target is
>> out in the open. Believe it or not, when you're out in the open you
>> have no expectation of privacy, and the police need no warrant to
>> photograph you or record your conversations. Police routinely
>> plant cameras/microphones in open areas to gather evidence during
>> an investigation, so I'm not sure why mounting them on a small
>> airborne platform changes anything.
>
>> Violation of your privacy can only occur when you're in a place
>> where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy--in your home
>> for instance. An airborne drone isn't going to make it easier for
>> police to watch you or monitor your conversations when you're
>> inside your house. Technology for surveilling a target inside a
>> structure from the outside has existed for many years now. That
>> kind of technology should be of far more concern then the simple
>> mounting of a camera on a little RC helicopter, and I'm not sure
>> why it isn't.
>
>> Don't get me wrong--I think most tools used by government agencies
>> that have the potential for abuse are virtually guaranteed to be
>> abused by them, given the opportunity. I'm just having trouble
>> seeing the basis for the outrage on this one.
>
>> Mike
>
> For the sake of discussion, here are some more questions: (I'm not
> claiming to be the expert here, or to have all the answers.)
>
> 1. Can law enforcement legally use remote surveillance to monitor you
> activities inside a private structure, without a warrant? E.g., are
> they allowed to point a powerful telescope through the window of your
> home (without getting a warrant) and record everything you've done in
> your living room, and would that count as legally admissible evidence?
> (If there was a bill preventing that, I'd be glad to sign on to it.)
Not really no, homes have special protections including the area around
the home. However, there are some odd exemptions around remote listening
devices, I don't remember the details just a vague recollection of some
exemptions.

>
> 2. Does "expectation of privacy" include just the inside of your
> shuttered home, or is it any place that is not "public"? E.g., suppose
> you are sitting in your backyard, behind a grove of trees, where
> normally no one would be able to see you from the highway.

You probably don't have that in that location. However, there are
interesting cases around places like say a tent, or a mobile home, are
these homes? If so do they fall under the special protections granted to
homes? This area seems to be kind of murky in case law.

>
> 3. Outside of drone technology, is there any technology that can
> easily track your activity (with photography) everywhere you go? If
> you were walking the main streets of San Diego, you might expect there
> to be a hidden camera at every corner (maybe there should be a law
> against that as well...?), but what about when you are walking the
> suburbs, or hiking through the woods? What else can they do in those
> cases, except assign a police unit to you? (Which is relatively
> speaking rather expensive.)

I can't really speak to this as I don't know much about it.

>
> H.R. 5925 doesn't mention anything at all about "expectation" of
> privacy, it simply states that the Feds must get a warrant to use a
> drone to "gather [any] evidence or other information pertaining to
> criminal conduct or conduct in violation of a regulation".
>
> I'm not saying other methods of surveillance aren't a concern, but
> this is the only surveillance-related bill I see in the House at the
> moment.
>

I am not a lawyer, I just used to work in law enforcement, that doesn't
make me an expert by any means, but the above are my recollections.

-Erinn

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Received on Mon Jul 2 11:18:22 2012