Drones Set Sights on U.S. Skies

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NY Times:
Drones Set Sights on U.S. Skies
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WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. - Daniel Gárate’s career came crashing to earth a few weeks ago. That’s when the Los Angeles Police Department warned local real estate agents not to hire photographers like Mr. Gárate, who was helping sell luxury property by using a drone to shoot sumptuous aerial movies. Flying drones for commercial purposes, the police said, violated federal aviation rules.
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“I was paying the bills with this,” said Mr. Gárate, who recently gave an unpaid demonstration of his drone in this Southern California suburb.
His career will soon get back on track. A new federal law, signed by the president on Tuesday, compels the Federal Aviation Administration to allow drones to be used for all sorts of commercial endeavors - from selling real estate and dusting crops, to monitoring oil spills and wildlife, even shooting Hollywood films. Local police and emergency services will also be freer to send up their own drones.
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But while businesses, and drone manufacturers especially, are celebrating the opening of the skies to these unmanned aerial vehicles, the law raises new worries about how much detail the drones will capture about lives down below - and what will be done with that information. Safety concerns like midair collisions and property damage on the ground are also an issue.
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American courts have generally permitted surveillance of private property from public airspace. But scholars of privacy law expect that the likely proliferation of drones will force Americans to re-examine how much surveillance they are comfortable with.
“As privacy law stands today, you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy while out in public, nor almost anywhere visible from a public vantage,” said Ryan Calo, director of privacy and robotics at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University. “I don’t think this doctrine makes sense, and I think the widespread availability of drones will drive home why to lawmakers, courts and the public.”
Some questions likely to come up: Can a drone flying over a house pick up heat from a lamp used to grow marijuana inside, or take pictures from outside someone’s third-floor fire escape? Can images taken from a drone be sold to a third party, and how long can they be kept?
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Drone proponents say the privacy concerns are overblown. Randy McDaniel, chief deputy of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department in Conroe, Tex., near Houston, whose agency bought a drone to use for various law enforcement operations, dismissed worries about surveillance, saying everyone everywhere can be photographed with cellphone cameras anyway. “We don’t spy on people,” he said. “We worry about criminal elements.”
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I can’t imagine what dictatorial menace might have authorized drone missions over America. Any guesses? :eek: Rob
 
You could get a decent drone for $3700. It comes with live video feed, 11 fps burst, 11 meg camera, etc.
 
It seems that the law is unready to deal with drones. Is overflying private property trespass? If so, may owners shoot them down?

See this story.
 
SamH said:
If I can hit it with my shotgun it’s in my airspace.
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Nice.

With the .338 hunting rifle, basically if I can see it, it is in range.

Is my airspace really that big?

If I miss, where is that load going to land? And how fast will it be going when it gets there?

Someone is going to get hurt if we unleash aerial warfare near our residences.

Generally I agree with the concept that my right to swing a fist stops where your chin begins, but in this case we do not necessarily have control over how far our fist swings.
 
vz71 said:
Nice.

With the .338 hunting rifle, basically if I can see it, it is in range.

Is my airspace really that big?

If I miss, where is that load going to land? And how fast will it be going when it gets there?

Someone is going to get hurt if we unleash aerial warfare near our residences.

Generally I agree with the concept that my right to swing a fist stops where your chin begins, but in this case we do not necessarily have control over how far our fist swings.
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If your .338 is shooting a shot shell I seriously doubt you can hit anything you can see.
 
SamH said:
If your .338 is shooting a shot shell I seriously doubt you can hit anything you can see.
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rifles don’t shoot shot unless a specific round is used, and I know of no .338 round, be it Norma, LapuaMagnum, Federal, etc for which shot shells are made in a factory.

That being said, such a shot would be impressive outside a few hundred yards given its size and movement.
 
MugenOne said:
You could get a decent drone for $3700. It comes with live video feed, 11 fps burst, 11 meg camera, etc.
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Hey! Maybe some civil liberties groups can buy some drones and set up programs to monitor the police. They’re doing it to us and WE are the ones who pay their salary.
 
Daralharb said:
rifles don’t shoot shot unless a specific round is used, and I know of no .338 round, be it Norma, LapuaMagnum, Federal, etc for which shot shells are made in a factory.

That being said, such a shot would be impressive outside a few hundred yards given its size and movement.
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I know that, I wonder why you don’t.

Perhaps you should go back and read my post. I said nothing about hitting a drone with a rifle round - that was your claim. I said a shotgun that only gives a person a few hundred feet of airspace that they can call their own.
 
SamH said:
I know that, I wonder why you don’t.

Perhaps you should go back and read my post. I said nothing about hitting a drone with a rifle round - that was your claim. I said a shotgun that only gives a person a few hundred feet of airspace that they can call their own.
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Maximum effective range for a 12 gauge shooting 00 buck with a modified cylinder using 3" magnum shells is about 75 yards (225 feet). I wouldn’t even consider any other type of shot as it probably wouldn’t even be able to penetrate the skin of a drone past 50 yards.
 
SamH said:
I know that, I wonder why you don’t.

Perhaps you should go back and read my post. I said nothing about hitting a drone with a rifle round - that was your claim. I said a shotgun that only gives a person a few hundred feet of airspace that they can call their own.
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You responded to a guy talking about a .338 caliber RIFLE for which, NO SHOT SHELLS ARE MADE.

So, in responding to a post about a rifle round, you mention shot shell, of which, there are none.

You’re the one who needs to learn to read, not me.

It’d be similar to a guy talking about his MPG in a diesel truck using biofuel, and you mention how biodiesel doesn’t work in a gas powered car. Uh, duh?
 
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