Drone update

[Peter S]

US military to shoot down consumer drones http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40860806

I suspect the same applies to everyone's military bases

[eyesup]

It is not illegal to protect yourself from an illegal act, or a threat to your property , or body, so privacy would also be included.

I’m with Jbee on this one. The FAA doesn’t make law. Congress and the Executive branch do that. Congress and the Supreme Court are in charge of making and interpreting law. Thank God a bureaucracy has to answer to higher ups.

Besides, there are already exceptions being invented for special groups. As usual the average guy doesn’t get those.

If the FAA says you can’t take them out of the air and they can’t be over 400 ft. what’s to stop them from coming into the backyard at 20 ft. If it’s illegal to take them out what’s our option. This is crazy!

Duane

[Greenbare Woods]

If the FAA says you can’t take them out of the air and they can’t be over 400 ft. what’s to stop them from coming into the backyard at 20 ft. If it’s illegal to take them out what’s our option. This is crazy!
Duane

I suspect that if its flying low enough over your back yard so you can hit it by throwing a towel, that won't count as "shooting" it down.

Bob

[jbeegoode]

There are concepts established in concern to Right to Privacy. There are established Second Amendment Rights and defense of property, and other Rights. It is Constitutional Law, based on "Rights."

So, the FAA says that these don't exist and are not defensible, because of public safety. Another's property, which is trespassing in full and unquestionable effect, whether over my property trumps, my privacy, my property and privacy. The Second Amendment was created to defend Rights, which are no longer to be abused.

There is something wrong here, in amongst the confusion. I'm supposed to be secure in my effects, in my home, so others don't stop by, treating it as they please, anymore than having to have my place commandeered by military troops. There are some principles being increasingly ignored, whether it is being tracked by my phone, having my private correspondence collected and read by a government, or being spied upon by drones, by anybody. By the same token, I have the right to choose what I deem private, or not. If I think my privates are private, or not, it is up to me.

Jbee

[Peter S]

Seems to me there are two different arguments here, privacy and property. A camera intruding on one's privacy - through a window, in a garden or similar made private by walls, fences - should undoubtedly be ruled illegal in any civilised country.

The property argument gets a bit more nuanced - where does one's property stop? Once we get three-dimensional the lawyers have room to manoeuvre. At what height does my property become common airspace?

If we take, say, the high point of the roof as the upper property limit (legal argument will centre on the owners of single storey homes being short-changed) then a drone above that height is not intruding on your property. At this point, it could be argued that anything it can 'see' is on public view the same as if a street-level camera was looking at someone in an unfenced garden.

Once again existing law is not keeping up with the changes society is accepting in the day-to-day.

On balance, I'd go with downing the drone and challenging anyone to prove it was me!!

[Greenbare Woods]

The other side of privacy is that privacy has become history.  Ubiquitous video cams, private and public surveillance video on every street, and a digital cam in everyone's hand has pretty much rendered obsolete any notion that someone can go naked any time or any where without being photoed, imaged, cammed, etc. 

40 years ago pictures had a cost. Film was expensive and processing more expensive.  Naked photos were often subject to complaints by the local film processors.  That all has changed with new ubiquitous digital cameras.  Pictures are free.  Many people do them several times a day, every day.

Nudist factory farms still have rules against cameras, but everyone carries a camera in their pocket or bag and makes many photos of the crowd. Neighbors use ZOOM features to take "close up" pictures from 500 meters.  Drones are another new toy, but not yet an important part of getting photographed while naked.  We might as well get used to it.  We aren't going to be naked and hidden. 

The other part of ubiquitous digital images is that EVERY human is fascinated by the images of other humans, especially naked humans.  Billions of images of naked humans are exchanged, traded, shared, and enjoyed on Internet every day by almost every user.  The whole population is becoming used to seeing images of naked humans with their morning coffee and their afternoon tea.  40 years ago one had to go to little seedy "adult" shops and pay extra for "naughty" pictures of naked humans.  Digital images has wiped most of those out too.  The public at large, from children to old ladies, is used to seeing images of naked humans and naked becomes more and more normal every year.

We might as well assume we are being photographed every time we go out of our door, and I'm not sure about inside any more.  Images of our nude bodies becomes part of the billions of naked human pictures.  Surveillance video probably never gets viewed, and if it does nobody cares. 

Google Earth takes naked photos from space or from airplanes.  Ten years ago there were lists of coordinates which Google Earth showed naked people in back yards.  A drone is really only a nuisance if it is low enough to be dangerous.  Our best answer is to wave at the camera and ignore it.  Then, if the guy is a neighbor, go have a chat and invite him over.  We really don't need to be up tight about getting our pictures shared. 

Bob

[Greenbare Woods]

Thought you guys might enjoy this meme I found on Facebook.

[jbeegoode]

Drone disintegration device! How much you wanna bet this guy gets a boner when he fires that monster? I don't know what that thing fires, but one round is probably a fortune. Such a grin, such heavy duty ear protectors.

We used to have one of those Gatling style monsters off of a military helicopter bid that we scrapped (I owned part of a scrap metal operation). It had bent barrel. Just as well, the rapid fire of those huge shells would be thousands for a minutes fun.

Surface to air missiles to knock out the drones!?!

Yea, Bob, it is senseless to get upset about getting our pictures shared, but then ones vanity would like to choose.

Another thing, I found a pic of me skinnydipping at a pool party on facebook. I'm shown with two weird people that I don't really know, like we are friends, but I've never spoken to them. I don't like it when my photo is construed out of context. I feel the right to present myself as I am.
Jbee

[ric]

my first thoughts when seeing the pic of the massive gun..... bet hes got a wee apendige.

[jbeegoode]

Size doesn't matter, it's the aim and motion in the trajectory that counts.
Jbee

[nuduke]

Once we get three-dimensional the lawyers have room to manoeuvre

A grim thought indeed!
John

[eyesup]

We really don't need to be up tight about getting our pictures shared.

As Jbee points out, it’s in the Constitution. The thing that upsets me about this isn’t so much the possibility that I may end up on the news or a blog somewhere, but that it represents a slow erosion of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. This is more than just the right to privacy. Several rights guaranteed are beginning to be considered too extreme and are being constrained. Done long enough it becomes accepted as the norm till no one sees the importance of those cherished rights.

It’s loss of what once was considered sacred, and the blaise attitude about that loss sends me ‘round the bend.

Duane

[eyesup]

. . . bet hes got a wee apendige.

Or self image.

Duane

[ric]

took our youngest to the docs this morning , hes off to uni so having the baby vaccinations he didnt have,  reading a magazine in the waiting room... french military have 4 golden eagles in training to attack drones. seem to be looking at ways to combat terrorist usage on military instalations and airports.