If you purchase a DJI device that meets all US certifications, it's completely legal (right now) to buy it outside the country and bring it home with you. All of DJI's current drones are certified by the FCC.
If you read the article that you linked to for the quote, you'll find that it wasn't about privacy or surveillance; it was about taxation.
That's the risk when trying to apply a statement from a quarter of a millennium ago to a modern...
That's a distinction without meaning. Yes, they could make a firmware that disables RID, but they could not legally release it.
The Mini 5 did receive FCC certification, and DJI can sell it in the US. They chose not to release it.
Yes, they could have a FW update that does that but it would violate law to do so since the drone will reliably come in at over 249g with the standard battery (which seems silly to say because most come with the extended battery, thus making it...
That's the point. CA does have a problem with droughts and fires. Is a $300k fine excessive? Sure, but a private citizen launching a fireworks display of that size is also excessive.