So explain to me why the FAA had them arrested then?
Trespassing is illegal. Just because the gates to this place were open, these three guys were NOT invited there by whoever owned the land. You can be paranoid all you wish, but they violated the land owners clear "No Trespassing" signs (they admitted they saw the signs but didn't think it applied to them).
There was no (that I heard) issue with being in a NFZ, these three upstanding people decided that because the doors were open so to speak, that they were totally OK to trespass on private property because, and I'll quote "they had been there before". This is making a big deal over nothing. Don't trespass on private property and you'll be okay.
Did you watch the video?
Yes, they were definitely trespassing. I am hardly paranoid so stop saying that.
I fly wherever I want. I always get permission from the tower. I tell officers that I have the right to fly because I got permission from the FAA (the tower). The FAA is the ONLY governing body that can determine what can be in it's space. Nobody else. It's a rare thing when the state has no power to overrule a federal agency on those type of matters but I am HAM radio operator and understand the laws of the FAA quite well and trust me, you don't want this. This is the beginning of an overreaching removal of our rights to fly something for fun at a very low altitude in very low space. I am not worried about being able to fly over a military base or a sporting event but read just the first draft. I promise it won't get better. The fact that you said the FAA didn't arrest them leads me to believe that you really don't know much about the way things work. Maybe if you said, it wasn't a federal agent (not that it needs to be) it would hold more water. Learn.
They were definitely trespassing but that is not what they were charged with (unless they tacked that on). They were charged with violating the FAA rules of the location they are allowed to fly but that's not even what the point of the thread was. It wasn't about them, it was about the expanding decline of our ability to fly.
Racers and DIY people are usually never even messed with. I happen to be both and as more dangerous as a DIY quad is, I have NEVER been stopped because of one of my DIY quads but I have several times on my photo birds.
This is not about what THEY did. This is about the legislation being drafted with VERY non-descriptive terms.
"You can't fly within 5 miles of a international airpot" according to the FAA (which can be over-ridden with approval from the tower within 1.5 miles is an EXACT and easily understandable thing to decipher what you can and cant do. It needs to be plain English and not left to the authorities to determine what is and what isn't because if that's the case, you will not have a leg to stand on when you try and explain that you are within your rights to fly.
I am all for safety. I often preach it. I am not saying we should be willy nilly able to do what the heck we want but there needs to be a lobby AND WE ARE IT. Who in Washington do you think is lobbying for us? NOBODY! If DJI was an American company, I would feel better. Guarantee that they are spending many millions on lobbying on our behalf but at the end of the day, they are a Chinese company and even if they understand the issue, they don't know the culture and certainly don't know the politics of lobbying.
Add to that, we have an administration that is afraid of it's own shadow as it pertains to terrorist threats and you have a perfect storm of the loss of our 4th amendment right to not have our property taken, shot down, confiscated unconstitutionally. People think this is an answer to the removal of the registration addendum but no, it is my contention that it was (and it was a US court of appeal that help up the case) so it could open the door for them to start the process of removing our rights to fly.
You can call me paranoid all you want, but that doesn't make it true.