A drone flying by at some altitude is a curious sighting, but a drone hovering nearby feels like a threat and a privacy violation, and will always feel like that.
Exactly.
The general public cares not one little bit what the legal ins and outs are regarding who has the right to control the immediate, low-altitude airspace over their home (say, up to roughly 100 feet).
They control it. Just like they control the groundspace around their home. The "law" only becomes of interest when someone violates a belief in a right to privacy.
I shake my head reading some of the opinions here about what drone pilots have a right to do, and how private citizens should pound sand if they don't like it. Very naive, and short sighted.
Time and time again, drone pilots lose in the legal system when such cases come up (privacy conflict). Even if the drone pilot is technically right under FAA regs, the victim and prosecutors disagree and/or don't care, same with the judge, and forget sympathy from any jury should it get that far.
The drone operator will get absolutely no help from the FAA. Why? First and foremost, they have much much much bigger priorities with their limited resources.
Also, though, I suspect FAA personnel largely agree with the victim and prosecutor in spirit, and are rather annoyed by jerks who get off harassing people with their drones. Creating headaches for them when their trying to deal with bigger issues like Amazon drone deliveries.
Yeah, the FAA has, on paper, 100% authority over all airspace in the US. In practice, they're squishy about it for the kinds of things we're talking about here. They will ignore you if you need an assist with your defense: You had every right to hover over your neighbors pool at 50ft while his 17 year old, professional lingerie model daughter sunbathes in a bikini. The local county board or supes doesn't have the authority to restrict what you do with it, even though in their foolishness they passed an ordinance.
Shake your fist and grouse mightily about it, as you pay the fine. Who was the fool?
Push and push and push this, drone pilots, and there is only one outcome: A change to the FAA regs providing for some limited property rights for airspace over private property.
So please, let's not make this enough of a problem to get Congress' attention. We won't like the result.