Was the FAA honest on data collection?

[BigAl07]

Alright folks... argue/debate all you want but remember be NICE and RESPECTFUL! Make it personal and ugly and this thread will get locked down.

Warnings have been issued . . . .

 

[Corsair415]

I was just puzzled how my observation that you clearly don't understand the Constitution led you to the asinine conclusion that I don't hold it in much regard.

Let me be clearer - it's your comprehension skills that I don't hold in much regard.

Here's the thing - you need to do more than just yap about government overreach to make the argument that the it is actually occurring, or that the Constitution has been violated.

My offense at what? My only vested interest is that I fly these things professionally and recreationally, and I'd prefer that significant segments of the market, together with you and others with similar attitudes on this thread, try not to tarnish the reputation of the industry with ignorant assertions.

I see you have like minded people keeping you from being corrected so we’ll just have to leave it at that.

 

[sar104]

I see you have like minded people keeping you from being corrected so we’ll just have to leave it at that.

I'm happy to be corrected, but you are not doing that - you are just throwing assertions and accusations. If you really think that the RID proposal violates the constitution then feel free to explain exactly how it does that.

 

[Corsair415]

I'm happy to be corrected, but you are not doing that - you are just throwing assertions and accusations. If you really think that the RID proposal violates the constitution then feel free to explain exactly how it does.

Educating you, and using the same words as you, has been deemed unacceptable since I’m on the other side of this issue.

 

[sar104]

Educating you, and using the same words as you, has been deemed unacceptable since I’m on the other side of this issue.

That makes no sense - you are the one who asserted violation of the Constitution, so you need to make an argument or cite some evidence to support that. You haven't even tried to do that, let alone "educate me", whatever that is supposed to mean.

 

[Corsair415]

That makes no sense - you are the one who asserted violation of the Constitution, so you need to make an argument or cite some evidence to support that. You haven't even tried to do that, let alone "educate me", whatever that is supposed to mean.

Take it up with your defenders.

 

[sar104]

Take it up with your defenders.

Reasoned arguments, rather than ad hominems, are always welcomed on this forum. Now you are just deflecting to avoid having to try to mount a defense of an untenable position. I guess we can mark this conversation as finished.

 

[Corsair415]

Reasoned arguments, rather than ad hominems, are always welcomed on this forum.

Obviously, so is hypocrisy.

 

[Chip]

The US Supreme Court has formulated a two pronged test for determining whether someone's reasonable expectation of privacy has been violated:

1. did the person exhibit an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy?
2. if so, is that expectation one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable?

It is tough to argue with someone about their perception of what society should recognize as reasonable because it is an inherently subjective standard when you cut away the window dressing.

In other words you can certainly challenge someone's opinion as to what society should or should not find reasonable but to say someone is absolutely flat wrong and they are defective in mind and character may be unfair.

 

[Chip]

The GAO issued a report in the fall of 2020 which summarizes the serious legal issues implicated by FAA's UAV regulation. Link to report and excerpts below. Its not like Rupprecht just dreamed all this up one night.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Current Jurisdictional, Property, and Privacy Legal Issues Regarding the Commercial and Recreational Use of Drones (Correspondence)

Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Current Jurisdictional, Property, and Privacy Legal Issues
Regarding the Commercial and Recreational Use of Drones

September 16, 2020

EXCERPTS:

Unresolved legal issues discussed in our report include the scope of FAA’s authority over low-altitude UAS operations; the impact on federal, state, local, and tribal authority of possible constitutionally-protected property rights in low-altitude airspace (the U.S. vs. Causby issue); the scope of federal preemption of state, local, and tribal regulations affecting UAS operations in low-altitude airspace; the potential liability of UAS operators and governments to landowners under aerial trespass and takings principles; and the adequacy of the protections offered by existing federal and state privacy laws against UAS invasions of personal privacy and what authority the federal, state, local, and tribal governments may have to enact additional measures that may be needed.

A second federal court, while not deciding the jurisdiction issues, has questioned both FAA’s and Congress’s authority to regulate all low-altitude UAS operations, particularly in airspace over private property (Huerta v. Haughwout, 2016 WL 3919799 (D. Conn. 2016). A third federal court has found it lacked authority to rule on what it said were state law issues of UAS-related privacy and property rights in low-altitude airspace. 10 Boggs v. Merideth, 2017 WL 1088093 (W.D. Ky. 2017).

Based on our review of the law, as well as the legal positions expressed by a range of stakeholders we spoke with and analyses by a number of legal commentators, key unresolved UAS legal jurisdiction and privacy issues include:

• Whether Congress may use its power under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause to regulate all UAS operations, including non-commercial, non-interstate, low-altitude operations over private property, and if so, whether Congress has authorized FAA to regulate all such operations in FMRA or other legislation;

• What impact possible Fifth Amendment-protected property rights held by landowners in the airspace within the “immediate reaches” above their property, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Causby and other legal precedents, may have on federal, state, local, and tribal authority over low-altitude UAS operations;

Whether and to what extent Congress intended, in FMRA or other legislation, to preempt states, localities, and tribes from regulating UAS operations at low altitudes;

• What liability UAS operators and the federal, state, local, and tribal governments may have to landowners under state aerial trespass and constitutional takings law precedents for conducting, regulating, or preempting state regulation of UAS operations in low-altitude airspace, and whether landowners may exclude drones from their overlying airspace;

• Whether existing federal and state privacy laws adequately protect against invasions of physical privacy and personal data privacy involving UAS operations and what authority the federal, state, local, and tribal governments have to enact additional measures that may be needed.

The legal uncertainty surrounding these and other issues is presenting challenges to integration of UAS into the national airspace system. Successful integration may involve balancing the social and economic benefits anticipated from UAS operations with constitutionally protected property and privacy rights. It may also involve balancing the federal government’s constitutional rights and responsibilities to regulate interstate commerce with the states’ constitutionally reserved police powers and principles of federalism.

 

[Chip]

I've been reading the FAA's brief. Basically, the FAA is arguing that if the government can use GPS beepers to track movement of barrels containing ether or methylamine (chemical precursors used in methamphetamine manufacture), then they can surely track anybody flying a 251 gram+ drone 1 inch off the ground in their own backyard. Get it?


Walter White steals his first barrel of untracked methylamine in Breaking Bad.

 

[brett8883]

I've been reading the FAA's brief. Basically, the FAA is arguing that if the government can use GPS beepers to track movement of barrels containing ether or methylamine (chemical precursors used in methamphetamine manufacture), then they can surely track anybody flying a 251 gram+ drone 1 inch off the ground in their own backyard. Get it?

View attachment 138166
Walter White steals his first barrel of untracked methylamine in Breaking Bad.

Why stop there? Surely then the government can track all persons in the country at all times. Let’s just give everyone ankle bracket trackers so our glorious leaders can watch over us and protect the motherland.

I’m sure that’s what the founding fathers meant by “liberty.”

 

[sar104]

Why stop there? Surely then the government can track all persons in the country at all times. Let’s just give everyone ankle bracket trackers so our glorious leaders can watch over us and protect the motherland.

I’m sure that’s what the founding fathers meant by “liberty.”

Do you post this kind of nonsense just to try to wind people up, or do you really just have no clue what RID is intended to achieve?

 

[BigAl07]

Educating you, and using the same words as you, has been deemed unacceptable since I’m on the other side of this issue.

If you mean the WARNING I gave you, you can take that up with me in PRIVATE! I await your PM . . . .

 

[brett8883]

Do you post this kind of nonsense just to try to wind people up, or do you really just have no clue what RID is intended to achieve?

It’s not nonsense. If the government is using the tracking of methylamine as stepping stone to rationalize tracking people while operating a drone, if they get that, what prevents them from in the future using the tracking of drone operators as a stepping stone to rationalize tracking cars? Then once they get that, what prevents them from using the tracking of cars to rationalize tracking people?

When the government tells you that you must broadcast your location, to me, that crosses a line. I don’t care what the activity is, I don’t care what it is trying to achieve, and I don’t care about the legality of it. If the laws allow it then the laws should be changed. This is much bigger than flying drones.

 

[Chip]

Why stop there? Surely then the government can track all persons in the country at all times. Let’s just give everyone ankle bracket trackers so our glorious leaders can watch over us and protect the motherland.

The FAA’s argument is that no one has any reasonable expectation of privacy in their travel on any public roadway or flying a drone in any outdoor airspace anywhere in the country including one inch off ground in your own backyard based in part on the US Supreme Court case, United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983).

United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983)

The 3M Co. in St. Paul, Minnesota notified a state narcotics investigator that a former 3M employee, Armstrong, had been stealing chemicals which could be used in manufacturing illicit drugs. Visual surveillance of Armstrong revealed that after leaving the employ of 3M Co., he had been buying similar chemicals from the Hawkins Chemical Co. in Minneapolis. The narcotics officers observed that after Armstrong had made a purchase, he would deliver the chemicals to co-defendant Petschen.

With the consent of the Hawkins Chemicals Co., narcotics officers installed a “beeper” inside a five-gallon container of chloroform, one of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs. Hawkins agreed that when Armstrong next purchased chloroform, he would be given the container with the beeper.

NOTE:The beeper was a circa 1980s radio transmitter which emitted periodic signal that could be picked up by a radio receiver in close proximity.

Armstrong picked up the chloroform and officers followed his car using both visual surveillance and a monitor which received the beeper signals.

Minnesota law enforcement agents followed the car from Minneapolis to a secluded cabin near Shell Lake, Wisconsin. Relying on the location of the chloroform derived through the use of the beeper and additional information obtained during three days of intermittent visual surveillance of respondent's cabin, officers secured a search warrant.

During execution of the warrant, officers discovered a fully operable, clandestine drug laboratory in the cabin. In the laboratory area officers found formulas for amphetamine and methamphetamine, over $10,000 worth of laboratory equipment, and chemicals in quantities sufficient to produce 14 pounds of pure amphetamine. Under a barrel outside the cabin, officers located the five-gallon container of chloroform.

The defendants did not challenge the warrantless installation of the beeper in the chloroform container because its clear that under the law having the consent of the informer who owned the barrel met the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, even if the consenting owner plans to immediately sell the `bugged' container to an unsuspecting buyer.

The issue addressed by the US Supreme Court was whether such use of a beeper violated the the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

The beeper surveillance amounted principally to following an automobile on public streets and highways. A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements because the vehicle's starting point, direction, stops, or final destination could be seen by anyone else on the road.

This is the key section of the decision relied upon by the FAA. If law enforcement can track shipments of precursor chemicals to known drug dealers using bugged containers provided by informers, then by goodness they have the right to track your little Mavic Mini as it flies one inch off ground in your own backyard.

The problem with the argument is that the US Supreme Court revisited the issue 35 years later in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), and held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment which requires a search warrant and probable cause.


While engaging in international drug smuggling and mass murder, Lydia Rodarte-Quayle and Jesse Plemmons discover a GPS tracker attached
to the bottom of their barrel of Methylamine at the fictional Houston warehouse of Madrigal Electromotive in Breaking Bad.

 

[sar104]

The FAA’s argument is that no one has any reasonable expectation of privacy in their travel on any public roadway or flying a drone in any outdoor airspace anywhere in the country including one inch off ground in your own backyard based in part on the US Supreme Court case, United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983).

United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983)

The 3M Co. in St. Paul, Minnesota notified a state narcotics investigator that a former 3M employee, Armstrong, had been stealing chemicals which could be used in manufacturing illicit drugs. Visual surveillance of Armstrong revealed that after leaving the employ of 3M Co., he had been buying similar chemicals from the Hawkins Chemical Co. in Minneapolis. The narcotics officers observed that after Armstrong had made a purchase, he would deliver the chemicals to co-defendant Petschen.

With the consent of the Hawkins Chemicals Co., narcotics officers installed a “beeper” inside a five-gallon container of chloroform, one of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs. Hawkins agreed that when Armstrong next purchased chloroform, he would be given the container with the beeper.

NOTE:The beeper was a circa 1980s radio transmitter which emitted periodic signal that could be picked up by a radio receiver in close proximity.

Armstrong picked up the chloroform and officers followed his car using both visual surveillance and a monitor which received the beeper signals.

Minnesota law enforcement agents followed the car from Minneapolis to a secluded cabin near Shell Lake, Wisconsin. Relying on the location of the chloroform derived through the use of the beeper and additional information obtained during three days of intermittent visual surveillance of respondent's cabin, officers secured a search warrant.

During execution of the warrant, officers discovered a fully operable, clandestine drug laboratory in the cabin. In the laboratory area officers found formulas for amphetamine and methamphetamine, over $10,000 worth of laboratory equipment, and chemicals in quantities sufficient to produce 14 pounds of pure amphetamine. Under a barrel outside the cabin, officers located the five-gallon container of chloroform.

The defendants did not challenge the warrantless installation of the beeper in the chloroform container because its clear that under the law having the consent of the informer who owned the barrel met the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, even if the consenting owner plans to immediately sell the `bugged' container to an unsuspecting buyer.

The issue addressed by the US Supreme Court was whether such use of a beeper violated the the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

The beeper surveillance amounted principally to following an automobile on public streets and highways. A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements because the vehicle's starting point, direction, stops, or final destination could be seen by anyone else on the road.

This is the key section of the decision relied upon by the FAA. If law enforcement can track shipments of precursor chemicals to known drug dealers using bugged containers provided by informers, then by goodness they have the right to track your little Mavic Mini as it flies one inch off ground in your own backyard.

The problem with the argument is that the US Supreme Court revisited the issue 35 years later in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), and held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment which requires a search warrant and probable cause.

That's not equivalent. LE installing a tracker on your vehicle to track you is not the same as the FAA requiring your unmanned vehicle to broadcast ID and position. One constitutes covert surveillance, while the other is simply a condition of flying an sUAS in the NAS. I think you know that though.

 

[Chip]

After this report aired the FAA said wow thank you for letting us know we will look into this....

The owner of the company interviewed in the video was subsequently indicted for international narcotics trafficking and involvement in a $500 million Ponzi Scheme.

 

[brett8883]

It’s an irrelevant argument anyway because the drone operator isn’t on a public road or in public airspace. Someone flying from their home does have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Now I fully understand a drone doesn’t have a right to privacy and it’s probably within the law to track the drone, my issue has always been with tracking the operator, a person, that’s does have a right to privacy. It’s well established that a person in their home has a constitutional right to privacy.

The government can’t just say you have to give up your constitutional rights if you want to do something. The one thing that comes close to that is going through TSA at an airport and even that is a precarious legal tightrope and was only possible after 9/11 when there could be no doubt of a pressing national security crisis.

 

[brett8883]

That's not equivalent. LE installing a tracker on your vehicle to track you is not the same as the FAA requiring your unmanned vehicle to broadcast ID and position. One constitutes covert surveillance, while the other is simply a condition of flying an sUAS in the NAS. I think you know that though.

So what you got from that is if the government said everyone must install trackers in their cars so they could be tracked at all times while driving that would be ok because then they would know they were being tracked and you find that to be Constitutionally sound?