Fourth Circuit Holds Mass Aerial Surveillance is Unconstitutional

[mountaineer]

Fourth Circuit Holds Mass Aerial Surveillance is Unconstitutional
June 29, 2021
John Bryan

This past Thursday, on June 24, the Fourth Circuit quietly issued an en banc opinion in “Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, which challenged the Baltimore Police Department’s Aerial Investigation Research (AIR) pilot program on Fourth Amendment grounds. In an opinion written by Chief Judge Roger Gregory, the Court held that the AIR mass aerial surveillance program was an unconstitutional search and seizure (at least at the point the data was accessed).

The AIR program “tracks every movement” of every person outside of a structure in the City of Baltimore, retaining 45 days worth of data which is a “detailed, encyclopedic” record of where everyone came and went within the city during daylight hours. Law enforcement can “travel back in time” to observe a target’s movements, forwards and backwards. The Court likened the data to “attaching an ankle monitor to every person in the city,” and noted that, “whoever the suspect turns out to be, they have effectively been tailed for the prior six weeks.”

The Court held that “because the AIR program opens “an intimate window” into a person’s associations and activities, it violates the reasonable expectation of privacy individuals have in the whole of their movements.” Whereas traditional aerial or static camera surveillance have been upheld as reasonable by the courts, those cases “all involve some discrete operation surveilling individual targets.” ...

The Civil Rights Lawyer

I've heard you can shoot down a drone with a .22 rifle. 

Link to the court's opinion here.

[Smokin Joe]

Carry a bag with different hats and a change of clothes (and even a different bag inside).

[Hoodat]

I disagree with the court ruling here, my only caveat being that if a government chooses to do this, then they must collect this data indiscriminately and then make that data freely available to its citizenry.  Politicians will reconsider doing this once they realize they are being watched too, and that any voter will be able to track their movements.

[PeteS in CA]

The AIR program “tracks every movement” of every person outside of a structure in the City of Baltimore ...

IF all the drones did was to record comings and goings from buildings, the ruling is wrong. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public places. Further, other than being unmanned, how is such surveillance any different from staking out a building and tailing persons who exit it?

[Smokin Joe]

IF all the drones did was to record comings and goings from buildings, the ruling is wrong. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public places. Further, other than being unmanned, how is such surveillance any different from staking out a building and tailing persons who exit it?

What are the implications for video cameras covering public places, ones which are mounted on buildings? They can provide the same information, tracking through multiple sources instead of only one feed.

[Fishrrman]

PeteS wrote:
"IF all the drones did was to record comings and goings from buildings, the ruling is wrong. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public places. Further, other than being unmanned, how is such surveillance any different from staking out a building and tailing persons who exit it?"

Haven't posted this in a while.
My suggestion for a new Constitutional amendment to protect personal privacy:
=================
Citizens protected by this Constitution possess an inalienable right to privacy in their persons, businesses, and homes, and while they are in public.

It shall be a violation of this Constitution for the United States or for the several States or for any private citizen or entity to violate or invade the individual privacy of citizens by use of physical, mechanical, digital or electronic means or by the use of devices on land, on water, below the ground, or from the air.

This protection shall extend to all lawful communications and acts by an individual citizen or between two or more citizens, including content that is spoken, written, or electronically transmitted. It shall extend to citizens regardless of their location, whether in private or in public.

The only exceptions will be as governed by the Fourth Amendment of this Constitution.
=================

How does that hit ya, Pete?

[PeteS in CA]

Meh. If I find any LEOs staking out my home I'll let them know where to find donuts nearby. And offer to loan them my copies of War and Peace and Les Miserable for boredom relief.

[catfish1957]

Read on another thread recently that technology is near that will allow the ability to jam Drone signals.  Buggers will just start falling from the sky.  So this may be moot soon.

[thackney]

Read on another thread recently that technology is near that will allow the ability to jam Drone signals.  Buggers will just start falling from the sky.  So this may be moot soon.

Not near, it is here.

Drone Jammer 101 — An Inside Look at Counter UAS Technology for Drone Pilots
https://uavcoach.com/drone-jammer/
30 May 2019

...A Drone Jammer, simply put, is a machine designed to send electromagnetic noise at radio frequencies with the purpose of overriding the same radio and GPS signals your drone uses to operate. A drone jammer’s frequency is generally assigned at 2.4Ghz or 5.8Ghz which are public frequencies non-assigned to manned aircraft, public broadcasts or cell phone signals.

They will often look very similar to guns and operate by projecting the jammer signal in the shape of a cone of about 15-30 degrees. When a drone gets hit with the jammer’s signal, the most common response is for the drone to return back to its point of origin (Unless GPS is also jammed), giving the jammer operator the option to track the drone back to the pilot. In other cases, a drone jammer may cause the drone to land on the spot in order to conduct a forensic investigation.

The heavy-duty drone jammers on the market can work from up to several kilometers away and are increasingly more effective as the pilot’s remote gets further from the drone. This technology is actually a win-win for both pilots and controlling agencies as it presents far less risk than other drone countermeasures, and allows in most situations for the pilot’s drone to remain unharmed....

https://www.perfectjammer.com/drone-signal-jammers.html

[mountaineer]

Those drone jammers sound like fun. Have mere citizens been banned from owning them yet?

[thackney]

Those drone jammers sound like fun. Have mere citizens been banned from owning them yet?

https://jrupprechtlaw.com/drone-jammer-gun-defender-legal-problems/

...Are drone jammers legal in California?

No, drone jammers are illegal to operate throughout the United States except for certain federal agencies which have been given permission....

[catfish1957]

https://jrupprechtlaw.com/drone-jammer-gun-defender-legal-problems/

...Are drone jammers legal in California?

No, drone jammers are illegal to operate throughout the United States except for certain federal agencies which have been given permission....

Illegal?
So was booze in the '20's, but we know how that went.  If the government continues their continued illegal encroachment into our lives?I'd have no problem buying one, and using it strategically, stealthly.

[Hoodat]

Those drone jammers sound like fun. Have mere citizens been banned from owning them yet?

These are equally effective.