Am I a mean guy? Drones and Nat'l Parks, etc.

Ya, I sort of feel that way every time I see a wild animal with a collar on. Necessary evil, I suppose.

Add my no vote to private use of drones, whether in wilderness or other areas. Personally, I think it's an infringement on privacy. I also wonder if the drones would frighten some of the more skittish animals.

A few years ago on another forum, someone raised the issue of a neighbor taking unauthorized photos of a family, including that family's young child. If I recall correctly, the family sued, alleging among other issues that these unauthorized photos infringed on their privacy, which I certainly thought it did.

I haven't researched for similar suits, but I think the proliferation of photo capability beyond cameras is creating a serious issue of privacy breaches. People do have a right not to be photographed, just as they have a right not to be buzzed or videoed in the wilderness, or anywhere else (unless it's for legitimate surveillance and national security isssues).

If there already isn't a legal practice area for unauthorized surveillance, I'm guessing that there soon will be.   

Steve, I think you handled this very well and professionally (as always). And I think huckleberrystyle handled the issue just as well.

However, I think we can now rely on Travis' dreams for additional alerts as to questionable posts. It's good to have a seer in the midst.

Kindly excuse my wordy venture below.

Is there a "right to privacy" outdoors? In terms of established legal codes and case law, I would go further than HSF. Legal precedent does not even recognize a right to privacy in a fenced backyard — when viewed from the perspective of public airspace. A couple court cases establish precedence: California v. Ciraolo (1986) and Florida v. Riley (1989).

Both cases involved growing marijuana. In Ciraolo, the police simply flew over a fenced backyard, claimed to see marijuana growing, and thereby obtained a search warrant. In Riley, police flew over a mostly-enclosed greenhouse. But two window panes were missing from the roof of the greenhouse. Police claimed to see marijuana through those missing panes and also obtained a search warrant.

Courts upheld both search warrants as obtained through legitimate use of aircraft in public airspace. So until minimum flying altitudes above wilderness are established and codified by the FAA, it is doubtful that there is any legal precedent for claiming privacy from the view of drones.

The Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights says:

That would not appear to include "public land" — if it does not include fenced backyards or greenhouses missing a couple window panes from the roof.

But the Bill of Rights had two sources: English Common Law and the natural rights doctrine of the French Enlightenment. So does "natural right" include the right to privacy in wilderness? Who is to say? If there is such a "right," it has yet to be well established in legal precedent. But does that in itself disallow the notion? Afterall, our notion of "wilderness," in my opinion, is as yet poorly defined or poorly enforced.

Yet states have laws against stalking — even though stalking can be done from public property or public airspace, as in the search warrants obtained in the cases mentioned above. So I'd say we have a somewhat obscure notion of privacy not fully examined in privacy laws. If we can define persistent, unwanted attention as illegal stalking, that would seem to suggest a notion of privacy not yet fully recognized by even our Bill of Rights.

Or does it? After all, what is wilderness? Is it a necessary component of life? Something we might have a right to? If so, what is wilderness under the surveillance of drones? Still wilderness?

Got it! I was copying the screen name as posted here in the discussions, rather than the profile. I knew Reuben's actual screen name was longer than his posted screen name but wasn't aware that was the situation with Travis and High Sierra.

And I was using commas. Those little details can trip me up so easily!

Thanks to you both for your help. And Steve, yes, I will review the Forum Features post (hanging head in shame and embarrsssment!).


BTW, a lot of the problems I was having waiting to log in, finally getting logged in, etc. were solved by accessing the forum through Firefox instead of IE. No surprise there.

Drones are cool in certain areas like festivals and such. As for natural areas where people seek peace, NO! That also goes for music. I took a hike back in March at a local nature preserve. I got to an overlook, sat down to take it all in when I heard some music blasting from across the quarry. Ear buds would have been really nice of that guy to use. Then the buzzing of the drone started. Needless to say, my little respite didn't last long before I moved on to quieter areas.
A friend's Great Dane took down a drone at a dog park after the owner's warning to stop teasing the dogs with it. Not sure how much damage was done to the drone, but it had to make for some interesting footage.

That would have been fun to watch. Of course, it's probably on YouTube somewhere ...