American Civil Liberties Union

As drone regulation legislation works its way through Congress and the 30 (so far) state legislatures where it has been introduced, one question that we hear a lot these days is, “we’ve had police helicopters for a long time, what’s so different about drones?”

For one thing, police helicopters do raise privacy issues. Because of the expense of using manned police aircraft, privacy invasions have not risen to the level that legislators have felt compelled to address them, but incidents do happen. In 2005, for example, a police helicopter supposedly monitoring a street protest in New York City instead trained its infrared camera for a prolonged period on a couple making love on a pitch-black rooftop patio. Any police helicopter that followed a citizen around town for no reason, or hovered over the backyard of innocent homeowners whose daughter was sunbathing with her friends, would probably draw complaints. With drones, scenarios like those are bound to happen much more frequently. And that’s because there are some critical distinctions between manned and unmanned aircraft.

The use of surveillance drones is growing rapidly in the United States...

It should have been a softball question.

During a Google+ Hangout yesterday, conservative commentator Lee Doren asked President Obama whether he claims the authority to kill a U.S. citizen suspected of being associated with al Qaeda or associated forces on U.S. soil. Notice the question was restricted to only a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil (our concerns are, of course, broader and apply to the White House’s illegitimate claim of authority to kill people it unilaterally deems a threat, even if they are far from any battlefield, abroad).

Yes, law enforcement drones are coming, but if Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, has his way they won’t leave the ground without a judge okaying it first.

Yesterday, Poe introduced the Preserving American Privacy Act to ensure government, particularly law enforcement, use of drones will not violate the Constitution. Before police can launch a drone to search a non-public area, they will have to get a warrant based upon probable cause--the constitutional standard. For public spaces the standard will be reasonable suspicion of criminal activity as well as a reasonable probability that the drone will capture evidence of that criminal activity. Once the order is executed, the police will have 10 days to serve a copy of the warrant to the suspects under surveillance, although the bill allows judges to delay notification if it will jeopardize an ongoing criminal or national security investigation. If government entities violate the public trust and fly drones outside the law, the attorney general can order the Secretary of Transportation to revoke their license.