If you discover a drone hovering over your property, is it legal to shoot it dow

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   Brett Winnposted 11 years ago

   If you discover a drone hovering over your property, is it legal to shoot it down?

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2. 72

   lone77starposted 11 years ago

   Probably not.
   
   If the government shreds the Constitution and we let them, then they can do just about anything they want.
   
   If you shoot down government property, then you're likely breaking the law by destruction of federal property.
   
   If you don't want drones hovering over your property, invading your privacy, then help us legalize the Constitution again. Help us make America a land of the people, rather than a land of the corporation.

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   glmclendonposted 11 years ago

   I don't think so. If you shoot in the city they will get you. suppose you fire and someone gets shot? And then suppose it were to crash in someone's house? Why not call 911?
   I think shooting it down will cause more problems than we really want.

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      tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      So true. Might ruin your house.

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      ptosisposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Wouldn't need to shoot it down to be causing problems. They are talking about pizza-delivery drones for when you are stuck in traffic. Too many drones=accidents. How you would like the air filled with the sound of giant angry mosquitoes?

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I do not think you can. If you have that much firepower it concerns me and how do you insure that what you shoot down does not fall into a playground or school yard.

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   Attikosposted 11 years ago

   The old common law rule was that you own real property downward to the center of the Earth and upward to the heavens. That evaporated with the advent of air traffic, road building, utilities lines, and the other intrusive aspects of highly technological society. Today, government, not you, controls airspace, electromagnetic transmissions, water, mineral rights, and all other aspects of your property. It has the power to take any of those it wants, not always with compensation to you, to say nothing of your willing permission. You even rent from the government now, you don't really own it at all. Stop paying taxes, assessments and fees, and you'll find that out. Your real property will be repossessed by its real owner in short order.

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   maxoxam41posted 11 years ago

   Government is us. Our taxes are their pocket money to redistribute in the different departments. Therefore the drones are ours.

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      Attikosposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The most insidiously damaging fiction of today's American political life is the carefully cultivated lie that we are the government.

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      maxoxam41posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I was wondering if it was an arguable point in a court of law. I definitely know that we the people are not in control!

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      Attikosposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm sorry, I don't quite follow your line of inquiry here. Are you asking if a legal argument that because the government owns the drones, we the people do, and therefore we the people have standing to bar them from our space, might succeed in court?

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   tirelesstravelerposted 11 years ago

   What a provocative question.  Yesterday, heard a guy on the radio talking about how 10,000 drones, in the sky ,working for police departments etc. will cause air traffic problems.
   Duh!

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      ptosisposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      (full-sized) Silent Stealth Helicopter: my friend saw one at dusk. He said first it was making noise - then it was totally silent, flitting low over the town of the MI base of Ft. Huachuca where they train the army UAV pilots.

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   xanzacowposted 11 years ago

   This q got my attention. At the risk of sounding stupid, might I ask, what is a drone?

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   Doc Snowposted 11 years ago

   What makes you think you'll see it?  Al Qaeda never seems to.

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   Express10posted 11 years ago

   Good question. It depends on where you live and whether you use self-defense as your reason. You might be fine in the legal sense depending on who the owner of the drone is and their purposes for studying you or your property. Drones can be put into use by public and private owners and be used for a variety of reasons including bringing you harm via weapons. Increasingly, they have heat seeking abilities to see exactly what you are doing...even in the privacy of your own home. I hope I'm completely wrong but it seems these things are going to become more common like a big (nosy) brother on steroids.

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      AlexK2009posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Great so Drones can be used to make porn videos sold to finance the cost of the drone
      
      "Increasingly, they have heat seeking abilities to see exactly what you are doing...even in the privacy of your own home"

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    KK Trainorposted 11 years ago

    I'm pretty sure those drones fly much higher than you may think; you would never see it even it sees you.
    And no, it's not legal to shoot it down because we don't own the airspace over our property.
    I say let them patrol from the sky and catch the criminals that way, why should it bother us unless we're doing something we shouldn't? It's safer for the cops and for us.

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       KK Trainorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       What does that mean? Which part do you disagree with? Just wondering.

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       tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       In a nameless state you can say your neeighbor did something and cause that neighbor to b fined $500.  There doesn't need to be evidence to support the allegation. The day where you are safe doing right is obsolete

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       KK Trainorposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Wow Tireless, I hadn't heard that. Guess it's a good thing I'm married to a cop. I can only guess how you feel about them...

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       ptosisposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       KK - what if you are making love to your spouse, and the drone has a FLIR unit that can see your heat images through walls? Florida has already ruled that as an invasion of privacy from police driving by looking for Pot hot-houses.

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       Brett Winnposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       My problem with this way of thinking: ... >>why should it bother us unless we're doing something we shouldn't

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       AlexK2009posted 10 years agoin reply to this

       "why should it bother us unless we're doing something we shouldn't?"
       
       Tell that to a survivor of the Holocaust.

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    ptosisposted 11 years ago

    
    
    They already have very loud and intrusive helicopters hovering at 200 feet above suburbia looking for pot plants.  What is the expectation of privacy from the air? None.
    
    I remember when I was living in Winston Hale in downtown Chinatown of Honolulu. I was in the courtyard and a stealth (yes - stealth!) full-sized black helicopter with no markings on the bottom came hovering slowly past at maybe 20 feet above the 4 story rooftop. On both sides of the whirly-bird were two long pylons extensions of about 20-35 long and on each end was a black ball that you would see covering a camera. So not only taking pictures - it was stereoscopic cameras.
    
    If shoot down the drone there would be no way to tell if that is a gov't drone or your ex-spouse stalking you. Perhaps don't even need to shoot it down. Maybe all you need is a laser pointer or a radio-jammer directed at it and make it crash. Don't need a gun just a .. MIJI (Meaconing, Intrusion, Jamming, and Interference) which means “Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV  ....forcing it into an automatic landing mode after it lost its bearings. " - /drones-vulnerable-to-terrorist-hijacking - Yes military signals are encrypted - but a hacker-geek using a Radio jammer wouldn't need to decrypt  - it would be a denial-of-service attack (DoS). Decrypting it is only if want to reverse -engineer it.
    
    "The encrypted P code for military users is transmitted on both the L1 and L2 frequency. If the Iranians could jam the encrypted military code on the L1 and L2 frequencies then the drone’s GPS receiver might reach out to use the less secure code to get directions. " - http://phys.org/news/2011-12-rq-drone-a … anian.html
    
    But the drones are more dangerous because "drones that will fly over the US will rely on civilian GPS, which is not encrypted and wide open to infiltration." I could be the mad Kascinski - and crash that sucker into the White House -  or  a commercial passenger plane over NYC without even being the on board the plane as the suicidal hijacker!
    
    The technology is there, outlawing won't change a thing, it's a brave new world. The only time you would be able to have privacy on your own land is during a thunderstorm, sandstorm, or solar flare storm.

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       MobyWhoposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I remember when GPS was encrypted. It was in 1979 - and caused us to be grounded on a sandbar just inside a GA inlet during a storm at night, with surf pounding in at us. Thanks to a Brunswick towboat we were saved before the boat (40' sail) broke up

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12. 59

    MobyWhoposted 11 years ago

    I don't know, BUT - my guess would be 'no' - I don't own air rights over my property (I don't think) so while it is over my property, it is technically not ON my property. Harks to the old question of "do you own your view"? The 'no' answer to that has been upheld in many courts.
    
    The question may become very important as 'big brother' is increasing surveillance - and it's not murder, so what would the charge and/or the defense be?

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    celafoeposted 11 years ago

    if it is hovering over my house it may just have an accident.  like whooops my drone just went crazy you must have interfered with my controls

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