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A story picked up from Ars Technica:
While we’ve heard of consumer drones getting in the way of commercial airliners and obstructing firefighting operations, we've haven't heard of many cases where drones are shot out of the sky by a neighbor.
Eric Joe told Ars he was flying his homemade drone over his parents' orchard in Modesto, California late last year. After just three-and-a-half minutes of flight time, a single shotgun blast rang out from the neighbor's property at the low-flying, slow-moving hexacopter. The drone came crashing down instantly and was damaged beyond repair.
After the neighbor, Brett McBay, declined to cover the costs that he initially was amenable to pay, Joe took McBay to small claims court last month.
"Court finds that Mr. McBay acted unreasonably in having his son shoot the drone down regardless of whether it was over his property or not," the Stanislaus County Court Small Claims Division found.
According to Joe's attorney (and his cousin), Jesse Woo, if McBay doesn't pay within 30 days voluntarily—the end of June 2015—then they can go back to court to try to enforce the judgment.
"If he doesn't pay within 30 days we have to go through court processes to find out what kinds of assets he has and then to get a lien and get a judgement against his assets or wage garnishment," Woo said, adding that he fully intends to collect the money owed.
"We don't believe that the drone was over McBay's property—we maintain that it was briefly over the shared county access road. But even if it did, you're only privileged to use reasonable force in defense of property. Shooting a shotgun at this thing that isn't threatening your property isn't reasonable."
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Monday June 29 2015, @05:50PM
I would absolutely without hesitation shoot it down, *unless* I knew the neighbor, and they told me they wanted to fly around on my property possibly. I was right close to shooting at a helicopter the other day doing repeated low fly by's for over 20 minutes (As in as low as 200-300 feet above the property!). I get it, you like my mountain, and the gardens are beautiful. It only takes a few minutes and a pass or two, though. Pilot is a cock monkey, I'll just put that out there. Over an hour though? I guarantee you the FAA would be on the phone with me, as well as the Sheriff. There's no justification for that.
You and the AC are correct. Drones *are* direct and present threats to anonymity and privacy, and as near as I can tell, there exists no laws granting rights to trespass just because it's in the air, or under the ground. This judge is being a moron, although most likely ignorant and just believes it's no different than the older and traditional RC hobbyist kits. While the judge sees no threat, I can see practically no use cases that *don't* violate my privacy and anonymity when over *my* property. It's not 7 year old kids playing with harmless toys, these are adults, and they should damn well know better then to go on to somebody's property and start recording. You have the rights to defend yourself against such trespasses, and that includes against property of the trespasser.
New drones, with appropriate software, can hover in a quite stable fashion. Coupled with the technology the AC mentions, and it's unlawful surveillance of your property. Furthermore, given the ubiquitous nature of the technology, the nature of flight requiring surveillance, and the pilot has no leg to stand on. It's very reasonable to assume surveillance and a high tech form of peeping toms, in the absence of information otherwise. Google would get *killed* in court within a few seconds if the drones made its way on to private property and recorded something. I see no reason an average citizen shouldn't suffer the same consequences for removing peaceful enjoyment from a property owner.
At some point, it will become even more problematic with faster processors, more memory, and higher resolution equipment. Just how much tech *does* take to raise up a couple thousand feet, but take high resolution photos from several miles away? It won't matter if it's on property or not. Not that it matters, but there should be laws preventing that. Probably will be, but the government and some corporations will be excluded, naturally. As you said, I *do* have a bathroom without blinds overlooking a rural valley. There's a chance at some point that I will have no privacy at all with the horizon littered with drones. The new private areas will be ones with walls a hundred feet high.
The good news is, the first person to create a simple DIY drone area denial kit will clean up. My new hobby will be fucking with my neighbor's drone. Neighbor's drone wandered onto my property? Good... excellent.... release the hounds! :) The only thing better than the area denial kit, will be the drone collector kit capable of hijacking the drone and capturing it.
Get off my lawn is about to evolve.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @06:24PM
there exists no laws granting rights to trespass just because it's in the air
In fact the law states you do not own your airspace.
(Score: 4, Informative) by curunir_wolf on Monday June 29 2015, @06:33PM
there exists no laws granting rights to trespass just because it's in the air
In fact the law states you do not own your airspace.
Not true. You do own your airspace, up to a certain level. That varies from place to place (for instance, within a certain distance of an airport you own very little). But you do own a certain amount of airspace over your property.
It's sad that I had to point this out - you could have just checked The Book of Knowledge [wikipedia.org] before posting in ignorance.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by schad on Monday June 29 2015, @06:55PM
You own it up to 500 feet above the highest legitimate (not spiteful) point. Above that... it's unclear. It may be that you still own it, but air traffic gets an automatic easement. It may be that the government owns it. It may be that nobody owns it. It doesn't really matter; everyone agrees that the gubmint has control over it, so they own it in fact if not in law. You do have exclusive control in that 500-foot high box, though.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Tork on Monday June 29 2015, @09:42PM
I was right close to shooting at a helicopter the other day...
Ugh. You are one of the reasons I'm all for gun control.
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(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:45AM
I can see you have not had helicopters circling around your house.
Believe me, a helicopter pilot thinking having a big heavy machine paid for by taxpayers gives him the right to make repeated passes over residences at low altitude is really a pain in the ass. Especially when they do it at midnight. Its as bad as a loud motorcycle aficionado who thinks it is cool to wake up an entire neighborhood by taking his loud noisy machine and running it around and around the block.
If I knew where that summabitch lived, I would be tempted to go rent a big loud motorcycle and do that to his neighborhood, and when called into court for disturbing the peace, play back what he's been doing with the helicopter and ask the judge to order BOTH of us to stop it. Too many helicopter pilots think a landing spot gives them the rights to fly right over neighborhoods - repeatedly and at low altitude, doing practice landings.
Had I known how much of a nuisance those helicopter pilots could be, I would not have bought a house here.
I thought the sports stadium only brought occasional bursts of very heavy traffic. I had no idea the heliport, not the stadium itself, was going to be such a noisy nuisance.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:00AM
I can see you have not had helicopters circling around your house.
No, it happens all the time at both my place of work and at my house. It's nowhere near bad enough to risk the pilot's life and the lives of those on the ground, not to mention their property. Perhaps I'm just lacking a sense of humor.
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