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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the nothing-to-see-here dept.

girlwhowaspluggedout writes:

"When Pedro Rivera, an on-call photographer for Hartford, CT's WFSB-TV, used his drone to photograph the scene of a fatal car crash, he probably did not expect to be detained by the local police and be forced to ground his drone and leave the area. What he certainly did not expect was being suspended by his employer without pay for a week after the head of the department's major crimes division contacted WFSB-TV, requesting that disciplinary action be taken against him.

Rivera has now filed a federal lawsuit against Hartford's police department for violating his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The lawsuit seeks more than just damages it asks the court to declare that Rivera did not break any laws by operating the drone.

Shortly after the incident, Hartford police told the media that it was concerned with 'the safety of the officers and the privacy of the victim.' But, as Rivera told the Professional Society of Drone Journalists, 'If privacy is a concern ... it was not with me. It was with all the local news stations that were on the sidewalks with 'long lenses' and had shots so tight, that you could see inside the crash vehicle.' The photo he has provided and the GPS coordinates that are embedded in its EXIF data show what his drone was capable of photographing 150 feet from the accident site.

As Rivera succinctly describes it, 'What happened to me falls in the category of the war on cameras by the police. Whenever the police are videotaped, they try to detain people and confiscate the camera.' It's time to add one more marker to the War on Cameras Map'."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by snick on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:40AM

    by snick (1408) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:40AM (#3051)

    Still, I'm not so sure the we should rush to defend the right of a journalist to fly drones just anywhere they want with no restrictions. I'm not sure we want to live in that world.

    I totally get that.

    But if we are given the choice between the world where Journalists fell like they can do whatever they want and the world where cops feel like they can do whatever they want ... I know which one I would choose.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:51AM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:51AM (#3058)

    Fortunately, that's just a false dilemma.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by quadrox on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:43AM

      by quadrox (315) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:43AM (#3230)

      Unfortunately we are closer to the second scenario than the first. Police can do whatever they want, and they rarely get more than a slap on the wrist if they do something wrong. Even in court, everyone always believes the police officer, because "he has no reason to lie". Yea right.