Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 11 submissions in the queue.

Journalist Sues Police for Grounding His Drone

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'."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Journalist Sues Police for Grounding His Drone | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 48 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:47AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:47AM (#3090) Journal

    When the FAA has blanket authority to regulate aircraft, it makes little difference if it was a policy or a regulation.

    They have regulations that give them the authority to impose closures air-space to any class of aircraft for any reason, at any time. Those regulations were approved by congress. So calling it a policy is making a distinction without a difference.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by wjwlsn on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22AM

    by wjwlsn (171) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22AM (#3200) Homepage Journal
    Actually, whether it is a policy or a regulation does make a difference.

    ... because the policy was established without undergoing the requisite administrative rule-making process, it continues to stand on uncertain legal ground. Despite this, the agency gives the impression that the policy is mandatory by sending cease-and-desist letter to aerial filmography companies. It also states on its Web site that people are not allowed to fly UAVs for commercial purposes. Nonetheless, according to the FAA, the administration "currently do[es] not have regulatory standards for commercial operations of UAS," thereby admitting they can't enforce their 2007 notice.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drone-pi lot-challenges-faa-commercial-flying-ban/ [scientificamerican.com]

    --
    I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.