County Sued For ‘Runaway’ Drone Spying On Private Property (youtube.com)
Same thing that happened in Michigan and went through the courts.
The three citizens sued (using the ACLU) the city to block code enforcement which used drones to take arial footage, including in their back yards.
‘They’re not getting warrants, but they're saying We're not law enforcement, we're code enforcement.' They used to have to have a complaint first, but now they've changed it so they can do ‘discretionary proactive investigations.’
The city started out looking for illegal weed plants etc, and found some, years ago, but since then have been expanding to search for other code violations, without warrant. Nearly half of Sonoma County's drone searches are for things not weed plants now. Including construction without a permit, junkyard conditions, and other zoning violations.
The city ‘hid’ these searches from the people they spied on, the community, and the media.
Using drones to search people's private locations and possessions raises questions about what is ‘private’, commented a professor.
No drones will probably be the only solution, everywhere. Said that years ago.