The Grand Forks County Sheriff's Department's plans to use unmanned aircraft need not raise privacy concerns, a special deputy said.
"I anticipate them being used more as a response tool," he said in a Herald interview.
"They're not really for covert surveillance. ... We plan on being compliant with current case law."
Sorry, but that's not going to be enough.
Unmanned aircraft almost certainly will be used for surveillance unless rules are put in place to prevent it. The technology is so powerful and its usefulness in law enforcement so compelling that if Americans want to avoid having "spies in the sky," they're going to have to prohibit that use.
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Good intentions won't be enough, in other words. And what case law there is doesn't seem to offer much privacy protection either.
The department should study this issue and seek public input on it. Then it or another agency should draft rules, possibly setting a trend for other departments around the country to follow.
The department "will be one of just seven law enforcement offices nationwide developing an unmanned aircraft systems program," Herald staff writer Chris Bieri reported.
"The department will initially have two airframes -- a Draganflyer helicopter and a Raven B plane -- at its disposal. ... Both aircrafts are remotely operated, powered by rechargeable batteries and have both photo and video capabilities."
The privacy issue is this: Under the "plain sight" doctrine, "police are generally allowed to scope out whatever is in plain view, without requiring a warrant," The New York Times reported.
But unmanned aircraft vastly increase the government's ability to see activities in "plain view." Fences used to be able to block views from the street; no longer. The same holds for distances that put people in a remote areas.
The Atlantic magazine asked the question this way: "If a drone with a zoom lens happens to be cruising by your 100-acre farm and spots you smoking a joint on it, were you in plain sight?"
Or, consider an aircraft equipped with an infrared camera. Are the heat signatures that show up through ceilings and walls in plain view?
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What about the tracking and recording of people's travel in order to spot suspicious patterns?
"It's not that the domestic use of surveillance drones should be categorically prohibited," writes Jameel Jaffer, the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy legal director, in a recent New York Times column.
"These drones can be put to all sorts of laudable uses. ... But it's crucial that we place clear limits on the use of drones to collect information about citizens.
"Law enforcement agencies should generally be prohibited from using surveillance drones except to monitor those who are reasonably suspected of engaging in criminal activity. When surveillance will be particularly intrusive -- for example, if it will be prolonged, or if it will include peering through a window -- the surveillance should be based on a warrant and probable cause."
As another ACLU writer put it, "the bottom line is that domestic drones are potentially extremely powerful surveillance tools, and that power -- like all government power -- needs to be subject to checks and balances." Grand Forks County should enter the domestic UAS era with that in mind.
-- Tom Dennis for the Herald
