to overfly at a certain level (lets say less than 100 ft?).

I had no idea drones had such a level of protection.

The means to accomplish this was to declare them 'aircraft', for regulatory purposes. A side effect is that 'aircraft' enjoy certain protections.

Note: I won't be shooting down anything - gun free here. May throw rocks.

As X_Digger said, it was a quick way to solve the drone problem temporarily - rather than creating definitions (which we'd probably argue over forever) they just said it was an aircraft to make things easier for now. Not an unreasonable bandaid to at least give a starting point.

So, side effect, whether you hit it with a rock or Jell-O (tm) or spit at it, if you cause it to go down, you're in trouble (well, liable, at least - whether you actually end up in trouble is another story) but then I would argue the other person is at fault for flying an unregistered aircraft. I'd like to think - particularly if only egos were bruised - that they wouldn't bother trying either. That said, they might make an example out of you. And remember, this is undoubtedly on video, so you couldn't be seen trying to take it down. But hitting a moving drone 50 feet in the sky with a rock can't be easy. But report back, so the rest of us will know for sure.

over my swimming pool to peek at my wife and daughters and I would have no recourse ?

you are a far greater threat to your neighbors than the said drone.

No one said anything about "firing wildly into the air" but you. Your post is really over the top, Sen.

The poster you responded to didn't mention shooting down a drone.

the drone. You answer is appropriate to that particular question.

especially if your state has peeping tom laws

If you have your own, then you could launch it and go find him. Track him and see where he goes. Then you could get his license plates numbers and whatever for the police. If you have a camera, you'd also have his actions recorded as evidence. The solution is for everyone to be armed with a quadcopter.

Well, you could also probably just go outside and look around, or follow it when it returns home.

"if drones are outlawed then only outlaws will have drones"

But it's really no different than having external video cameras, except those are passive. This is akin to see a vehicle do something questionable and then you follow it around, actively.

More akin to someone sitting a tree overlooking your yard pointing a camera into your windows. I don't know how common that is, but I've heard of it happening. I've also seen people who freak out just 'cause someone is flying their little helicopter in a field that is near them. Those people are silly, in my opinion. Just as silly as someone who would complain about a stationary camera on the front of someone's house.

(and this is extending things out a bit, but I'm sure it'll happen at some time) people use a drone to drop some kind of goPro or ohter camera into a fixed position in a tree/rooftop/apartment top, and disappears. Basically you wouldn't know it was there.

Of course, there are other uses - dropping clearance bombs - but hopefully you won't be exposed to that in your home, and people doing that obviously don't care about the law. But dropping a transmitting camera and flying off should be a concern, particular for people in domestic abuse situations, not that we can necessarily do anything about it (yet).

They are illegal to use, though. If one chooses to go the non-legal route, using a jammer is probably better than shooting into the air. However, if I did such a thing, I would probably only activate it for a short time when the drone became a nuisance to lessen the chance of being caught using it.

It can run the gamut.

the owners may be liable for a fine.

http://www.risingup.com/fars/info/part91-119-FAR.shtml
Sec. 91.119 — Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:

(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.

(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.

(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

(d) Helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft. If the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface—

(1) A helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA; and

(2) A powered parachute or weight-shift-control aircraft may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (c) of this section.

[Docket No. 18334, 54 FR 34294, Aug. 18, 1989, as amended by Amdt. 91–311, 75 FR 5223, Feb. 1, 2010]

which I believe they usually won't

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/case-dismissed-against-william-h-merideth-kentucky-man-arrested-shooting-n45228

I'll pay the fine and NO it's not the same as a 747.

....and you could spend 20 years in jail. Still willing to "pay the fine".

Say you're fighting ISIS, get everyone from Trump to Huckabee on your side, and if convicted, someone'll throw a gofundme for you and raise probably double your fine, and the jail time would likely be nothing, particularly if no one was hurt.

if the shot taken within a city.

However, if my neighbor, hypothetically speaking, had an unregistered drone and was operating it so that it was hovering over my backyard in which my 16 year old daught was sunbathing. The drone better be out of range of the water I will spray on it to knock it out of the sky. It also better be out of range of the football I might throw at it as well. Actually, it would probably be safe from a football thrown by me, but the landing net in my fishing boat might be a danger to the drone, especially if my neighbor does not get the message and allows me to throw the net more than once.

I felt the drone was at least as threatening as a kid with tea and skittles so I shot it, your honor.

It always works for the murderkops, why not us?

If that ever happens again and I see a drone. I probably will not take the invasion of my privacy lightly, just sayin. We need laws to protect people under these circumstances and I don't mean just anyone who feels their privacy is invaded because their neighbor got a FedEx package. I mean people who are getting out of bad relationships need protection.

Seems to me spying on a girl nude sunbathing doesn't fit the bolded text.

It sounds as if the definition fits pretty much anything airborne:

My girlfriend has several of these contraptions and they're about as stealthy as a lawnmower.

It might be bad manners, but you would need to be several magnitude beyond legally deaf for a hobbyists drone to effectively "peep" on you. These things are really, really loud and have flashing lights.

So at least one person had a problem.

This is the cache video of the drone shot down in Kentucky. It's clearly as high as the operator David Bogg stated, and as shown in his telemetry info from the DJI Pilot app. William Merideth, the shooter, claimed the drone was 10 feet over his back yard and spying on his daughters. The telemetry shows that the drone was 200 feet high and not over his house. If it was over the shooter's house it would have fallen into his yard, but it fell into a neighbor's yard. William Merideth has the card from the video camera and will not give it back to the owner, and will not show the video.

I find it incredible that seemingly on this issue alone the claims of the fucknut with the gun are deemed 100% credible. Like DU isn't immune to outbreaks of FREEDUMB! it also isn't immune to gun nut fantasies.

I got gifted a mini-drone for the holidays this season. Even this tiny thing (it's about two inches by two inches) is very loud. It's also too small to carry a camera and has a range of about 100-200 feet on a charge so spying on someone with it is out of the question.

The idea that someone is steathily spying on you in your backyard using a drone is ridiculous. As you noted, if the drone in Kentucky was 10 feet off the ground spying on his (the shooters) daughters it would have fallen in the shooters yard after being shot, not a neighbors yard. This video shows what a B.S. accusation this is. It is a gun nut with too much time on his hands and an imagination that everyone cares what he and his family are doing in their backyard.

Remember when everyone and his brother was supposed to register with the feds to use a cb radio because of the FCC? Didn't make the theft of a CB a federal crime either. This drone registry will be just as large a joke. Feds calling for an individual 6 digit number on each and then admit they expected 250K sales of restricted craft for Christmas alone....So before the first # is handed out they will have run more than half way through those available. Now the numbers on a light airplane are required to be no less than 12" high-how big do you figure they will be on a 12 ounce gross weight drone. How far away do you think you could read them??? If you shoot a drone your big problem is going to be firing the gun, not hitting the drone...


On edit:"officer I didn't know it was a drone-I didn't see a six digit number on it!"

if you used Base 36 you could keep it to 6 digits and cover over 60 million registrations.

Instead of contact target, shouldn't all our drones be recalculating coordinates and heading back home in peace and no contact? I ask the great CPU. If not, then I hail our new Christmas 10 commandments for drone ROE.

have to purchase a sling shot and some ball bearings.

even using a slingshot within city limits was against the law.

However, I remember my brothers and I making slingshots with our dad. I was about seven years old and we went out to a grove (a local farmer) and selected just the right branches. My dad cut them down and helped us to 'whittle' them by removing the bark and to get them into the correct shape. He cut inner tubes from a tractor tire and attached them with a leather sling in between. (Hell, this sounds like something out of Old Yeller, but it was the 70s.) I still have my slingshot, but the innertube rotted away years ago.

That same summer, using the same tractor tire innertube, my dad used an old car tire (this was long before steel belted tires) and an electric saber saw and made Viet Cong style sandels for us to wear as we ran around the neighborhood. We thought it was great. Our mom was a bit annoyed that she had to scrub our feet every night, and the parents of our friends' seemed to be horrified at our footwear, but my dad was amused, we were happy, and all of our friends wanted our dad to make them tire sandals for them. He never did.

Years later, I remembered asking my mom about those sandals and the summer were wearing them. She only replied, "your dad was an asshole." Great memories.

the time with a shotgun. Unless you are Dick Cheney you make sure nobody is in the line of fire.

Although I suspect in many suburban and urban settings they don't allow discharge of things like shotguns within city limits.

"Unless you are Dick Cheney..."

Or a guy using a shotgun to shoot down a small drone.

Personally, I don't see the distinction between the two irresponsible actions, but then again, I'm not pretending that I'm irrational enough to see shooting as the only available recourse.

mythbusters.

in other words, shooting it straight up, at a 90 degree angle in relation to the ground, which rarely happens. People have been killed by bullets that fell from a great height that were fired sometimes miles away. Its been documented.

muzzle loader bullet while traveling in a horse drawn buggy. They found a man was clearing his gun nearly 1 1/2 miles from where she was shot. The man was sentenced to 30 days in jail and he had to attend a hunter safety class. Both the victim and shooter where named Yoder a common name among Ohio Amish.

get one of those high power 2.4 ghz/ 5.8 ghz dualband wifi / blutooth jammers that drone will drop out of the sky and the guy will never know what happened.

Plus, I don't have a gun and I am terrible at throwing anything with accuracy.

https://www.fcc.gov/general/jammer-enforcement

***ALERT***

Federal law prohibits the operation, marketing, or sale of any type of jamming equipment, including devices that interfere with cellular and Personal Communication Services (PCS), police radar, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and wireless networking services (Wi-Fi).

unless it's broadcast, cellular, police or fire, it takes them months to respond to a complaint (if at all) from an individual private citizen and that citizen has to realize they were getting jammed to complain but at the same time the individual is breaking privacy and trespassing laws by hovering at low altitude above your property. is it just me or does anyone else see yet another ginormous brewing legal clusterf__k about to start clogging the courts system?

As has been pointed out, your chances of getting caught are minuscule.

Personally, I'd still strongly consider downing a drone that was aggressively invading my space and disposing of the wreckage later. The jamming method is obviously preferable to shooting at it (unless you live in a rural area where it's reasonably safe to be shooting into the air) Yeah, the drone owner might show up at my property pretty quickly, but it's not like they wouldn't be met at the property line and told to piss off (and made to, if needed). Plenty of time to get rid of the evidence before cops bothered to respond to something like that.

"I was trying to get a good shot his guy's daughter next to their swimming pool, and then this jerk violated several FCC rules by jamming my RF signal. Thanks to that, my 'copter had to return home without getting all the video it could have"

In the case of someone being a legitimate creep, I couldn't see him/her going making that big of deal about it. Although, if not done right, I suppose the neighbors may take issue with such interference.

But to hell with her--anyone who'd sacrifice a little privacy in exchange for a continued heartbeat doesn't deserve either.

cellular spectrum tops out at about 1900 mhz.

800/900/1900 is where cellular LTE and pcs operate

2.4 and up is wifi and drone remotes.

me personally i would build my own the correct way and put it on a spectrum analyzer to make sure it isn't overlapping into other frequencies.

my designs fit into a pack of cigarettes.

I bet I could take one down with a well-aimed softball/baseball.

Easy to defend that "crime". -Officer, we were playing softball, and this thing got in the way.-

Still, you can probably scare it off.

Keep your expensive, snooping toy out of my yard and you get to keep it. Easy peasy.

It's usually illegal to fire a gun in a neighborhood.

I like my drone. If someone felt I was flying it over what they consider a private area, then talk to me about it like an adult.

What is it about America that people's first reaction is to reach for a weapon?

There's also a fair number of complete jerks who shouldn't be flying them.

how would they know it was you?

Unless of course they downed the "aircraft" and looked up the registration number, but ah... that would open up a whole other box of trouble.

My son was fishing and a neighbor kept buzzing him with the drone. I went and asked him what he was doing and he had a stupid grin on his face. He thought it was funny. Why would an adult think this was funny and okay?

I live in what would be considered a well populated in Ohio where most of the properties were developed in the 1940'5-50's are typically .5-.75 acres. You have no business flying a drone in that type of area nor do you have any business firing a weapon in an area like this (outside, that is).

Take the drone out to farm land where it won't bother anyone. Gunners do the same with their guns or go to a range.

And within 30 feet of any human or pet is far too close for their safety.

I saw some kids out with one in the street 6 or 8 months ago and were deliberately buzzing it around some guy getting out of his car. He took his jacket, used it like a net, swung the the thing and threw the drone to the ground hard. It was smashed to bits. Kids called the cops.

I heard later the kids ended up in legal trouble but I do not know what the charge was.

That is all. lol

http://imgur.com/gallery/eMfBURp

...bonding, insurance, flight plans,etcetera.

The drone lobby is pretty strong. I am thinking this law was written for the drones the military uses, not that annoying person who flies it over backyards so he can peep at people.....

...not that annoying person who flies it over backyards so he can peep at people.....

If it's over my backyard, then isn't it in my airspace? And if it's in my airspace, don't have a right to shoot it down?

it's not at all uncommon for 2 people to come into conflict each claiming some right or protection for their behavior under some law or rule

My guess is use of hovering drones to peek through windows and under a porch or awning roof into a building's interior and places where privacy is reasonably expected will lose in court. I'm fairly sure that drones used for that will simply be seen a facilitating already illegal invasion of privacy with technology.

It wouldn't surprise me if communities develop ordinances that limit the use of these things so that an illusion of outdoor privacy is protected.

Personally, I am not a big fan of either shooting things or jamming potentially life-saving communications.

I think that's mostly done through manned aircraft, which typically operate well above 500 feet. That altitude, and the relatively high speed of fixed wing aircraft rather limits loitering and purposeful invasive viewing of home interiors and under roofed spaces.

My guess is that persons occupying high vantage points with binoculars remain a bigger privacy problem than RC drones, but I do expect the privacy issues around drone use are going to move into courts and town ordinances.

February 13, 1998

Dear Cecil:

Do individuals have any rights to the airspace above the land they own? Can I, for example, declare the space above my house a no-flight zone (I know that it would be virtually impossible to enforce this), or can this only be done on a national level?

— D.S.

Cecil replies:

I understand your feelings. You paid good money for that house. Why shouldn't you be allowed to shoot down annoying aircraft flying overhead? Well, under the enlightened policy prevailing in the Middle Ages, you would have. For centuries the common-law doctrine was, Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad coelum et ad inferos — literally, "To whomsoever the soil belongs, he owns also to the sky and to the depths." In other words, you had complete control over everything above and below your property. You want to declare a no-flight zone over your manse? Go right ahead. True, during the Middle Ages there were pretty much no flights, period. But it's the principle that counts.

This happy state of affairs began to crumble as soon as practical aircraft appeared on the scene. Lobbyists for the infant air-transport industry argued that air travel would be impossible if air carriers had to get permission from the owner of every private property their planes flew over. Possibly also there were whispered promises of frequent flyer miles in exchange for friendly votes. All I know is that the politicians immediately caved. In 1926 the U.S. Congress passed the Air Commerce Act, which declared that the "navigable air space" of the U.S. was a public highway, open to all citizens. Navigable air space was defined as the sky above "the minimum safe altitudes of flight" as determined by federal regulators — typically 500 to 1,000 feet above the ground. You see the practical effect of this. One minute you're lord of all you survey; the next you're living under the interstate.

Usque ad coelum as a principle of private ownership was formally given the boot by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Causby (1946). The court laid down a new rule: you've got air rights only insofar as they're essential to the use and enjoyment of your land. Military aircraft using a nearby airport during World War II had flown over the Causby family chicken farm at an altitude of 83 feet, scaring the chickens and rendering the property unfit for the raising thereof. The court ruled that the Causbys had a right to compensation. Big of them, wasn't it? Bah. Under the previous system Old Man Causby could have taken out a few bombers with his shotgun, and that would have been that.

If it's of any comfort, usque ad coelum didn't completely disappear; it was merely transferred to nations. The 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation declared that each country had sovereignty over the airspace above its territory. Thus Soviet leaders were within their rights when they ordered the destruction of commercial flight KAL 007 after it strayed over their territory in 1983. Sure, the loss of hundreds of innocent people was unfortunate. But you can be sure the next guys who flew near Russia brought a map.

Even on a national scale usque ad coelum isn't what it used to be. A 1967 treaty declared that the "exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies … shall be the province of all mankind." Though the frontier of outer space was not defined, some experts argue that it begins about 90 kilometers above the earth's surface. That's the lowest level at which orbital flight is practical, and it's also out of range of most nations' guns.

But some courageous countries are pushing the envelope in this respect. One valuable portion of outer space is the so-called geostationary orbit, located approximately 22,300 miles above the earth's equator. Satellites in this orbit appear stationary relative to the ground, which is useful for communications, weather surveillance, and other purposes. Recognizing a revenue opportunity when they saw one, eight equatorial countries proclaimed in the Bogota Declaration of 1976 that they owned the portion of the geostationary orbit above their territories. They demanded that any nation wishing to place satellites in said orbit first obtain permission from the country beneath. Since the equatorial nations' ability to enforce this claim at the time was approximately zilch, the U.S. and other developed countries said: In your dreams. But you wait. If Ecuador ever perfects that 23,000-mile-range surface-to-space missile, I'll bet negotiations get reopened real quick.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1117/can-i-declare-a-no-flight-zone-over-my-house

but if some idiot is being an ass with his toy, and his using it in a harassing manner and refuses to acknowledge my concerns. Then I'm going to take sort of action. Probably not shoot it out of the sky, but I'd have my 'fun' too.

from Hobby Lobby are now being called drones also. Makes them all seem a bit innocuous, doesn't it. Hmmm, what's the word...inoculation?
Remote controlled aircraft like your neighbor would buy isn't anywhere close to the specs of a military drone and shouldn't have the same consequences for being shot down.
In most places remote controlled aircraft are (or should be) regulated as to hours and location of operation.

Maybe we all own too much stupid stuff .

to fuck with passenger planes (happened more than once) just like idiots pointing lasers at them, sporting events, automobile drivers/passengers I think you need a good dose of the law, meaning some type of punishment.

It just reminds me of idiots that enjoyed dropping huge rocks onto highways from overpasses. I did a ton of stupid shit in my life and when caught, I paid my dues.

Adults were behind all of these incidents, although the one at the NFL game was 17, then boasted about it on social media. Smart!

http://www.copblock.org/146434/judge-dismisses-charges-on-man-who-shot-down-drone/

I don't blame the dude a bit, if he was in a safe area, then go for it.

If you can't safely fire a gun, a little power washer might do a bit of good. Just say you were watering the lawn.

The drone in question was 200 feet in the air and the video it was taking was not zoomed in on anything.

for any reason other than self defense or defense of another. Shooting a drone would virtually never meet that definition.

even my own contributions to this thread,

we have all seen this before. it's a FAD and it will last maybe a couple years and in the end you will be left with a market rife with cheap once expensive drones and a handful of die hard hobbyists and commercial users.

we have seen with with model trains, rc cars and conventional rc planes, rc heli's, cb, etc.

it comes on in full force and goes out with no fanfare and just disappears leaving only the aforementioned users.

Now anyone can put a camera on anything.

It's not just this stuff anymore:

Although I prefer capturing it with a net to shooting it with a gun.

In response to aggressive animal "rights" organizations going into the field to disrupt lawful hunting most states have enacted laws criminalizing these disruptive actions. If PeTA or other militant groups chose to use a drone to disrupt hunts -- esp. bird hunts -- then there may be some marginal shooting at that big noisy bastard flying with the dove.