Drone Danger

Minnie: “You’re listening to Teen News Talk and We’re Minnie and Maggie.We’ll be your hosts this episode. Today we’re talking civil rights and civil liberties. We will describe a hypothetical situation and then discuss how the Supreme Court would likely rule on it. Here’s our narrative.”

Maggie: We are here today to discuss the current Hanover case, as it has been a hot topic, and the source of much contention. Let’s jump right into it!

John Hanover, a man from Decatur County, Georgia, with a criminal record, was arrested in

connection with bank robberies. He was a prime suspect in a large bank robbery, but there was

little evidence to incriminate him. The police tailed him, but he did nothing to incriminate

himself. Eventually, the police were forced to stop tailing him because it was draining their

resources. However, they still wanted to keep tabs on him, so they invested in a new drone that

had a battery life of 5 hours, and began tailing Hanover this way. A few days later, the drones

caught him with suspicious large sums of money, and got a warrant to search his farm. In their

search, they found the money robbed from the bank, the main evidence in his trial. However,

Hanover argued that the drone violated his 4th amendment rights because it was flying on his

own private property and thinks that the evidence collected by the drone thrown out in his case.

The police, however, believe that the air is public property.

Minnie, what are your thoughts?

Minnie: This is uncharted territory because there isn’t much regulation or legislation regarding drone surveillance as of right now. It’s a complex issue. Ultimately, however, I do not believe that it is appropriate for the police to follow Hanover with the drone. I believe this is an invasion of privacy because the drone followed Hanover onto private property and policemen cannot follow someone onto private property without a warrant, so a drone should have the same limitations. It should be held to the same standards. Especially since it was performing the work of a police man. Police men can tail people down public streets and areas, but not on any personal private property. This should also apply to a drone of any technology being utilized by the police.

Maggie: Let me stop you right there. The police used a warrant to search his property.

Minnie: Correct, but they did not have a warrant to fly the drone over his property in the first place. That is the issue we are dealing with. The police never would have had any evidence to get a warrant to search Hanover’s home if they did not have the drones, which, may I remind you, did not come with a warrant. Therefore, basically all of the evidence was collected in a way that violates Hanover’s and any citizen’s fourth amendment rights. In Mapp v. Ohio, it was established that evidence gained during an unwarranted search cannot be used in court. Couldn’t a drone potentially also be used to search a property, because if used carefully it can go almost undetected. So if they didn’t have a warrant, then the surveillance can’t be used in court. In addition, in U.S v. Jones they ruled that using a GPS tracking device on private property was a search in violation of the 4th amendment, so how is this any different?

Maggie: Well, I think we need to take a more modern view. The world is changing and technology is evolving, so I think we need to reevaluate our interpretation of the law when it comes to surveillance. At the very least we need to clarify. Think about Google Maps or Google Earth- they take pictures of everybody’s private property. You can literally see people’s backyards and even sometimes their cars parked in their driveway. How is it acceptable for the public to be able to access that whenever they want, but when the police actually need to gain information without having time to go through the warrant process, they can’t?

Minnie: Well, that’s an interesting argument, but I think it’s a separate sphere because Google is a private corporation. This is the government we’re dealing with. They also aren’t collecting this data in order to convict someone of a crime. Rather, for their own services. This also kind of reminds me of Carpenter v. United States, with the bank robberies and everything. A man connected with the robbery gave the FBI his phone number and the phone numbers of other people involved. The tricky part is that the FBI then used his call logs to find additional phone numbers that had been contacted and later locations. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that a warrant was needed even to access phone records and cell phone location from cell phone companies. If a warrant is needed to access something like this, shouldn’t they need a warrant of some sort to put a drone on private property? Another thing to consider is that in US v. Causby the court ruled in favor of Causby, saying that his title to land includes domain over lower altitudes, therefore flying planes in this lower altitude constituted an invasion of privacy. Therefore, the altitude that the drone was within is the property of Hanover that cannot be trespassed on without a warrant. Couldn’t drone flights also constitute one of these invasions?

Maggie: Well if there were separately established laws for drones maybe, but as of right now there are no such laws. Besides, Causby referred to commercial airlines, not police matters. However, I do understand your point, and in the end I might even concede that you are correct in claiming that it’s an invasion onto private property, but I think in the end this comes down to what exactly constitutes a “search” and what role ever-updating and changing technology plays in this. I think that’s what the court needs to clarify.

Minnie: Now that is something I can agree on. That’s part of what makes this case so difficult. As technology advances, which it will, it’s hard to keep up with what is legal surveillance and what is an illegal search. It must have been easier when they didn’t have all these gadgets, but now we have everything from GPS trackers to high tech cameras to drones. Privacy is becoming more difficult to protect due to the increasingly social media based lives we live. So where do we draw the line of invasion of privacy or just utilizing modern technology? We must be conscious of our definition of these technologies as legal or illegal without a warrant. We must also make decisions about whether these advances in technology could be used to determine probable cause and reason for obtaining a warrant. I foresee this becoming more and more of an issue as time goes on -it’s something we need to start addressing in less vague terms.

Maggie: “Thanks for listening to Teen News Talk. For more information on this topic and other episodes go to TeenNewsTalk.com”