Posted on 09/12/2014 12:30:24 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
Americans should be more concerned about their privacy being invaded by the spread of drones, Justice Sonia Sotomayor told an Oklahoma City audience on Thursday.
Speaking before a group of faculty members and students at Oklahoma City University’s law school on Sept. 11, Justice Sotomayor said “frightening” changes in surveillance technology should encourage citizens to take a more active role in the privacy debate. She said she’s particularly troubled by the potential for commercial and government drones to compromise personal privacy.
Said Justice Sotomayor:
There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that’s happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom. Because people think that it should be protected just against government intrusion, but I don’t like the fact that someone I don’t know…can pick up, if they’re a private citizen, one of these drones and fly it over my property.
Technological advances make it possible for devices to “listen to your conversations from miles away and through your walls,” Justice Sotomayor said. “We are in that brave new world, and we are capable of being in that Orwellian world, too.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
I find it interesting when a proponent of the Left, especially one on the SCOTUS, tells us that the government is infringing on out Freedom in a way that should have us more than a little concerned.
The women on the Supreme Court are occasionally not despicable. The Wide Latina has actually voted with Scalia on a couple of slam-dunks. Usually however, her Latina-Lesbo-Commie reasoning is completely specious.
The distaff side of the SCOTUS is to the Left of Trotsky, and with the defection of Roberts from common sense, have ruined the court as an arbiter of the Constitution.
Let's see if we can take the Senate and deny The Mombasa MF another selection, shall we? 5-4 Socialism doesn't cut it for me.
If the USSC cannot/will-not slap down the NSA and other such clear violations of the 4/5/6th amendments, why should we expect them to rule rightly on the more “unclear” instance of drones (which can see/examine from “adjacent airspace”).
So she votes with a fellow-statist; how is this remarkable?
(Take a look at the gymnastics Scalia does to justify the War on Drugs and all the crap that has brought.)
Buckeye,
The fact of the matter is that we have no privacy anymore. The government likely spies on us in ways we have no idea about anymore. With that in mind I don’t see the thought of citizens having this capability as a threat but as a check on the government because WE can watch THEM too.
IMHO arguing that only the government should have drones (or RC helicopters) is the same as saying that only the government should have guns. It’s just not a good idea.
- Megan
In a way I agree. Existing law should preclude the misuse of drones.
In most states it is illegal to record any person without their consent in any place where they could expect privacy.
However until the availability of drones in most cases VOYUER would have to subject themselves to potential exposure to get their illicit film.
Now with drones the voyuer can from a secure safe distance look in a window or over a fence and spy on most anyone who leaves a window open.
and if you live in a city yo can not even shoot the things down if you find it outside your window.
Sure they should be legal but we need away to trace them back to their owner,
I disagree because your idea sets a dangerous precedent to justify gun registration.
I don’t remember any right to keep and bare spy drones in the constitution.
I do. It's called the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I’m alarmed at the spread of her ass.
Well then the states can write the law.
It'll be a tough sell because when you attach a camera to one of these things then it becomes a platform for your First Amendment rights especially if your intent is to publish the resulting images. I imagine you could get law that narrowly define and restrict voyeuristic behavior similar to how so-called 'upskirt' videos are illegal.
But while you can limit the voyeurism you're going to face a wall of resistance trying to ban these devices or even to register them. You'd also face a wall of resistance from the FAA if you try to say that a private person can't fly a device over your property because they don't recognize any property claims to airspace. Nor should they.
I never argued that the government should be the only one using drones. I don’t know where that idea came from.
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