“In one of the more bizarre cases of the open-fields doctrine run amok, a Connecticut couple filed a lawsuit challenging warrantless surveillance after state wildlife officials put a camera on a bear that was known to frequent the private nature reserve they run, turning the animal into a roving police drone.”
Highlighting a case like this is sensationalism and unhelpful: Unless the bear can be remotely manipulated or steered, it is simply not a drone (except to the extent the Air Force used unpiloted, preprogrammed F101s as target practice for fighter pilots).
I disagree. Why put a camera on the bear? If you want to track its movements, all you need is a rfid tag. No one needs to see what the bear sees.
No, it wouldn’t be considered a drone, but it seems that wherever it roams, it is invading someone’s privacy if it goes onto a person’s property (although that might be covered by “public view” issue i speak of below), and the video is in the hands of the feds then, so it seems that in essence, the feds would be “installing cameras” in a manner of speaking onowing the animal roams certain places, inc,uding onto people’s properties if that were the case, and would be akin to them installing a camera on a person’s property without their consent.
Google got into trouble with their Google vehicles recording people’s private residences- they were ignoring no tresspass8ng signs I guess and driving right onto the properties- I think that went to court, and qHey stopped the process, but, whatever is visible from the road was deemed OK to record as it was “publicly viewable” or some term like that. (Ie, if we go,out in public, we can’t expect that nobody take our photos or record us because we are in public. Though we do stil. Retain some rights. I forget which state it was, but they ruled that a creep with a telephoto lens who saw into people’s homes was not violating their privacy if the curtains were open. It was a sick ruling for sure, but “legally” the issue was that the view was open to public viewing if curtains were open-
There are a few different angles tO the issue.