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Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose of such a drone. Growers may insulate their walls, but probably have not done so

Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose of such a drone. Growers may insulate their walls, but probably have not done so with their ceilings. Of course people with terrariums and other heat sources may be victims in the cross fire of the War on Drugs. Incidentally, afaik, current US law says aircraft must fly five hundred feet above any man made structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights

greenyoda 14y ago
Actually, the article you linked says this: In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has the sole authority to control all airspace, exclusively determining the rules and requirements for its use. Typically, in the "Uncontrolled" category of airspace, any pilot can fly any aircraft as low as he or she wants, subject to the requirement of maintaining a 500-foot (150 m) distance from people and man-made structures... So the law says that the FAA gets to determine the rules, and the current rules that the FAA has implemented require a 500 foot distance from structures. However, it would seem that the FAA could change these regulations tomorrow without any changes having to be made to federal law.
- tingletech 14y ago
  It is 1000ft over urban areas, but police helicopters are already exempt. The reason is because they want aircraft to be high enough they can try not to crash on top of a bunch of people or into some building when they loose power (rather than a privacy issue). A helicopter can do an emergency landing with better control in a no power situation. A 4 pound UAV is going to be able to fly lower than that because it is not going to kill a bunch of people when it looses power and crashes into a school or something.
  - clebio 14y ago
    Anyone that's played GTA Vice City enough knows an RC heli could manage at least one casualty pretty easily on failure (and, just to be sure, I've personally seen enough nitro-powered chicken dances to know this is possibly a _low_ estimate).
refurb 14y ago
There was a Supreme Court decision that said thermal imaging of a person's home is a "search" and requires a warrant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States Before this decision they could do a thermal image of your home and if it gave off a certain heat signature, the police could use that a probably cause to get a warrant to search the home. Now, they need a warrant just to do the thermal imaging.
- ihsw 14y ago
  But is it enforced?
  - refurb 14y ago
    Not sure what you mean by "enforced". Do cops currently do thermal scans of random citizen's homes? Probably. Can they go to a judge and say "the thermal scan says this house has a marijuana grow-op in it, give me a warrant"? No.
    - jrs235 14y ago
      But they can file bogus paperwork saying an informant told an officer that the house has drugs in order to get a warrant.
  - natnat 14y ago
    In this case, enforcement doesn't matter quite so much -- if a heat scan counts as an illegal search, the evidence is inadmissable. Illegal searches happen all the time, and for most people there isn't much recourse. The fact that evidence gathered through illegal searches is generally not valid is usually enough to discourage illegal searches to the extent that the cops are more interested in building a case than they are in harassing you.
jlgreco 14y ago
I know the law doesn't work this way, but there should really be some sort of rule of thumb that states if you need a UAV with special imaging equipment to determine if a crime has occurred, it's not a real crime. A real crime should be detectable in any number of less absurdly sci-fi ways. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, should a noise complaint be filed? I'd say no.
- nnnnnnnn 14y ago
  If a murder happens in my home and no one notices, is it not a crime? If fraud occurs at my business and is undetected, is it not a crime? Politically, I am against drug prohibition. Legalize it all, and demand warrants for non-visible spectrum imagery of homes. But the idea that a crime isn't a crime if no one notices just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Murders are detectable outside of homes. Is someone missing? Yes? Then start an investigation. Fraud can be detected with perfectly normal well understood investigation techniques. No literally peering through walls is required. It is an important difference because fraud investigation techniques were conceivable when the laws we run our legal system with, laws put in place to protect us from it, were created. Nobody is proposing we deploy these sorts of technologies to patrol for these crimes. Once we are reasonably certain that a particular crime has occurred, break out the UAVs for all I care. And get a warrant first. That is how the system was intended to work; if you breach that intention you breach the implied contract citizens have with their society. Any crime should have an effect that is noticeable in a reasonable way. If there are absolutely no other methods of even determining if a crime has happened, then it is not a crime. A crime must have an effect, and an effect is noticeable. If there are other methods, the use those.
    - nnnnnnnn 14y ago
      The error in your reasoning is that all these things do have external effects, but the connection between an external effect and the source is not always apparent. To specifically use the example of fraud, a great number of business operations are under forced reporting requirements for specifically this reason. Your answer to this point is flatly incorrect, as fraud cannot and is not effectively detected in this manner today. Regarding murder, you suggest "if someone is missing, start an investigation." Of course, the error in your logic is that we do have evidence of drug crime -- and plenty of it. There is no question that Alameda county is full of grow-ops, which produce drugs for the surrounding region. I know, because I live here. There are many, many busts every year. Mountains of evidence. The reason to limit this sort of investigation is found in the 4th amendment, and it is more than adequate when applied here. Kyllo v. United States is very clear on this point.
wtracy 14y ago
I personally know someone who once maintained a heated greenhouse full of tropical plants and chameleons. (He was almost breaking even on his electrical costs by selling baby chameleons for the pet trade.) He finally quit and sold the house specifically because he was tired of having agents show up on his door step every month, sometimes with guns drawn.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  The agents were probably showing up based on utility records (much higher than average utility usage) rather than thermal imaging.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    I worry about that exact scenario when thinking about upgrading the lights on my saltwater fish tank (photosynthetic corals need a lot of light).
stcredzero 14y ago
> Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose of such a drone. What about LED grow lights? Also, one could rig a heat pump so that the extra heat would be dumped into a backyard "heated pool." This would probably be undetectable.
- jrs235 14y ago
  I am unaware of led grow lights... Didn't think LEDs output the proper light spectrum.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    Must be a hard problem. Otherwise someone could make a ton of money selling those.

greenyoda 14y ago

Actually, the article you linked says this: In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has the sole authority to control all airspace, exclusively determining the rules and requirements for its use. Typically, in the "Uncontrolled" category of airspace, any pilot can fly any aircraft as low as he or she wants, subject to the requirement of maintaining a 500-foot (150 m) distance from people and man-made structures... So the law says that the FAA gets to determine the rules, and the current rules that the FAA has implemented require a 500 foot distance from structures. However, it would seem that the FAA could change these regulations tomorrow without any changes having to be made to federal law.

tingletech 14y ago
It is 1000ft over urban areas, but police helicopters are already exempt. The reason is because they want aircraft to be high enough they can try not to crash on top of a bunch of people or into some building when they loose power (rather than a privacy issue). A helicopter can do an emergency landing with better control in a no power situation. A 4 pound UAV is going to be able to fly lower than that because it is not going to kill a bunch of people when it looses power and crashes into a school or something.
- clebio 14y ago
  Anyone that's played GTA Vice City enough knows an RC heli could manage at least one casualty pretty easily on failure (and, just to be sure, I've personally seen enough nitro-powered chicken dances to know this is possibly a _low_ estimate).

refurb 14y ago

There was a Supreme Court decision that said thermal imaging of a person's home is a "search" and requires a warrant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States Before this decision they could do a thermal image of your home and if it gave off a certain heat signature, the police could use that a probably cause to get a warrant to search the home. Now, they need a warrant just to do the thermal imaging.

ihsw 14y ago
But is it enforced?
- refurb 14y ago
  Not sure what you mean by "enforced". Do cops currently do thermal scans of random citizen's homes? Probably. Can they go to a judge and say "the thermal scan says this house has a marijuana grow-op in it, give me a warrant"? No.
  - jrs235 14y ago
    But they can file bogus paperwork saying an informant told an officer that the house has drugs in order to get a warrant.
- natnat 14y ago
  In this case, enforcement doesn't matter quite so much -- if a heat scan counts as an illegal search, the evidence is inadmissable. Illegal searches happen all the time, and for most people there isn't much recourse. The fact that evidence gathered through illegal searches is generally not valid is usually enough to discourage illegal searches to the extent that the cops are more interested in building a case than they are in harassing you.

jlgreco 14y ago

I know the law doesn't work this way, but there should really be some sort of rule of thumb that states if you need a UAV with special imaging equipment to determine if a crime has occurred, it's not a real crime. A real crime should be detectable in any number of less absurdly sci-fi ways. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, should a noise complaint be filed? I'd say no.

nnnnnnnn 14y ago
If a murder happens in my home and no one notices, is it not a crime? If fraud occurs at my business and is undetected, is it not a crime? Politically, I am against drug prohibition. Legalize it all, and demand warrants for non-visible spectrum imagery of homes. But the idea that a crime isn't a crime if no one notices just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Murders are detectable outside of homes. Is someone missing? Yes? Then start an investigation. Fraud can be detected with perfectly normal well understood investigation techniques. No literally peering through walls is required. It is an important difference because fraud investigation techniques were conceivable when the laws we run our legal system with, laws put in place to protect us from it, were created. Nobody is proposing we deploy these sorts of technologies to patrol for these crimes. Once we are reasonably certain that a particular crime has occurred, break out the UAVs for all I care. And get a warrant first. That is how the system was intended to work; if you breach that intention you breach the implied contract citizens have with their society. Any crime should have an effect that is noticeable in a reasonable way. If there are absolutely no other methods of even determining if a crime has happened, then it is not a crime. A crime must have an effect, and an effect is noticeable. If there are other methods, the use those.
  - nnnnnnnn 14y ago
    The error in your reasoning is that all these things do have external effects, but the connection between an external effect and the source is not always apparent. To specifically use the example of fraud, a great number of business operations are under forced reporting requirements for specifically this reason. Your answer to this point is flatly incorrect, as fraud cannot and is not effectively detected in this manner today. Regarding murder, you suggest "if someone is missing, start an investigation." Of course, the error in your logic is that we do have evidence of drug crime -- and plenty of it. There is no question that Alameda county is full of grow-ops, which produce drugs for the surrounding region. I know, because I live here. There are many, many busts every year. Mountains of evidence. The reason to limit this sort of investigation is found in the 4th amendment, and it is more than adequate when applied here. Kyllo v. United States is very clear on this point.

wtracy 14y ago

I personally know someone who once maintained a heated greenhouse full of tropical plants and chameleons. (He was almost breaking even on his electrical costs by selling baby chameleons for the pet trade.) He finally quit and sold the house specifically because he was tired of having agents show up on his door step every month, sometimes with guns drawn.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
The agents were probably showing up based on utility records (much higher than average utility usage) rather than thermal imaging.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I worry about that exact scenario when thinking about upgrading the lights on my saltwater fish tank (photosynthetic corals need a lot of light).

stcredzero 14y ago

> Thermal cameras can help spot indoor pot growers, which is the likely purpose of such a drone. What about LED grow lights? Also, one could rig a heat pump so that the extra heat would be dumped into a backyard "heated pool." This would probably be undetectable.

jrs235 14y ago
I am unaware of led grow lights... Didn't think LEDs output the proper light spectrum.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  Must be a hard problem. Otherwise someone could make a ton of money selling those.