TexasCHLforum.com

Some of you may have realized by now that I generally take a pretty strict view of the Constitution and favor limiting police powers. Given that, the following may surprise you but I think it will work out and be accepted. It is no different than a police helicopter, at least in legal principles. If a police officer can be someplace legally, anything he sees in plain view would be admissible in court as evidence. Most police aircraft have cameras on them, and you might be surprised at the quality of the pictures available. Many have some type of infrared or night vision system too.

If the UAV can be there legally, I do not think anything it sees would not be legally admissible. The view from above has almost always been considered public and acceptable.

The legal questions to be answered would be the quality of the camera (the news article says the cameras are significantly better than ones on police helicopters) and the lack of a person physically there. If I were the prosecutor arguing the case, I would contend that an officer could have been there legally but that this was a less expensive alternative and still never violated the person's privacy. I would also argue that the quality of the picture is not relevant. I would also argue that there is no reason police cannot keep up with technology changes to save money.

Of course, if I were the police chief, I would probably use the UAV for a preliminary view, then have a manned police helicopter fly over the area to avoid the problem.

And as I finished this up, I also realized one other point. This is not really a new area legally. Police have been using radio controlled helicopters, some with small cameras mounted on them for the last 20 years. I fly R/C as a hobby (well, used to be more active in it at least), and I know of a couple cases where this was done by other police officer hobbyists.