Drone Alone

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
-The Fourth Amendment

 I saw a mildly disturbing news story on Fox this AM, which is to say, slightly horrified with a soupçon of ambivalence. The story, online as UAV spots stolen construction equipment in Cecil County, tells of a successful, multi agency apprehension of the perpetrator of at least a tri-state crime spree. Stolen goods recovered during this operation amounted to $394,000. Not chump change. Much of the property has been returned to its rightful owners. No problems there!

The ambivalence comes from the fact that while I'm glad this guy was caught and hopefully prosecuted to the full extent of the law, what bugs me is the sequence of events that lead to their arrest. The New Jersey State Police had a suspect. The suspect's domicile was not visible from the road. A warrant was obtained on the basis of evidence produced by a UAV overfly of the property, but what gave them the right to do that? Turns out that much of the stolen goods were stashed behind a barn, or big shed. My question is: What's the difference between flying a drone over the barn and simply sending an officer in to walk around the barn for a look see?

Well, sending an officer in without a warrant to search for stolen goods is an illegal search. Any evidence he found of wrong doing would be thrown out of court as "fruit of the poisoned tree". Now, suppose I just dangle him from a crane or a helicopter and swing him around the backside of the barn. Better? His feet never touched the ground! Problem solved!!

Is the Fourth Amendment mitigated by the fact that the aircraft was unmanned? Or does the fact that an operator is at the controls, looking through the camera make that point moot? Had the overflight been accidental, I can see the evidence being totally admissible. Next time, throw some tarps over the stolen goods, knucklehead! But the drone was flying over the property specifically because there was a "suspect", yet without enough evidence or probable cause to obtain a warrant. You see my dilemma here? If you're in your helicopter using your Forward Looking Infra Red because there's a lost child in the woods, and happen across a marijuana hothouse, that's one thing. But isn't warrantless unmanned electronic eavesdropping going just a bit too far? At what point does this become an "unreasonable search"?

The fact that law enforcement did not enter the property without first obtaining a warrant means they recognized that one was necessary. Although I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, it seems to me that the use of a drone was a mere legal fiction to provide probable cause for the warrant.

If I were on this guy's legal team, I would beat the Fourth Amendment like a rented mule! Still, I'm glad law enforcement put an end to this crime spree. I just wish they'd found a better way to do it.

Thus, the ambivalence.

The Buzz Of Propellers

Senator Rand Paul began his filibuster yesterday by declaring he would not sit quietly and let our perfumed potentate shred the Constitution and triumphantly drew this administration’s secret drone program out of the shadows.

Paul took to the floor of the Senate after he received a statement from Attorney General Eric Holder, the man who once called America a “nation of cowards”.

“To allow one man to accuse you in secret—you never get notified you’ve been accused,” Paul said on the floor. “Your notification is the buzz of propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you’re killed. Is that what we really want from our government?”

In a riveting torrent of words that challenged the current regime, Rand asked, “Can the president have the power to decide when the Bill of Rights applies?”  He continued, “Some in the media should ask the president, do you plan on killing Americans who are not in combat, people he might be accusing of some kind of crime, but who are not actually engaged in combat?  It should be an easy question.”

President-Can’t-I-Just-Eat-My-Waffles ran for office proclaiming, “We’re not going to tap phones without a warrant, we’re not going to torture people because that’s not who we are,” now says we’re going to kill people with no due process.

It’s astonishing that this president clings to the right to murder Americans on American soil.

Rand Paul’s filibuster is a clarion call for America and all its citizens to sit up and take notice of the man who has repeatedly shown his contempt for the Constitution and its clear limits on his power. 

Now is not the time for indifference from this country’s citizenry.  We must #StandWithRand.