Unmarked no-fly zones at unannounced times and locations are a remarkable innovation. Hopefully they will tell you when and where you shouldn't have been when they charge you for it, but that may be classified.
Ambiguous laws (which in this case are by definition impossible to comply with) which are capriciously enforced are a hallmark of authoritarian and fascist regimes. Sadly ironic, the US government used to highlight this fact:
If laws are ambiguous, governments run the risk folks will conclude they'll get in trouble no matter how diligently they try to suss out the spirit of said laws.
When combined with a comical inability to secure government systems, it's honestly super cute that any federal agency thinks engaging in such dark patterns is in any way, shape, or form going to achieve their goals.
> If laws are ambiguous, governments run the risk folks will conclude they'll get in trouble no matter how diligently they try to suss out the spirit of said laws
Well, yeah, but that's the goal. People will correctly conclude that their ability to act unmolested is entirely contingent upon remaining in the good graces of local and remote authority figures. This produces extreme chilling on dissent or disagreement and promotes deals, bribes, and bootlicking. The law is transformed into a transparent legitimization mechanism for what the powerful wanted to do anyway, applied and ignored according to the real power structure adjacent to the legal bureaucracy. This is the default state of human civilization when the rule of law is not proactively defended.
But to "chill dissent", you must be capable of tracking it down before it hangs you from a gas station. I don't think you're fully grasping how sudden and forceful change could come if just small number of folks decided to stop giving a fuck about the spirit of the law and do whatever they feel they can get away with.
In my experience, folks from a legal/court context who think they can get cute playing the "you can't prove I broke the rules" game will literally void their bowels in fear when the same is done to them by just one skilled hacker, let alone a group of them all focused on a singular task.
Of note, the article seems to mention 3 things:
1) Vague laws
2) Arbitrary Enforcement
3) Lack of due process
All three seem to be important facts for an Authoritarian Regieme
I point this out, because I believe the US has long had vague laws, and our Due Process helps kick out arbitrary enforcement. I also believe that our Checks and Balance system (part of Due Process) is currently broken
There was a recent high profile of a case where a woman in Tennessee was accused of a crime in North Dakota. She spent months in jail, where she lost her car, home, and her dog. She was not even in the right state, and her life was destroyed.
Heck if they do tell you, ICE swaps plates and tries to hide in various ways.
The evidence could be just some regular looking vehicle you can't find anything about and it's just "trust me bro those were feds" and you're out of luck.
Before you know it, they'll be detaining people without legal representation, shipping them to overseas black sites, and murdering citizens in the street. Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.
> Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.
That's been the case for at least 25 years. Still bad, but not new or unique to Trump. I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like, but the historical stuff that comes to light from time to time doesn't lend much confidence that they were all that much better - they just did it illegally and ashamedly whereas now it's quasi-legal and fully acceptable.
Couldn't it be used to identify/track the ICE vehicles? Observe where drones suddenly become enclosed in a no-fly zone (do I understand correctly that operators get notification that they should land immediately)?
Are you suggesting that the system is efficient enough, and the users of it are competent enough, that a live moving no-fly zone would be placed somewhere that a drone in the immediate vicinity would be informed and be disabled?
I have my doubts. I would guess one "popping up" would at least be delayed such that it's pretty pointless by the time the drones are notified. Annoying indeed, useful (even to the ne'er-do-wells trying to enforce this crazy stuff) not so much.
DJI has (or, at least, had, a few years ago) a no-fly system that was updated via the Internet. Maybe it's not live, but then what would be the point of these no-fly zones? Just so ICE agents can shoot your drone down with impunity? If they didn't need license to execute people in the streets, I don't see why they'd need license to shoot down a drone.
> the order extended no-fly zones to ground vehicles belonging to the Department of Homeland Security. Even while the vehicles were in motion. Even if they were unmarked. And even if their routes had not been announced.
I want to know the genius who wrote this, and the mastermind who approved it.
Why would you allow drones near moving vehicles in the first place, ICE or not?
The FAA needs to get off its ass with drones, it’s only a matter of time before some dipshit trying to get TikTok footage or an actual bad actor brings down a fucking airliner with one of these. It’s insane to me how unregulated drones generally are.
Why wouldn't you? There are moving vehicles everywhere. If a drone who's weight is measured in grams is a problem being near moving vehicles, what do you think about 200 pounds of person and bicycle riding around moving vehicles?
> Flying a drone is almost as hard as flying legally a private plane
What universe are you in?
The FAA can’t even find and identify most of the dickheads flying drones around restricted airspace. You think they give a shit about drones in rural areas around smaller airports? Drones are cheap and easily accessible, orders of magnitude easier to get than an airplane in terms of actual acquisition and the license (spoiler: most drone users aren’t licensed). Compare both of those things with the cost of getting a PPL, to say nothing of how expensive even a small plane is. It isn’t just the US, either - I’ve flown small planes in both America and Australia, and drones are something that both the FAA and CASA clearly aren’t equipped to deal with. Regulations and laws don’t matter if you can’t enforce them because you can’t identify the perpetrator.
In no way is that the most important point of the article, especially when you are cherrypicking that sentence and deleting part of it and still don't include how the updated guideline is still ambiguous. You are the "shit writer" here and commenter.
"On April 15, the FAA removed the no-fly zones by replacing the sweeping flight restrictions with a “national security advisory” titled NOTAM FDC 6/2824. The revised notice dropped all mentions of flight restrictions and criminal charges. It instead “advised” drone pilots to avoid flying near “covered mobile assets” belonging to the Department of Homeland Security and several other federal agencies."
"The new FAA advisory wording is “a lot better than it was,” but it still comes off as “too ambiguous,” according to Moss at the Drone Service Providers Alliance. He suggested that the Department of Homeland Security could handle any potential drone concerns rather than making it an FAA issue."
I'm not from the USA so I need a bit of explanation here.
Is the general public in the USA is supposedly entitled to know whether a given vehicle contains ICE agents? By what legal theory?
Is there a similar nationwide prohibition on, say, plainclothes police officers?
Is there no concern for what would happen in case of mistaken identity?
Knowing that a vehicle contains ICE agents, is there a reason that someone should be able to pursue it with a drone? Does this accomplish a legitimate purpose other than tracking the vehicle's position (again, presumably to disseminate the information "this is an ICE vehicle")? Is there a reason why this would not reasonably be seen as harassment from the agents' perspective?
Are ICE agents American citizens, entitled to the same rights as other American citizens?
Do people here believe that the purpose of enacting such no-fly zones is something other than preventing drones from following the vehicles for surveillance and information-sharing purposes? Especially given the idea that the zone moves with the vehicle?
Is there a reason why the government of the USA should not be permitted to enforce its own immigration law? In particular, is there a reason why people who have illegally entered the country per that law, and who have what I'm told is called a "final order of removal", should be permitted to remain within the country?
Edit: Is there something wrong with asking any of the above questions? If so, why?
To answer your edit, I'd say your framing of those questions is likely considered antagonistic.
- No one is saying they need to know what vehicles contain ICE agents
- Not sure your meaning exactly, but there's no expectation for plainclothes officers to be locatable by the general public
- Concern for whom? Whose mistaken identity?
- This isn't about "knowing" a vehicle contains ICE agents.
- Government officials *should* be held to higher scrutiny than the general public.
- Their objective was to prevent *legally permitted* public recording of these operations
- Here you are delving into a fraught space. Given that many people in that status are guilty of *civil* infractions and the level of force being deployed is highly disproportionate, many people are understandably upset. There's a ton to discuss in just this one line item.
The issue is that the restrictions were so ambiguous as to make flying drones legally risky anywhere and anytime. The idea that a pilot should somehow know that a specific vehicle is a roving no-fly zone is ludicrous. You are attempting to flip this on it's head and make it out like people are saying they have to know ICE vehicles and such. That's 100% not the issue. I mean, it may be an issue for some other conversation, but not this one. As far as harassment of ICE agents by drone operators, all existing regulations already cover this and apply equally to a drone operator harassing the general public or government officials. Trying to carve out something special for ICE agents and de-facto making all drone flight a legal gamble is insane.
Journalists documenting the behavior of law enforcement. One needn't report live streaming information for use of a drone to be valuable in a civil society. Law enforcement officers are granted power to perform their jobs, but that power should remain in check lest it be used to deny citizens their rights.
Is the general public in the USA is supposedly entitled to know whether a given vehicle contains ICE agents? By what legal theory?
This is an inversion of the problem. The general public is entitled to fly drones in many areas and should not be punished just because ICE claims they are operating in an area.
Is there a similar nationwide prohibition on, say, plainclothes police officers?
This is not a valid comparison.
Is there no concern for what would happen in case of mistaken identity?
What does this mean? Why do you think the government should be able to arbitrarily restrict drone operations?
Knowing that a vehicle contains ICE agents, is there a reason that someone should be able to pursue it with a drone? Does this accomplish a legitimate purpose other than tracking the vehicle's position (again, presumably to disseminate the information "this is an ICE vehicle")? Is there a reason why this would not reasonably be seen as harassment from the agents' perspective?
Again, this is an inversion of the problem. If the general public is allowed to operate drones in certain areas, that use should not be subject to widespread, unjustified restrictions.
re ICE agents American citizens, entitled to the same rights as other American citizens?
Most of them probably are citizens.
Do people here believe that the purpose of enacting such no-fly zones is something other than preventing drones from following the vehicles for surveillance and information-sharing purposes? Especially given the idea that the zone moves with the vehicle?
The motivation isn't the problem, the problem is that the implementation infringes on the rights of citizens.
Is there a reason why the government of the USA should not be permitted to enforce its own immigration law? In particular, is there a reason why people who have illegally entered the country per that law, and who have what I'm told is called a "final order of removal", should be permitted to remain within the country?
People opposing the current immigration enforcement regime are not protesting the existence of law, they disagree with the formulation and implementation of the laws. Is it your position that questioning the formulation or implementation of a law should not be allowed?
This is pretty ironic given that the government can and absolutely does track American citizens everywhere without a warrant. I've known people who were harassed by police because they were near a crime that happened and the police used it's surveillance tools to find likely people in the area.
It has never been the case in America (at least not since any of us have been alive) that warrants are always required. There are plenty of situations where they are not.
It's not about the warrant (which was mentioned just to reinforce the lack of oversight law enforcement has when it invades people's privacy) but the massive assymmetry here and the person I'm responding to compared this situation to the rights Americans have.
Normal citizens can't get full no fly zones and are subject to even more invasive tactics. The comparison to normal citizens highlights that what was done here was far in excess of what is done for normal citizens and seems counter to their overall argument.
If a stranger told you your baby was ugly, you would think the stranger was an asshole even if everyone in your family agreed that the baby is hideous.
Unmarked no-fly zones at unannounced times and locations are a remarkable innovation. Hopefully they will tell you when and where you shouldn't have been when they charge you for it, but that may be classified.
Ambiguous laws (which in this case are by definition impossible to comply with) which are capriciously enforced are a hallmark of authoritarian and fascist regimes. Sadly ironic, the US government used to highlight this fact:
"Authoritarian regimes’ unclear laws make anyone a suspect" - https://ge.usembassy.gov/authoritarian-regimes-unclear-laws-...
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” ― Oscar R. Benavides, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_R._Benavides
If laws are ambiguous, governments run the risk folks will conclude they'll get in trouble no matter how diligently they try to suss out the spirit of said laws.
When combined with a comical inability to secure government systems, it's honestly super cute that any federal agency thinks engaging in such dark patterns is in any way, shape, or form going to achieve their goals.
> If laws are ambiguous, governments run the risk folks will conclude they'll get in trouble no matter how diligently they try to suss out the spirit of said laws
Well, yeah, but that's the goal. People will correctly conclude that their ability to act unmolested is entirely contingent upon remaining in the good graces of local and remote authority figures. This produces extreme chilling on dissent or disagreement and promotes deals, bribes, and bootlicking. The law is transformed into a transparent legitimization mechanism for what the powerful wanted to do anyway, applied and ignored according to the real power structure adjacent to the legal bureaucracy. This is the default state of human civilization when the rule of law is not proactively defended.
But to "chill dissent", you must be capable of tracking it down before it hangs you from a gas station. I don't think you're fully grasping how sudden and forceful change could come if just small number of folks decided to stop giving a fuck about the spirit of the law and do whatever they feel they can get away with.
In my experience, folks from a legal/court context who think they can get cute playing the "you can't prove I broke the rules" game will literally void their bowels in fear when the same is done to them by just one skilled hacker, let alone a group of them all focused on a singular task.
Of note, the article seems to mention 3 things: 1) Vague laws 2) Arbitrary Enforcement 3) Lack of due process
All three seem to be important facts for an Authoritarian Regieme
I point this out, because I believe the US has long had vague laws, and our Due Process helps kick out arbitrary enforcement. I also believe that our Checks and Balance system (part of Due Process) is currently broken
Given the astronomically high legal cost to individuals, the sheer presence of arbitrary enforcement can already cause a lot of fear and damage.
There was a recent high profile of a case where a woman in Tennessee was accused of a crime in North Dakota. She spent months in jail, where she lost her car, home, and her dog. She was not even in the right state, and her life was destroyed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47563384
For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think these rules would stand under the APA. Which means any criminal convictions would be thrown out.
> Which means any criminal convictions would be thrown out.
and in the meantime people rot in jail but i guess no harm no foul :shrug:
Not to mention the monetary costs of defense
Up next, secret interpretations of laws to do things with zero accountability or public overaight. Oh wait we already have that.
And have had that for a while.
Heck if they do tell you, ICE swaps plates and tries to hide in various ways.
The evidence could be just some regular looking vehicle you can't find anything about and it's just "trust me bro those were feds" and you're out of luck.
Before you know it, they'll be detaining people without legal representation, shipping them to overseas black sites, and murdering citizens in the street. Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.
> Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.
That's been the case for at least 25 years. Still bad, but not new or unique to Trump. I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like, but the historical stuff that comes to light from time to time doesn't lend much confidence that they were all that much better - they just did it illegally and ashamedly whereas now it's quasi-legal and fully acceptable.
Couldn't it be used to identify/track the ICE vehicles? Observe where drones suddenly become enclosed in a no-fly zone (do I understand correctly that operators get notification that they should land immediately)?
The problem (which I've had happen) is that a no-fly zone suddenly popping up might prevent your drone from coming back to you.
Not that a government that just pops up no-fly zones would care about your drone, but just saying.
Are you suggesting that the system is efficient enough, and the users of it are competent enough, that a live moving no-fly zone would be placed somewhere that a drone in the immediate vicinity would be informed and be disabled?
I have my doubts. I would guess one "popping up" would at least be delayed such that it's pretty pointless by the time the drones are notified. Annoying indeed, useful (even to the ne'er-do-wells trying to enforce this crazy stuff) not so much.
DJI has (or, at least, had, a few years ago) a no-fly system that was updated via the Internet. Maybe it's not live, but then what would be the point of these no-fly zones? Just so ICE agents can shoot your drone down with impunity? If they didn't need license to execute people in the streets, I don't see why they'd need license to shoot down a drone.
> the order extended no-fly zones to ground vehicles belonging to the Department of Homeland Security. Even while the vehicles were in motion. Even if they were unmarked. And even if their routes had not been announced.
I want to know the genius who wrote this, and the mastermind who approved it.
Whoever it was knew exactly what they were doing, and it was intentional.
Or in other words: the cruelty is the point.
This is exactly how corrupt, authoritarian governments have always operated.
Do no-fly zones extend indefinitely upwards? If so, can you build a no-fly wall out of cars?
The federal government doesn't need a row of cars to make a no-fly wall.
As we learned in El Paso in February, if the federal government wants a no fly zone, it can just create one.
But if the no-fly zones are arbitrarily mobile, the drivers can create a no-fly wall without intervention from the federal government.
The article states 1,000 vertical feet. Obviously this is targeting small drones and not commercial aircraft or even general aviation.
Someone who doesn't get that we're supposed to have a representative government with enumerated powers in this country.
Or maybe they do get that, but find it incredibly inconvenient to their own aspirations.
Why would you allow drones near moving vehicles in the first place, ICE or not?
The FAA needs to get off its ass with drones, it’s only a matter of time before some dipshit trying to get TikTok footage or an actual bad actor brings down a fucking airliner with one of these. It’s insane to me how unregulated drones generally are.
Why wouldn't you? There are moving vehicles everywhere. If a drone who's weight is measured in grams is a problem being near moving vehicles, what do you think about 200 pounds of person and bicycle riding around moving vehicles?
ICE is not driving airliners on the streets
6/10ths of a mile?
What are you talking about. Read part 107. Flying a drone is almost as hard as flying legally a private plane. Fines are huge. They are enforced.
> Flying a drone is almost as hard as flying legally a private plane
What universe are you in?
The FAA can’t even find and identify most of the dickheads flying drones around restricted airspace. You think they give a shit about drones in rural areas around smaller airports? Drones are cheap and easily accessible, orders of magnitude easier to get than an airplane in terms of actual acquisition and the license (spoiler: most drone users aren’t licensed). Compare both of those things with the cost of getting a PPL, to say nothing of how expensive even a small plane is. It isn’t just the US, either - I’ve flown small planes in both America and Australia, and drones are something that both the FAA and CASA clearly aren’t equipped to deal with. Regulations and laws don’t matter if you can’t enforce them because you can’t identify the perpetrator.
You might be right for a limited time only.
Get this bullshit political hit piece off my feed.
This is shit writing.
> On April 15, the FAA removed the no-fly zones by replacing the sweeping flight restrictions...
This should have been in the FIRST paragraph, not 24th.
You can give me all the background you want AFTER you tell me the most important point.
In no way is that the most important point of the article, especially when you are cherrypicking that sentence and deleting part of it and still don't include how the updated guideline is still ambiguous. You are the "shit writer" here and commenter.
"On April 15, the FAA removed the no-fly zones by replacing the sweeping flight restrictions with a “national security advisory” titled NOTAM FDC 6/2824. The revised notice dropped all mentions of flight restrictions and criminal charges. It instead “advised” drone pilots to avoid flying near “covered mobile assets” belonging to the Department of Homeland Security and several other federal agencies."
"The new FAA advisory wording is “a lot better than it was,” but it still comes off as “too ambiguous,” according to Moss at the Drone Service Providers Alliance. He suggested that the Department of Homeland Security could handle any potential drone concerns rather than making it an FAA issue."
I'm not from the USA so I need a bit of explanation here.
Is the general public in the USA is supposedly entitled to know whether a given vehicle contains ICE agents? By what legal theory?
Is there a similar nationwide prohibition on, say, plainclothes police officers?
Is there no concern for what would happen in case of mistaken identity?
Knowing that a vehicle contains ICE agents, is there a reason that someone should be able to pursue it with a drone? Does this accomplish a legitimate purpose other than tracking the vehicle's position (again, presumably to disseminate the information "this is an ICE vehicle")? Is there a reason why this would not reasonably be seen as harassment from the agents' perspective?
Are ICE agents American citizens, entitled to the same rights as other American citizens?
Do people here believe that the purpose of enacting such no-fly zones is something other than preventing drones from following the vehicles for surveillance and information-sharing purposes? Especially given the idea that the zone moves with the vehicle?
Is there a reason why the government of the USA should not be permitted to enforce its own immigration law? In particular, is there a reason why people who have illegally entered the country per that law, and who have what I'm told is called a "final order of removal", should be permitted to remain within the country?
Edit: Is there something wrong with asking any of the above questions? If so, why?
To answer your edit, I'd say your framing of those questions is likely considered antagonistic.
The issue is that the restrictions were so ambiguous as to make flying drones legally risky anywhere and anytime. The idea that a pilot should somehow know that a specific vehicle is a roving no-fly zone is ludicrous. You are attempting to flip this on it's head and make it out like people are saying they have to know ICE vehicles and such. That's 100% not the issue. I mean, it may be an issue for some other conversation, but not this one. As far as harassment of ICE agents by drone operators, all existing regulations already cover this and apply equally to a drone operator harassing the general public or government officials. Trying to carve out something special for ICE agents and de-facto making all drone flight a legal gamble is insane.Journalists documenting the behavior of law enforcement. One needn't report live streaming information for use of a drone to be valuable in a civil society. Law enforcement officers are granted power to perform their jobs, but that power should remain in check lest it be used to deny citizens their rights.
Is the general public in the USA is supposedly entitled to know whether a given vehicle contains ICE agents? By what legal theory?
This is an inversion of the problem. The general public is entitled to fly drones in many areas and should not be punished just because ICE claims they are operating in an area.
Is there a similar nationwide prohibition on, say, plainclothes police officers?
This is not a valid comparison.
Is there no concern for what would happen in case of mistaken identity?
What does this mean? Why do you think the government should be able to arbitrarily restrict drone operations?
Knowing that a vehicle contains ICE agents, is there a reason that someone should be able to pursue it with a drone? Does this accomplish a legitimate purpose other than tracking the vehicle's position (again, presumably to disseminate the information "this is an ICE vehicle")? Is there a reason why this would not reasonably be seen as harassment from the agents' perspective?
Again, this is an inversion of the problem. If the general public is allowed to operate drones in certain areas, that use should not be subject to widespread, unjustified restrictions.
re ICE agents American citizens, entitled to the same rights as other American citizens?
Most of them probably are citizens.
Do people here believe that the purpose of enacting such no-fly zones is something other than preventing drones from following the vehicles for surveillance and information-sharing purposes? Especially given the idea that the zone moves with the vehicle?
The motivation isn't the problem, the problem is that the implementation infringes on the rights of citizens.
Is there a reason why the government of the USA should not be permitted to enforce its own immigration law? In particular, is there a reason why people who have illegally entered the country per that law, and who have what I'm told is called a "final order of removal", should be permitted to remain within the country?
People opposing the current immigration enforcement regime are not protesting the existence of law, they disagree with the formulation and implementation of the laws. Is it your position that questioning the formulation or implementation of a law should not be allowed?
This is pretty ironic given that the government can and absolutely does track American citizens everywhere without a warrant. I've known people who were harassed by police because they were near a crime that happened and the police used it's surveillance tools to find likely people in the area.
It has never been the case in America (at least not since any of us have been alive) that warrants are always required. There are plenty of situations where they are not.
It's not about the warrant (which was mentioned just to reinforce the lack of oversight law enforcement has when it invades people's privacy) but the massive assymmetry here and the person I'm responding to compared this situation to the rights Americans have.
Normal citizens can't get full no fly zones and are subject to even more invasive tactics. The comparison to normal citizens highlights that what was done here was far in excess of what is done for normal citizens and seems counter to their overall argument.
I can take the last ine:
If a stranger told you your baby was ugly, you would think the stranger was an asshole even if everyone in your family agreed that the baby is hideous.
Enjoy living in your country.