(MintPress) – The lawyer of a North Dakota man who was the first American arrested with the assistance of an unmanned Predator drone and repeatedly tased by police has vowed to make the incident a Constitutional issue. The use of the pilotless aircraft has stoked fears of a privacy invasion and unconstitutional surveillance of civilians. Overseas, drones have become common in the military arsenal. In America, however, the constitutionality of their use is less clear.
The initial incident took place on June 23 of last year when six missing cows were found on the farmland of North Dakota resident Rodney Brossart. Being the property of someone else, the county sheriff obtained a search warrant to round up the missing cows.
When Sheriff Kelly Janke arrived on the property, three men, including Brossart, approached Janke with rifles and chased the sheriff off the property. Brossart identified himself as a “sovereign citizen” – a dissent group that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims “believes that federal, state, and local governments operate illegally.” Sovereigns believe they are immune to United States law, such as paying taxes and punishment from violent crimes.
After the incident with the three men, Janke called in reinforcements from the SWAT team, regional sheriffs, a bomb squad and Highway Patrol. And because the land Brossart was living on was in excess of 3,000 acres, Janke asked for a Predator drone.
The Los Angeles Times recalls the scene that led to the arrests: “As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator.”
The resulting arrests has lawyer Bruce Quick claiming that the drone was “dispatched without judicial approval or a warrant.” But the state prosecutors say the drone was not used to gather evidence leading up to the arrest and was released only after arrest warrants were filed.
“Unmanned surveillance aircraft were not in use prior to or at the time Rodney Brossart is alleged to have committed the crimes with which he is charged,” North Dakota state prosecutor Douglas Manbeck wrote.
The ruling of the case will be the first of its kind and a landmark decision on drone usage across the county involving civilians.
The particular drone used in North Dakota belonged to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which traditionally uses their nine drones domestically to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers at points around the nation’s borders. Drones also fly domestically without public knowledge to survey scenes during a crisis.
Privacy activists say the increased use of drones is cause of concern because it strips the notion of privacy away from civilians and places it in the hand of someone operating a drone.
“Any time you have a tool like that in the hands of law enforcement that makes it easier to do surveillance, they will do more of it,” said Ryan Calo, director for privacy and robotics at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “This could be a time when people are uncomfortable, and they want to place limits on that technology. It could make us question the doctrine that you do not have privacy in public.”
Authorizing drones
In February, President Barack Obama signed off on a bill that gave the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the green light to develop a licensing system for drones by 2015 and regulations for testing drones domestically. The FAA has estimated that it anticipates it could have 30,000 drones flying by 2020.
The crux of the bill aims to expedite the process of which drone licenses and certificates are awarded to federal, state and local agencies. Certificates are currently issued on a case-by-case basis and can cover multiple flights. But the bill’s language also requires regular usage of drones with a plan “to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system” and to allow anyone from a government public safety agency to operate a drone if it weighs 4.4 pounds or less as long as certain measures are met. FAA funding in the bill provides the agency with $63 billion.
Criticism has been on high supply since Obama authorized the drone expansion. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been an outspoken critic, saying the right to privacy is being violated by drones because law enforcement officials have already expressed high demand. The organization claims drones could very easily replace neighborhood patrolling officers.
“Congress — and to the extent possible, the FAA — need to impose some rules to protect Americans’ privacy from the inevitable invasions that this technology will otherwise lead to,” the ACLU wrote. “We don’t want to wonder, every time we step out our front door, whether some eye in the sky is watching our every move.”
The ACLU said that should drones become common practice, the potential for abuse and misuse is there and that a system of checks and balances be in order to ensure that they are being used properly.
In 1989 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Florida v. Riley that authorities do not need a warrant in order to search an individual’s property from public airspace. In the case, a man argued that his greenhouse was subjected to an illegal search when law enforcement used a helicopter to survey the greenhouse from over his property. With missing panels on the roof of the greenhouse, authorities were able to see marijuana plants inside.
The court ruled that the surveillance was not unconstitutional because any private flyer could have flown over the same spot and viewed the same sight in public airspace. The court also said no physical raid was carried out, thus no warrant was needed.
“With his naked eye, he was able to see through the openings in the roof and one or more of the open sides of the greenhouse and to identify what he thought was marijuana growing in the structure,” court records said. “A warrant was obtained based on these observations, and the ensuing search revealed marijuana growing in the greenhouse.”