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:
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.
> it's just suddenly defense attorneys care because of the immigration/deportation angle instead of just someone losing their home, job, car, life.
1.) This has nothing to do with defense attorneys who are not available in these cases nor dealing with them.
2.) The scale of it is massively larger.
3.) The defense attorneys were actually talking about it for years, I know because I read about similar issues for years. And I am not particularly interested in legal system.
There is that rhetorical trick where people just assume that since they just learned about something, professionals dealing with these issues were oblivious too.
The key word in 'it's just suddenly defense attorneys care' being 'care'. Nowhere did I say defense attorneys were oblivious.
Defense attorneys could boycott the system and force reform. How old is the saying 'you can beat the rap, but not the ride' now? You are right, defense attorneys have known that the justice system can destroy anyone just for being a target, for a very long time. I guess I should have written 'they suddenly have energy to challenge it'.
I'm at the point where I think that these things are just getting called racist as an easily defeated strawman.
"See look, our terrible law that gives the government arbitrary power to levy ruinous fines treats all races equally, therefore it is not racist, therefore it is fine."
It might actually be racist sometimes but that's beside the point. The whole premise of much of this crap is flawed.
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.
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.
Against all that it seems miserly to complain about the costs of destroyed, seized, lost drones, equipment, gates, doors et al that will never be reimbursed.
It's not miserly, rather it's recognizing the exact line the government steps over when causing harm and then refusing to compensate its victims. This is the longstanding perverse incentive that has led to this specific development, the murders of Pretti/Good/Taylor (et al), "can't beat the ride", forced plea bargaining, and so on. The very idea of sovereign immunity for executive/administrative actions needs to be wholly repudiated.
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.
No, he's right; there's a continuous line of accepting worse and worse that runs through Guantanamo Bay. After all, if you can detain one person extra-legally in a special prison constructed to be immune from human rights, why not a million?
I'd prefer you join us in condemning it rather than tacitly helping to normalize it. Describing it as some inevitable trend diminishes the focus on those responsible for the latest escalations.
Where did you get the impression I don't condemn it? Acknowledging that it exists and getting worse isn't admitting defeat, unless you're unable to hold ideals with less-than-optimistic prospects. The inevitability of trends is a trick of the mind, not the person pointing out that trends exists. Pretending as if this is something Trump started and that will end with him is much more dangerous, IMO. That ignores the bipartisan consensus among political elites that the common people are to be herded and managed and that liberty and human rights are out-of-date. The problem didn't start with Trump, and it won't end with him if you approach it as a Trump problem.
Well you didn't condemn it in your comment. I do understand that you were making a normative rather than a positive statement, yes. But I see the same exact kind of normative description from people who then go on to normalize or support Trumpism.
> Pretending as if this is something Trump started and that will end with him is much more dangerous ... The problem didn't start with Trump, and it won't end with him if you approach it as a Trump problem.
I completely agree with this.
> That ignores the bipartisan consensus among political elites that the common people are to be herded and managed and that liberty and human rights are out-of-date
While I agree with this as well, I often see similar things from Trump supporters who then use it as license to support accelerationism / nihilism / oppression of others they enjoy / etc. That's what I have a problem with - this shameless tyrant has been channeling widespread frustration with many longstanding problems unacknowledged by the political establishment ("a breath of fresh air!"), but it's only a marketing trick and those exact problematic dynamics are being cranked up to 11. He's certainly honed in on many varied things that are rotting in our society, but rather than doing constructive things to address any of them he's just accelerating the rot while setting himself up as a speedbump to line his own pockets.
For reference here I'm a libertarian who was both-sidesing up until 2020 or so. But a critical assumption of both-sidesism is that both parties are similarly bad in magnitude, just with different focuses. And Trumpism is a marked escalation in the blatantly shameless anti-liberty stance of the government.
[I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like,]
pre patriot bad things happened
people were not even allowed to know the charges against them, not allowed discovery of evidence, compelled to allocute under duress, and court proceedings in total darkness, as in knowledge of the place, procedures, and persons involved could not be allowed.
..and then there was the really bad stuff, when the patriot act became a thing. when the text of law could not even be divulged, when people where interrogated by dog, locked in a cage and fed "leaks" of total defeat, and humiliation and death.
Congratulations you found the key to fascism: Create vague laws that could apply to anyone, then you can pick the people who broke it. Of course you try to only pick your enemies.
Only: the person in charge of that decision is the meanest, most stupid idiot you have ever met and they envy you for your wife and want to live in your house once you have been dispossessed.
The brother of my grandfather was in jail in Germany during WWII because he offended the original Nazis. He said what roughly translates to: "Nazis are all just dumb plebs." And the thing is, he was right.
> 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.
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.
Not really. The FAA revised the rule, but that was their choice, not the result of a ruling or even the reasoned application of a general principle.
The very broad power of administrative rulemaking held by that agency is unchanged -- and the power of agencies generally, to make law without legislating, without accountability to the electorate, actually has nothing to do with this administration, does it? It actually has nothing to do with any of them. It's something the legislature has allowed to grow and grow over successive administrations, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.
I am not sure what is a better alternative. Laws can set the broad guidelines, but the people in those administrative roles have to make explicit decisions when gray areas inevitably arise. The legislature is free to codify the exact rules it wants when they disagree with the current setup.
They are free to do it but don't. That's exactly the problem. They also don't respond to overreach in rulemaking by revising the grants they have made, so it has been a cumulative process.
Interesting points, glad to have started this conversation.
Re this being the FAA's choice, I was reacting to this line in the reporting: "On April 10, Levine and his lawyers pressed ahead by filing an emergency motion [... which... ] may have expedited the government’s next move [to replace] the sweeping flight restrictions with a “national security advisory” [and dropping] all mentions of flight restrictions and criminal charges." Maybe Ars is being too rosy-viewed about the causality there, idk. I have no partic feeling one way or the other though I do want to take whatever comfort I can in the notion that the "system of checks and balances" is working. I'd rather go to bed thinking it is, than tell myself cynically that this was just another whim of an agency, with no real principled attitude.
I believe that the Trump administration in particular - not Republicans as opposed to Democrats - has abused agency independence in a manner unprecedented in recent American politics. I think agencies SHOULD act autonomously to determine specifics just like this one - what vehicles/devices, with what capabilities, can fly where and in what manner, and that we SHOULD value "expert advice" in such situations instead of using that phrase as invective. I think the American people should celebrate that we grant such freedoms because it lets us all benefit from expertise - but they should also understand that there is a price to pay in vigilance, of having to challenge the legality of agency actions if the particular implementation of regulations infringes on constitutional rights. But it's not just litigation that will prevent abuse - the first line of defense against it should be the expectation that administrations will consider themselves beholden to certain social norms of cautious use of power. Do you believe that there is no daylight between this administration and previous ones in terms of how they view what norms they ought to consider themselves bound by? That's a genuine question, not a rhetorical one - if you don't believe that, I am curious to know more.
I don't think legislatures can possibly identify a priori all the ways in which rights could possibly be infringed and make their grants so granular that agencies can't possibly find abusive interpretations. Those can only be determined in specific, real, cases, when fallible individuals attempt to meet the legislated objectives by taking concrete action. I don't understand this idea that federal agencies have become "unaccountable" merely because they issue intepretations every day as and when they encounter real-world situations. The Chevron doctrine seemed a perfectly fine compromise to me - how this court thinks the legislative body can magically divine all the future possibilities and encode them into the acts that govern the agencies is just beyond me.
You have written quite a bit, here. It would be hard to address all of it in one reply and do it justice.
You write:
Maybe Ars is being too rosy-viewed about the causality there, idk. I have no partic feeling one way or the other though I do want to take whatever comfort I can in the notion that the "system of checks and balances" is working.
They are not being rosy about it but you are inferring the wrong lesson from this. There wasn't a judgment or some other finding that the FAA had exceeded their authority and this kind of rule is too broad to be legal: the FAA just decided it was too much trouble to deal with this right now. In the absence of a legal finding about it, they can bring the same rule back next year if they want. This isn't the system of checks and balances working -- the system didn't even get going.
You write:
...there is a price to pay in vigilance, of having to challenge the legality of agency actions if the particular implementation of regulations infringes on constitutional rights.
Is there a constitutional right implicated here? The right to fly planes? It is certainly not a press freedom issue in an obvious way, since it does not target journalism per se -- it has no impact on journalism on foot, on bicycles, &c.
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."
Drones are already regulated. You aren't allowed to fly higher than 400' AGL without ATC authorization, an altitude chosen because it has special significance in the National Airspace System. Nor are you allowed to fly in the vicinity of an airport without authorization.
This particular restriction we're talking about was completely unjustifiable. But the regs exist, and they aren't just made up nonsense. They're the result of systems engineering and a real risk management process.
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.
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.
> No one is saying they need to know what vehicles contain ICE agents
Look, I agree that this is a poorly implemented policy. But it's obvious and inarguable that the clear intent is to prevent people from following ICE around with drones, whether to surveil them (and thus perhaps warn others of their approach; despite the fact that there is no logical reason for anyone to be concerned about their approach beyond actual law breakers who legally should not be in the country) or harass them (which would not be okay if done to anyone).
> Government officials should be held to higher scrutiny than the general public.
Sure. Law enforcement is also entitled to legal protections that the general public is not; in particular they are specifically entrusted with the use of force that would almost never be accepted from civilians.
> Their objective was to prevent legally permitted public recording of these operations
No, there is no such objective, because even if enforced as described this is laughably far from actually doing any such thing.
In particular, you can still record from the ground. And if your actual purpose is to show clearly and honestly what the officers are doing, that is better and more easily done from the ground.
Again, this is about flying drones, and people are crying literal fascism over it. This is technology that didn't exist when the actual Fascists were in power, and is still only feasibly accessible to a privileged few.
> 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.
No, I am doing nothing of the sort. I'm saying they are trying to know ICE vehicles, and people who are mistakenly identified as such may suffer as a result. And that it is therefore better that they don't have the idea in their heads that it should be morally okay to harass law enforcement officers, or to try to create an information network to obstruct lawful work.
The recurring pattern with all of these things people complain about with how ICE operates, that I've noticed, is that every single one of them is a response to how they've been unlawfully interfered with previously.
> Given that many people in that status are guilty of civil infractions
If you have a "final order of removal", that is because the national government has conclusively determined that you have violated the law by entering the country, that you are not legally entitled to be within the country, and that you inherently continue to violate the law by being within the country.
This is, definitionally, not something that can be dealt with by issuing a fine and letting the person stay in the country. To allow this is to deny the nation's right to determine who is and is not allowed to stay. It is, in fact, definitionally "open borders" policy. And with this you do not have a nation any more, only lines on a map.
> the level of force being deployed is highly disproportionate
This is entirely ignorant of how law enforcement works. Force is deployed as need to be superior to the threat to the operation. If you come at a police officer with a knife, for example, you should expect to get shot. It does not matter that you have not yet caused any injury, nor does it matter why you are being apprehended.
Similarly, any law enforcement officer may (from what I have had to research over the last several months; these things are not that much different from Canada, frankly) legally order you out of a vehicle on "reasonable suspicion"; and citizens are legally not entitled to interpose themselves physically between a law enforcement officer and the target with the purpose of interfering with law enforcement action (or persist in doing so after being advise that they are in the way). The fact that said citizen is recording with a cell phone at the time does not change that, any more than shouting political slogans during a hold-up would exonerate a bank robber.
If you interfere in such a manner, you thereby commit a crime in full sight of an officer, and are therefore a valid candidate for arrest. And resisting arrest generally justifies physical force, no matter how bad it might look on a citizen's cell phone recording. (Activists specifically train to resist arrest in ways that make the response look bad, despite being completely legally justified, and always having been completely legally justified, in many other countries as well as the US.)
> I mean, it may be an issue for some other conversation, but not this one.
Well, you are the one who brought up levels of force and "civil infractions", so.
> obvious and inarguable that the clear intent is to prevent people from following ICE around with drones
Exactly. They desire to prevent their actions from being observed and recorded. They cannot exert physical restraint over a drone like they can a person on the ground. That means they lose the ability to restrict you from recording their activities.
> harass them (which would not be okay if done to anyone)
As I stated before, there are already laws to cover this situation. No need for the hidden, roving, no-fly zones.
> Law enforcement is also entitled to legal protections that the general public is not
You and I disagree here. Law enforcement should be held to higher legal standards in everything they do BECAUSE they are "entrusted with the use of force". That put's them in a position of authority over anyone who isn't entrusted with the same governmental power. They should not be afforded extra legal protections, they should have extra legal obligations. I'm not talking about regulations around scene control for public safety.
> No, there is no such objective
This is either a naive or malicious take. I'll be generous and assume it's naive. They don't want people to surveil them. If you are an individual on the ground you likely are within the "reach out and touch them" space and they absolutely will suppress you if you are in a position to record, in detail, their activities. There are plenty of recorded interactions of just this thing happening. A drone operator can be in a stand-off location recording and less likely to have then physically interrupt the recording. That drone operator has legal restrictions on what they can do and violating those restrictions is already legally enforceable, no hidden, roving, no-fly zone needed.
> if your actual purpose is to show clearly and honestly what the officers are doing, that is better and more easily done from the ground.
This is, again, a naive take. They will obstruct your ability to record their activities as much as possible. On the ground that means they can simply stand between you and what they rest of their group are doing. Or quite likely they will physically harass you until your recording is stopped in one way or another. Recording from the air makes in much harder for them to obstruct your recording. With ground or air you still have to contend with non-purposeful obstructed angles of observation, with air you have less chance of purposeful obstructions.
> No, I am doing nothing of the sort. I'm saying they are trying to know ICE vehicles
As with any group you will always have multiple, sometimes opposing, motivations. I'm positive you can find people who just want to chase around ICE vehicles (or presumed ICE vehicles). But you are using a (smaller) portion of people that are rule breakers already as a rationalization for severe government overreach. And they you are decrying people calling that behavior "fascist" as being out of touch because... drones didn't exist when the term fascist came into use?
What a large chunk of the general populous wants is accountability, proportionality, civility, and respect (for humanity). The tools they have to attempt to forward that agenda are limited as the government has a legal monopoly on use of force. Observation and recording of activities to ensure the government isn't acting improperly, or document when they are, is one of the few tools available. For government agents to do everything in their power to take away that tool is a clear indicator that they are being improper and don't want evidence of that behavior.
> If you have a "final order of removal", that is because the national government has conclusively determined that you have violated the law by entering the country, that you are not legally entitled to be within the country, and that you inherently continue to violate the law by being within the country.
This is a mischaracterization of reality. You can legally entry the country and then have that legal authorization revoked. Being in the country from that point is a civil matter, not criminal. Illegally crossing the border is a criminal matter. The current government makes zero distinction in the level of force used in either matter. Being in the United States illegally doesn't absolve the government from respecting your legal rights as those aren't just for citizens and legal residents. Simple violation of the law does not excuse the excessive force being used here.
> This is, definitionally, not something that can be dealt with by issuing a fine and letting the person stay in the country.
I actually don't disagree. I'm not an advocate for people illegally residing in the United States. I also happen to think that people residing here illegally are subject to the saw protections of law as everyone living here legally. I think they are entitled to basic human dignity. I think they deserve proportional legal enforcement of our immigration laws. I would include compassion, but a government doesn't really mesh with the idea of compassion, that more for the populous or individuals to extend towards their fellow humans.
> This is entirely ignorant of how law enforcement works. Force is deployed as need to be superior to the threat to the operation. If you come at a police officer with a knife, for example, you should expect to get shot. It does not matter that you have not yet caused any injury, nor does it matter why you are being apprehended.
The level of force being applied is in no way proportionate to situation. These are people living here without legal authority and running away from raids. These are not criminal gangs attacking law enforcement. Those ICE officers are individuals exerting legally authorized deadly force against unarmed suspects at an alarming rate. By your logic, the only proper response would be for the oppressed to escalate.
Again, you are missing that the response from officers is disproportionate to the crime. Unless perhaps the "crime" was disrespecting their authority and they seek to teach you the consequences. Shooting someone because you decided to throw yourself in front of their moving car is not a proportionate response to a unarmed, non-violent person trying to get away from an armed and belligerent cluster of government officials.
>> I mean, it may be an issue for some other conversation, but not this one.
> Well, you are the one who brought up levels of force and "civil infractions", so.
You mis-quoted me. I was referring to identification of ICE vehicles. My implication was that having a group of supposed law enforcement who refuse to identify their vehicles, refuse to wear uniforms, wear full face masks, and refuse to properly identify themselves seems like a great way to provoke bad outcomes. It had nothing, directly, to do with discussing "level of force". We were discussing drones and the governments heavy-hands reaction to drones being used against them (they already use them against anyone they deem a target).
It's obvious that you and I have very differing opinions of how a citizen-authorized government should be applying it's legal monopoly on the use of force.
1/3 of this country is quite happy with the level of brutality and malice on display and for that they should be ashamed. Another 1/3 of this country couldn't be bothered to even vote and for that they should be equally, if not more, ashamed.
My personal politics are generally not something I discuss much but perhaps it deserves qualifying here. I think the two major parties in this country are both mostly morally corrupt. They have lost their way and no longer attempt to represent the interests of the populous. Things will never get better with things the way they are as both major parties are fully captured by monied interests. I generally want the government to stay out of my life and simply provide for the common defense, provide shared infrastructure and services, and provide a social safety net for it's citizens. I don't support violence except in self-defense. I think people should be able to make their own decisions about their bodies. I don't personally care about your race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or any other label we use to segment people into the ins and the outs. We are all people and we should all respect each others right to self-determination. I think we all have an obligation to each other to preserve Earth as it's our shared home. Anyway, I guess I'm trying to head off the "typical Democrat" or "typical Liberal" counter. I'm neither of those things. But, if we ever took time to actually communicate with one another, we'd see that everyone has nuance and applying labels hides that.
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.
A drone is less useful for "documenting the behaviour of law enforcement" than a cell phone camera operated at ground level. Because it is filming from entirely the wrong angle, at the wrong time (in transit rather than at the enforcement site).
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?
> 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.
I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that the government has any intention of punishing someone for incidentally flying a drone that happened to be in that wrong airspace, when it's clear that the flight had no purpose related to the ICE vehicle.
If and when that happens, we can talk about this.
> What does this mean?
It means that the clear intent of many of these drone operators is to harass or surveil people whom they believe to be ICE; that I disagree that they have any moral justification for doing so (of course it is moral to record actual arrest etc. actions, in a way that doesn't interfere with them; that is clearly not the same thing as tailing their cars and trying to figure out where they're going). And it means they could be wrong about their targets being ICE, which would mean they were doing these things to an ordinary citizen.
> Most of them probably are citizens.
I think it would be rather hard for a non-citizen to get hired for the job. More importantly, though: the point is that they, too, have certain rights to privacy.
> the problem is that the implementation infringes on the rights of citizens.
I agree that the implementation is bad. I made the post because it came across to me from other top-level comments, very strongly, that a proper implementation would not be any more satisfactory to people here.
> the current immigration enforcement regime
This use of language is poisoning the well.
> they disagree with the formulation and implementation of the laws.
Can you concretely explain at least one situation in which the US government currently does not allow people to legally reside in the country, where you believe they should; and why you think they should?
When I read the arguments of people opposed to ICE, I am never given the impression that there are any particular restrictions on immigration that they'd actually accept. In particular, when there is discussion of people who were apprehended by ICE and extradited, there never seems to be any particular consideration of the individual circumstances or actions of those extradited.
You've been in plenty of other threads justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents, so it's doubtful that any of your questions here are in good faith. Nobody owes it to you to pick out the nuance from coy questions that culminate at the same old nonsensical refrain that any of the major outrages here are due to "enforcing immigration law".
> You've been in plenty of other threads justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents
I have done nothing of the sort. I know exactly what threads you're talking about, and your characterization is false and frankly offensive.
> the same old nonsensical refrain that any of the major outrages here are due to "enforcing immigration law".
It is clear and obvious that every single last tiny thing people are objecting to, ultimately stems from "enforcing immigration law". Nobody would have gotten shot had the people enforcing immigration law been permitted to enforce immigration law in a normal manner. As demonstrated by the fact that it exclusively happened in places where they were interfered with to an extreme degree. Similarly, people only got pulled out of cars because they refused to get out of cars when they were under arrest; they only got arrested for refusing lawful orders; they only faced lawful orders because they were physically obstructing the enforcement of immigration law. All of those things are normal consequences that could be demonstrated on a smaller scale, across time and in countries across the developed world.
ICE agents are federal law enforcement officers. This is objective fact that is trivially researchable and which I have repeatedly cited; yet you and others have repeatedly attempted to deny or ignore it, or the logical consequences of the fact.
And yet again right here you are justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents. I'm sorry that you're offended by the plain truth of the matter, but maybe that's a sign you need to reexamine your position.
The "logical consequences" of being a federal law enforcement officer should not include being able to kill citizens because they've done something that has made your job harder, period.
> And yet again right here you are justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents.
No, I am not. The entire point is that the killing is as an objective matter of fact not "murder". The word has an accepted, agreed-upon meaning. The definition is not met. You don't get to change that. When you try, you imply untrue things.
> should not include being able to kill citizens because they've done something that has made your job harder, period.
I did not say that the consequences include any such thing. When you phrase your overall complaint this way, you imply untrue things. I have explained countless times already, yet you continue to claim untrue things about what I have said, in a manner that ignores the meaning of what I have said. Please stop.
Your wanting to focus on a convenient definition of the word "murder" does not invalidate what I have said. It's obvious that the laws have been defined such that they absolve government agents who commit intentional homicide. So the technicality that the perps aren't being tried and convicted isn't particularly interesting, right?
But sure, since you seem to be triggered by that specific word I'll restate it for you: You have been repeatedly justifying the summary execution of American citizens by government agents.
If you don't like the cognitive dissonance from a direct truth that doesn't meander through a chain of comforting justifications, perhaps you should reconsider your position.
It is not a "convenient definition" of the word murder. It is what the word actually means. There is no discussion to be had here because you will not acknowledge it.
> It's obvious that the laws have been defined such that they absolve government agents who commit intentional homicide
In specific situations, yes. Those situations are of extreme relevance to the situation and you are being intellectually dishonest by glossing over them. There is no discussion to be had here because you skip over them.
This is the exact same way that the laws have worked for decades if not centuries before Trump, both in the USA and across the entire developed world. Your argument depends on falsely pretending that this is somehow specific to Trump's governance or to ICE under that governance. There is no discussion to be had because of this.
> you have been repeatedly justifying the summary execution
This language amplifies the exact thing I object to, and of course you know it. This is trolling. There is no discussion to be had because of this.
> If you don't like the cognitive dissonance from a direct truth that doesn't meander through a chain of comforting justifications
I experience no cognitive dissonance, because what you call a "direct truth" is objectively nothing of the sort; it is simply your dishonest framing that ignores things I have repeatedly explained to you. There is no discussion to be had because of this.
Just to make sure: I do. not. care. if a police officer kills someone who presented what that officer reasonably perceived as a lethal threat to that officer. The law in many places says this is legal, and has said so for a very long time; and I agree with that law and think it is good and just; and I can see very clear and severe negative consequences for society of not having such law (in essence: a near-complete inability to prevent or prosecute violent crime). When you use language like "murder" to refer to this, you are ignoring common definitions understood by the general public as well as those understood by law; and you are doing it specifically to try to make me feel differently about this. It is purely an emotional appeal. It is not an argument, and it does not even attempt to address the reason why the laws are written as they are.
I did acknowledge your one small uninteresting point about the word murder.
I am "glossing over" your justification chain because while it is [unfortunately] legally relevant, it fails to capture the pertinent details of the situations. Specifically, the ICE officers in question seemed eager to embrace these justifications for how they can summarily execute people who are frustrating them rather than engaging in deescalation and restraint expected of supposed "public servants". And no, this dynamic certainly did not start with Trump (eg the multitude of incidents of local police officers summarily executing Blacks). But like everything with Trump it's been cranked to 11.
But sure, "there is no discussion to be had". That was basically the warning of my original comment, about your original comment full of leading questions, to others. In general I do understand there are plenty of people in other countries chanting "Death to America(ns)!" who will not be reasoned with. Easy to do when it's not your own society on the line.
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
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
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> it's just suddenly defense attorneys care because of the immigration/deportation angle instead of just someone losing their home, job, car, life.
1.) This has nothing to do with defense attorneys who are not available in these cases nor dealing with them.
2.) The scale of it is massively larger.
3.) The defense attorneys were actually talking about it for years, I know because I read about similar issues for years. And I am not particularly interested in legal system.
There is that rhetorical trick where people just assume that since they just learned about something, professionals dealing with these issues were oblivious too.
The key word in 'it's just suddenly defense attorneys care' being 'care'. Nowhere did I say defense attorneys were oblivious.
Defense attorneys could boycott the system and force reform. How old is the saying 'you can beat the rap, but not the ride' now? You are right, defense attorneys have known that the justice system can destroy anyone just for being a target, for a very long time. I guess I should have written 'they suddenly have energy to challenge it'.
Vague laws were/are a hallmark of racist American law enforcement. It's what the US has always done.
I'm at the point where I think that these things are just getting called racist as an easily defeated strawman.
"See look, our terrible law that gives the government arbitrary power to levy ruinous fines treats all races equally, therefore it is not racist, therefore it is fine."
It might actually be racist sometimes but that's beside the point. The whole premise of much of this crap is flawed.
>Of note, the article seems to mention 3 things: 1) Vague laws 2) Arbitrary Enforcement 3) Lack of due process
<opens up zoning code>
AreWeTheBaddies.jpeg
Reminds me of this:
"They devise laws that are broad and vague, but then they apply them like a scapel against those that they deem a threat" - William Dobson
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 the goal is chilling dissent, then it sounds like it would be working perfectly.
Your point only holds if the government is trying to act fairly on behalf of the people and actively uphold justice.
> 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.
being specific is the essence of lawmaking and the whole difference between having a Congress and having a mom
~ P. J. O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores"
And everyone’s a full-time suspect now in the US.
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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.
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
Against all that it seems miserly to complain about the costs of destroyed, seized, lost drones, equipment, gates, doors et al that will never be reimbursed.
It's not miserly, rather it's recognizing the exact line the government steps over when causing harm and then refusing to compensate its victims. This is the longstanding perverse incentive that has led to this specific development, the murders of Pretti/Good/Taylor (et al), "can't beat the ride", forced plea bargaining, and so on. The very idea of sovereign immunity for executive/administrative actions needs to be wholly repudiated.
> in the meantime people rot in jail but i guess no harm no foul
Nobody claimed no foul. Constraining a problem isn't the same as saying it's not one.
What exactly have you constrained it to?
Losing your licence and many fines are FAA administrative processes so they don’t care. No courts involved.
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.
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.
"The authoritarianism is getting worse and more accepted" is not a great response here.
No, he's right; there's a continuous line of accepting worse and worse that runs through Guantanamo Bay. After all, if you can detain one person extra-legally in a special prison constructed to be immune from human rights, why not a million?
It's the truth. Would you prefer I lie and tell you everything will be okay after Trump?
I'd prefer you join us in condemning it rather than tacitly helping to normalize it. Describing it as some inevitable trend diminishes the focus on those responsible for the latest escalations.
Where did you get the impression I don't condemn it? Acknowledging that it exists and getting worse isn't admitting defeat, unless you're unable to hold ideals with less-than-optimistic prospects. The inevitability of trends is a trick of the mind, not the person pointing out that trends exists. Pretending as if this is something Trump started and that will end with him is much more dangerous, IMO. That ignores the bipartisan consensus among political elites that the common people are to be herded and managed and that liberty and human rights are out-of-date. The problem didn't start with Trump, and it won't end with him if you approach it as a Trump problem.
Well you didn't condemn it in your comment. I do understand that you were making a normative rather than a positive statement, yes. But I see the same exact kind of normative description from people who then go on to normalize or support Trumpism.
> Pretending as if this is something Trump started and that will end with him is much more dangerous ... The problem didn't start with Trump, and it won't end with him if you approach it as a Trump problem.
I completely agree with this.
> That ignores the bipartisan consensus among political elites that the common people are to be herded and managed and that liberty and human rights are out-of-date
While I agree with this as well, I often see similar things from Trump supporters who then use it as license to support accelerationism / nihilism / oppression of others they enjoy / etc. That's what I have a problem with - this shameless tyrant has been channeling widespread frustration with many longstanding problems unacknowledged by the political establishment ("a breath of fresh air!"), but it's only a marketing trick and those exact problematic dynamics are being cranked up to 11. He's certainly honed in on many varied things that are rotting in our society, but rather than doing constructive things to address any of them he's just accelerating the rot while setting himself up as a speedbump to line his own pockets.
For reference here I'm a libertarian who was both-sidesing up until 2020 or so. But a critical assumption of both-sidesism is that both parties are similarly bad in magnitude, just with different focuses. And Trumpism is a marked escalation in the blatantly shameless anti-liberty stance of the government.
[I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like,]
pre patriot bad things happened people were not even allowed to know the charges against them, not allowed discovery of evidence, compelled to allocute under duress, and court proceedings in total darkness, as in knowledge of the place, procedures, and persons involved could not be allowed.
..and then there was the really bad stuff, when the patriot act became a thing. when the text of law could not even be divulged, when people where interrogated by dog, locked in a cage and fed "leaks" of total defeat, and humiliation and death.
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Congratulations you found the key to fascism: Create vague laws that could apply to anyone, then you can pick the people who broke it. Of course you try to only pick your enemies.
Only: the person in charge of that decision is the meanest, most stupid idiot you have ever met and they envy you for your wife and want to live in your house once you have been dispossessed.
The brother of my grandfather was in jail in Germany during WWII because he offended the original Nazis. He said what roughly translates to: "Nazis are all just dumb plebs." And the thing is, he was right.
> 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.
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.
Slowly clawing back liberties against this fascist administration.
Not really. The FAA revised the rule, but that was their choice, not the result of a ruling or even the reasoned application of a general principle.
The very broad power of administrative rulemaking held by that agency is unchanged -- and the power of agencies generally, to make law without legislating, without accountability to the electorate, actually has nothing to do with this administration, does it? It actually has nothing to do with any of them. It's something the legislature has allowed to grow and grow over successive administrations, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.
I am not sure what is a better alternative. Laws can set the broad guidelines, but the people in those administrative roles have to make explicit decisions when gray areas inevitably arise. The legislature is free to codify the exact rules it wants when they disagree with the current setup.
They are free to do it but don't. That's exactly the problem. They also don't respond to overreach in rulemaking by revising the grants they have made, so it has been a cumulative process.
Interesting points, glad to have started this conversation.
Re this being the FAA's choice, I was reacting to this line in the reporting: "On April 10, Levine and his lawyers pressed ahead by filing an emergency motion [... which... ] may have expedited the government’s next move [to replace] the sweeping flight restrictions with a “national security advisory” [and dropping] all mentions of flight restrictions and criminal charges." Maybe Ars is being too rosy-viewed about the causality there, idk. I have no partic feeling one way or the other though I do want to take whatever comfort I can in the notion that the "system of checks and balances" is working. I'd rather go to bed thinking it is, than tell myself cynically that this was just another whim of an agency, with no real principled attitude.
I believe that the Trump administration in particular - not Republicans as opposed to Democrats - has abused agency independence in a manner unprecedented in recent American politics. I think agencies SHOULD act autonomously to determine specifics just like this one - what vehicles/devices, with what capabilities, can fly where and in what manner, and that we SHOULD value "expert advice" in such situations instead of using that phrase as invective. I think the American people should celebrate that we grant such freedoms because it lets us all benefit from expertise - but they should also understand that there is a price to pay in vigilance, of having to challenge the legality of agency actions if the particular implementation of regulations infringes on constitutional rights. But it's not just litigation that will prevent abuse - the first line of defense against it should be the expectation that administrations will consider themselves beholden to certain social norms of cautious use of power. Do you believe that there is no daylight between this administration and previous ones in terms of how they view what norms they ought to consider themselves bound by? That's a genuine question, not a rhetorical one - if you don't believe that, I am curious to know more.
I don't think legislatures can possibly identify a priori all the ways in which rights could possibly be infringed and make their grants so granular that agencies can't possibly find abusive interpretations. Those can only be determined in specific, real, cases, when fallible individuals attempt to meet the legislated objectives by taking concrete action. I don't understand this idea that federal agencies have become "unaccountable" merely because they issue intepretations every day as and when they encounter real-world situations. The Chevron doctrine seemed a perfectly fine compromise to me - how this court thinks the legislative body can magically divine all the future possibilities and encode them into the acts that govern the agencies is just beyond me.
You have written quite a bit, here. It would be hard to address all of it in one reply and do it justice.
You write:
Maybe Ars is being too rosy-viewed about the causality there, idk. I have no partic feeling one way or the other though I do want to take whatever comfort I can in the notion that the "system of checks and balances" is working.
They are not being rosy about it but you are inferring the wrong lesson from this. There wasn't a judgment or some other finding that the FAA had exceeded their authority and this kind of rule is too broad to be legal: the FAA just decided it was too much trouble to deal with this right now. In the absence of a legal finding about it, they can bring the same rule back next year if they want. This isn't the system of checks and balances working -- the system didn't even get going.
You write:
...there is a price to pay in vigilance, of having to challenge the legality of agency actions if the particular implementation of regulations infringes on constitutional rights.
Is there a constitutional right implicated here? The right to fly planes? It is certainly not a press freedom issue in an obvious way, since it does not target journalism per se -- it has no impact on journalism on foot, on bicycles, &c.
Now they are allowed to shoot them down at will.
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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."
> You are the "shit writer" here and commenter.
Your comment is just as good w/out this. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html )
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"Muh safe space! My privilege! My entitlement! Won't anyone think of me?! The victim here is me!"
Do you feel hurt when reality exposes the nonsense of your almighty dictator?
This is not your feed.
I appreciate the fact that HN does not have personalized echo chamber aka feeds.
Government overreach is a concern for a lot of HNers; hence this was voted up.
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Drones are already regulated. You aren't allowed to fly higher than 400' AGL without ATC authorization, an altitude chosen because it has special significance in the National Airspace System. Nor are you allowed to fly in the vicinity of an airport without authorization.
This particular restriction we're talking about was completely unjustifiable. But the regs exist, and they aren't just made up nonsense. They're the result of systems engineering and a real risk management process.
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ICE is not driving airliners on the streets
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?
6/10ths of a mile?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights
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> Do better or just don’t waste others’ time.
One of the nice things about HN is that we treat each other respectfully, even when someone posts a comment we may disagree with.
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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.
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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.> No one is saying they need to know what vehicles contain ICE agents
Look, I agree that this is a poorly implemented policy. But it's obvious and inarguable that the clear intent is to prevent people from following ICE around with drones, whether to surveil them (and thus perhaps warn others of their approach; despite the fact that there is no logical reason for anyone to be concerned about their approach beyond actual law breakers who legally should not be in the country) or harass them (which would not be okay if done to anyone).
> Government officials should be held to higher scrutiny than the general public.
Sure. Law enforcement is also entitled to legal protections that the general public is not; in particular they are specifically entrusted with the use of force that would almost never be accepted from civilians.
> Their objective was to prevent legally permitted public recording of these operations
No, there is no such objective, because even if enforced as described this is laughably far from actually doing any such thing.
In particular, you can still record from the ground. And if your actual purpose is to show clearly and honestly what the officers are doing, that is better and more easily done from the ground.
Again, this is about flying drones, and people are crying literal fascism over it. This is technology that didn't exist when the actual Fascists were in power, and is still only feasibly accessible to a privileged few.
> 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.
No, I am doing nothing of the sort. I'm saying they are trying to know ICE vehicles, and people who are mistakenly identified as such may suffer as a result. And that it is therefore better that they don't have the idea in their heads that it should be morally okay to harass law enforcement officers, or to try to create an information network to obstruct lawful work.
The recurring pattern with all of these things people complain about with how ICE operates, that I've noticed, is that every single one of them is a response to how they've been unlawfully interfered with previously.
> Given that many people in that status are guilty of civil infractions
If you have a "final order of removal", that is because the national government has conclusively determined that you have violated the law by entering the country, that you are not legally entitled to be within the country, and that you inherently continue to violate the law by being within the country.
This is, definitionally, not something that can be dealt with by issuing a fine and letting the person stay in the country. To allow this is to deny the nation's right to determine who is and is not allowed to stay. It is, in fact, definitionally "open borders" policy. And with this you do not have a nation any more, only lines on a map.
> the level of force being deployed is highly disproportionate
This is entirely ignorant of how law enforcement works. Force is deployed as need to be superior to the threat to the operation. If you come at a police officer with a knife, for example, you should expect to get shot. It does not matter that you have not yet caused any injury, nor does it matter why you are being apprehended.
Similarly, any law enforcement officer may (from what I have had to research over the last several months; these things are not that much different from Canada, frankly) legally order you out of a vehicle on "reasonable suspicion"; and citizens are legally not entitled to interpose themselves physically between a law enforcement officer and the target with the purpose of interfering with law enforcement action (or persist in doing so after being advise that they are in the way). The fact that said citizen is recording with a cell phone at the time does not change that, any more than shouting political slogans during a hold-up would exonerate a bank robber.
If you interfere in such a manner, you thereby commit a crime in full sight of an officer, and are therefore a valid candidate for arrest. And resisting arrest generally justifies physical force, no matter how bad it might look on a citizen's cell phone recording. (Activists specifically train to resist arrest in ways that make the response look bad, despite being completely legally justified, and always having been completely legally justified, in many other countries as well as the US.)
> I mean, it may be an issue for some other conversation, but not this one.
Well, you are the one who brought up levels of force and "civil infractions", so.
> obvious and inarguable that the clear intent is to prevent people from following ICE around with drones
Exactly. They desire to prevent their actions from being observed and recorded. They cannot exert physical restraint over a drone like they can a person on the ground. That means they lose the ability to restrict you from recording their activities.
> harass them (which would not be okay if done to anyone)
As I stated before, there are already laws to cover this situation. No need for the hidden, roving, no-fly zones.
> Law enforcement is also entitled to legal protections that the general public is not
You and I disagree here. Law enforcement should be held to higher legal standards in everything they do BECAUSE they are "entrusted with the use of force". That put's them in a position of authority over anyone who isn't entrusted with the same governmental power. They should not be afforded extra legal protections, they should have extra legal obligations. I'm not talking about regulations around scene control for public safety.
> No, there is no such objective
This is either a naive or malicious take. I'll be generous and assume it's naive. They don't want people to surveil them. If you are an individual on the ground you likely are within the "reach out and touch them" space and they absolutely will suppress you if you are in a position to record, in detail, their activities. There are plenty of recorded interactions of just this thing happening. A drone operator can be in a stand-off location recording and less likely to have then physically interrupt the recording. That drone operator has legal restrictions on what they can do and violating those restrictions is already legally enforceable, no hidden, roving, no-fly zone needed.
> if your actual purpose is to show clearly and honestly what the officers are doing, that is better and more easily done from the ground.
This is, again, a naive take. They will obstruct your ability to record their activities as much as possible. On the ground that means they can simply stand between you and what they rest of their group are doing. Or quite likely they will physically harass you until your recording is stopped in one way or another. Recording from the air makes in much harder for them to obstruct your recording. With ground or air you still have to contend with non-purposeful obstructed angles of observation, with air you have less chance of purposeful obstructions.
> No, I am doing nothing of the sort. I'm saying they are trying to know ICE vehicles
As with any group you will always have multiple, sometimes opposing, motivations. I'm positive you can find people who just want to chase around ICE vehicles (or presumed ICE vehicles). But you are using a (smaller) portion of people that are rule breakers already as a rationalization for severe government overreach. And they you are decrying people calling that behavior "fascist" as being out of touch because... drones didn't exist when the term fascist came into use?
What a large chunk of the general populous wants is accountability, proportionality, civility, and respect (for humanity). The tools they have to attempt to forward that agenda are limited as the government has a legal monopoly on use of force. Observation and recording of activities to ensure the government isn't acting improperly, or document when they are, is one of the few tools available. For government agents to do everything in their power to take away that tool is a clear indicator that they are being improper and don't want evidence of that behavior.
> If you have a "final order of removal", that is because the national government has conclusively determined that you have violated the law by entering the country, that you are not legally entitled to be within the country, and that you inherently continue to violate the law by being within the country.
This is a mischaracterization of reality. You can legally entry the country and then have that legal authorization revoked. Being in the country from that point is a civil matter, not criminal. Illegally crossing the border is a criminal matter. The current government makes zero distinction in the level of force used in either matter. Being in the United States illegally doesn't absolve the government from respecting your legal rights as those aren't just for citizens and legal residents. Simple violation of the law does not excuse the excessive force being used here.
> This is, definitionally, not something that can be dealt with by issuing a fine and letting the person stay in the country.
I actually don't disagree. I'm not an advocate for people illegally residing in the United States. I also happen to think that people residing here illegally are subject to the saw protections of law as everyone living here legally. I think they are entitled to basic human dignity. I think they deserve proportional legal enforcement of our immigration laws. I would include compassion, but a government doesn't really mesh with the idea of compassion, that more for the populous or individuals to extend towards their fellow humans.
> This is entirely ignorant of how law enforcement works. Force is deployed as need to be superior to the threat to the operation. If you come at a police officer with a knife, for example, you should expect to get shot. It does not matter that you have not yet caused any injury, nor does it matter why you are being apprehended.
The level of force being applied is in no way proportionate to situation. These are people living here without legal authority and running away from raids. These are not criminal gangs attacking law enforcement. Those ICE officers are individuals exerting legally authorized deadly force against unarmed suspects at an alarming rate. By your logic, the only proper response would be for the oppressed to escalate.
Again, you are missing that the response from officers is disproportionate to the crime. Unless perhaps the "crime" was disrespecting their authority and they seek to teach you the consequences. Shooting someone because you decided to throw yourself in front of their moving car is not a proportionate response to a unarmed, non-violent person trying to get away from an armed and belligerent cluster of government officials.
>> I mean, it may be an issue for some other conversation, but not this one.
> Well, you are the one who brought up levels of force and "civil infractions", so.
You mis-quoted me. I was referring to identification of ICE vehicles. My implication was that having a group of supposed law enforcement who refuse to identify their vehicles, refuse to wear uniforms, wear full face masks, and refuse to properly identify themselves seems like a great way to provoke bad outcomes. It had nothing, directly, to do with discussing "level of force". We were discussing drones and the governments heavy-hands reaction to drones being used against them (they already use them against anyone they deem a target).
It's obvious that you and I have very differing opinions of how a citizen-authorized government should be applying it's legal monopoly on the use of force.
1/3 of this country is quite happy with the level of brutality and malice on display and for that they should be ashamed. Another 1/3 of this country couldn't be bothered to even vote and for that they should be equally, if not more, ashamed.
My personal politics are generally not something I discuss much but perhaps it deserves qualifying here. I think the two major parties in this country are both mostly morally corrupt. They have lost their way and no longer attempt to represent the interests of the populous. Things will never get better with things the way they are as both major parties are fully captured by monied interests. I generally want the government to stay out of my life and simply provide for the common defense, provide shared infrastructure and services, and provide a social safety net for it's citizens. I don't support violence except in self-defense. I think people should be able to make their own decisions about their bodies. I don't personally care about your race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or any other label we use to segment people into the ins and the outs. We are all people and we should all respect each others right to self-determination. I think we all have an obligation to each other to preserve Earth as it's our shared home. Anyway, I guess I'm trying to head off the "typical Democrat" or "typical Liberal" counter. I'm neither of those things. But, if we ever took time to actually communicate with one another, we'd see that everyone has nuance and applying labels hides that.
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.
A drone is less useful for "documenting the behaviour of law enforcement" than a cell phone camera operated at ground level. Because it is filming from entirely the wrong angle, at the wrong time (in transit rather than at the enforcement site).
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?
> 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.
I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that the government has any intention of punishing someone for incidentally flying a drone that happened to be in that wrong airspace, when it's clear that the flight had no purpose related to the ICE vehicle.
If and when that happens, we can talk about this.
> What does this mean?
It means that the clear intent of many of these drone operators is to harass or surveil people whom they believe to be ICE; that I disagree that they have any moral justification for doing so (of course it is moral to record actual arrest etc. actions, in a way that doesn't interfere with them; that is clearly not the same thing as tailing their cars and trying to figure out where they're going). And it means they could be wrong about their targets being ICE, which would mean they were doing these things to an ordinary citizen.
> Most of them probably are citizens.
I think it would be rather hard for a non-citizen to get hired for the job. More importantly, though: the point is that they, too, have certain rights to privacy.
> the problem is that the implementation infringes on the rights of citizens.
I agree that the implementation is bad. I made the post because it came across to me from other top-level comments, very strongly, that a proper implementation would not be any more satisfactory to people here.
> the current immigration enforcement regime
This use of language is poisoning the well.
> they disagree with the formulation and implementation of the laws.
Can you concretely explain at least one situation in which the US government currently does not allow people to legally reside in the country, where you believe they should; and why you think they should?
When I read the arguments of people opposed to ICE, I am never given the impression that there are any particular restrictions on immigration that they'd actually accept. In particular, when there is discussion of people who were apprehended by ICE and extradited, there never seems to be any particular consideration of the individual circumstances or actions of those extradited.
Meh.
You've been in plenty of other threads justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents, so it's doubtful that any of your questions here are in good faith. Nobody owes it to you to pick out the nuance from coy questions that culminate at the same old nonsensical refrain that any of the major outrages here are due to "enforcing immigration law".
> You've been in plenty of other threads justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents
I have done nothing of the sort. I know exactly what threads you're talking about, and your characterization is false and frankly offensive.
> the same old nonsensical refrain that any of the major outrages here are due to "enforcing immigration law".
It is clear and obvious that every single last tiny thing people are objecting to, ultimately stems from "enforcing immigration law". Nobody would have gotten shot had the people enforcing immigration law been permitted to enforce immigration law in a normal manner. As demonstrated by the fact that it exclusively happened in places where they were interfered with to an extreme degree. Similarly, people only got pulled out of cars because they refused to get out of cars when they were under arrest; they only got arrested for refusing lawful orders; they only faced lawful orders because they were physically obstructing the enforcement of immigration law. All of those things are normal consequences that could be demonstrated on a smaller scale, across time and in countries across the developed world.
ICE agents are federal law enforcement officers. This is objective fact that is trivially researchable and which I have repeatedly cited; yet you and others have repeatedly attempted to deny or ignore it, or the logical consequences of the fact.
And yet again right here you are justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents. I'm sorry that you're offended by the plain truth of the matter, but maybe that's a sign you need to reexamine your position.
The "logical consequences" of being a federal law enforcement officer should not include being able to kill citizens because they've done something that has made your job harder, period.
> And yet again right here you are justifying the murders of American citizens by government agents.
No, I am not. The entire point is that the killing is as an objective matter of fact not "murder". The word has an accepted, agreed-upon meaning. The definition is not met. You don't get to change that. When you try, you imply untrue things.
> should not include being able to kill citizens because they've done something that has made your job harder, period.
I did not say that the consequences include any such thing. When you phrase your overall complaint this way, you imply untrue things. I have explained countless times already, yet you continue to claim untrue things about what I have said, in a manner that ignores the meaning of what I have said. Please stop.
Your wanting to focus on a convenient definition of the word "murder" does not invalidate what I have said. It's obvious that the laws have been defined such that they absolve government agents who commit intentional homicide. So the technicality that the perps aren't being tried and convicted isn't particularly interesting, right?
But sure, since you seem to be triggered by that specific word I'll restate it for you: You have been repeatedly justifying the summary execution of American citizens by government agents.
If you don't like the cognitive dissonance from a direct truth that doesn't meander through a chain of comforting justifications, perhaps you should reconsider your position.
It is not a "convenient definition" of the word murder. It is what the word actually means. There is no discussion to be had here because you will not acknowledge it.
> It's obvious that the laws have been defined such that they absolve government agents who commit intentional homicide
In specific situations, yes. Those situations are of extreme relevance to the situation and you are being intellectually dishonest by glossing over them. There is no discussion to be had here because you skip over them.
This is the exact same way that the laws have worked for decades if not centuries before Trump, both in the USA and across the entire developed world. Your argument depends on falsely pretending that this is somehow specific to Trump's governance or to ICE under that governance. There is no discussion to be had because of this.
> you have been repeatedly justifying the summary execution
This language amplifies the exact thing I object to, and of course you know it. This is trolling. There is no discussion to be had because of this.
> If you don't like the cognitive dissonance from a direct truth that doesn't meander through a chain of comforting justifications
I experience no cognitive dissonance, because what you call a "direct truth" is objectively nothing of the sort; it is simply your dishonest framing that ignores things I have repeatedly explained to you. There is no discussion to be had because of this.
Just to make sure: I do. not. care. if a police officer kills someone who presented what that officer reasonably perceived as a lethal threat to that officer. The law in many places says this is legal, and has said so for a very long time; and I agree with that law and think it is good and just; and I can see very clear and severe negative consequences for society of not having such law (in essence: a near-complete inability to prevent or prosecute violent crime). When you use language like "murder" to refer to this, you are ignoring common definitions understood by the general public as well as those understood by law; and you are doing it specifically to try to make me feel differently about this. It is purely an emotional appeal. It is not an argument, and it does not even attempt to address the reason why the laws are written as they are.
I did acknowledge your one small uninteresting point about the word murder.
I am "glossing over" your justification chain because while it is [unfortunately] legally relevant, it fails to capture the pertinent details of the situations. Specifically, the ICE officers in question seemed eager to embrace these justifications for how they can summarily execute people who are frustrating them rather than engaging in deescalation and restraint expected of supposed "public servants". And no, this dynamic certainly did not start with Trump (eg the multitude of incidents of local police officers summarily executing Blacks). But like everything with Trump it's been cranked to 11.
But sure, "there is no discussion to be had". That was basically the warning of my original comment, about your original comment full of leading questions, to others. In general I do understand there are plenty of people in other countries chanting "Death to America(ns)!" who will not be reasoned with. Easy to do when it's not your own society on the line.
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.