I read the bill again, and it is even more badly drafted than I had thought. Basically, no drone use to gather evidence for any crime is allowed, if done by anyone who receives money from the Federal government, unless they have a warrant.
There are some exceptions: border patrol to combat illegal immigration and illegal importation of controlled substances, specific terrorist threats identified by homeland security from specific organizations or individuals, and exigent circumstances. That last basically means there is a life in imminent danger and the drone is operated by a law enforcement party, which is defined as a party that is paid by the Federal government to investigate or prosecute crimes against the United States.
So, if a traffic monitoring drone operated by local police saw a hit and run, they could not use the drone to track the hit and run driver. The exigent circumstances exception would not apply because (1) there is no imminent danger to life, and (2) even if there was local police may not be a law enforcement party, as that is limited to parties that deal with crimes against the United States, not local and state crimes.
Or if a drone operated by NOAA for weather research spotted a crime in progress where someone was in imminent danger of being killed, and the NOAA drone operators then used the drone to monitor this and gather evidence, they would be in violation of the law and the evidence would be inadmissible. The exigent circumstances exception would not apply because NOAA is not a law enforcement party.
There are about 500 comments on this on Reddit, and almost all of them indicate people think this is about stopping the government from sending drones over your backyard to spy on you.
Legislation to do that would be a good thing. This is not that legislation.
I suspect bringing these bills forward is similar to negotiating a contract, i.e. the person developing the draft is most likely putting out a very idealistic perspective.
If this thing ever passes, it is probably going to be so much watered down, that you probably can fill a noise complaint with your local police station in the case a drone is hovering less than an inch over your head.
There are some exceptions: border patrol to combat illegal immigration and illegal importation of controlled substances, specific terrorist threats identified by homeland security from specific organizations or individuals, and exigent circumstances. That last basically means there is a life in imminent danger and the drone is operated by a law enforcement party, which is defined as a party that is paid by the Federal government to investigate or prosecute crimes against the United States.
So, if a traffic monitoring drone operated by local police saw a hit and run, they could not use the drone to track the hit and run driver. The exigent circumstances exception would not apply because (1) there is no imminent danger to life, and (2) even if there was local police may not be a law enforcement party, as that is limited to parties that deal with crimes against the United States, not local and state crimes.
Or if a drone operated by NOAA for weather research spotted a crime in progress where someone was in imminent danger of being killed, and the NOAA drone operators then used the drone to monitor this and gather evidence, they would be in violation of the law and the evidence would be inadmissible. The exigent circumstances exception would not apply because NOAA is not a law enforcement party.
There are about 500 comments on this on Reddit, and almost all of them indicate people think this is about stopping the government from sending drones over your backyard to spy on you.
Legislation to do that would be a good thing. This is not that legislation.