At what height above your property does that come into effect though? According to US v. Causby the FAA only holds jurisdiction above the "minimum safe altitude". Anything below that is your private property.
Naturally the FAA wouldn't be inclined to advertise such lines of thought.
Wikipedia says: "Currently, some aircraft, such as helicopters, balloons, and ultralights have no minimum safe altitudes."[1]. I don't know if drone counts as one of them, but I'm not aware of a specific number being listed as a minimum safe altitude for a drone either.
Right but presumably that's a hole in the existing precedent that the court needs to address. I'm reasonably certain that if my neighbor intentionally maneuvers a cherry picker 5 feet over my roof they are trespassing. I can't imagine that changing from a bucket on an arm to a balloon will change that (assuming there's intent).
So at what point does it change from "my property" to "public airspace above my property"? 5 ft? 20 ft? 100 ft? AFAIK we don't currently have a definitive answer. Personally I lean towards the effective range of a 12 gauge.
The FAA doesn't rule on cherry pickers, so that isn't a valid analogy.
Drone regulations are solidly established. The law isn't determined by uninformed commenters on a web forum. And "the effective range of a 12 gauge" will result in jail time. I worked for an autonomous drone company that had a price point around $30,000; destroying one of those could be felony-level vandalism.
Then you entirely missed the point of that analogy. The cherry picker is relevant because the courts are unlikely to rule in favor of my neighbor in that case. Based on that, I strongly suspect they would not rule in the FAA's favor either.
The law, including the bounds of FAA jurisdiction, is determined by the courts. The question is under what conditions navigable airspace supersedes private property rights. This isn't a matter of what regulations the FAA has or hasn't published up until now but rather a question of where either the courts or the legislature determine the FAA's jurisdiction begins.
It also rubs up against state's rights since the FAA is a federal entity. I don't think anyone takes too much issue with the federal government regulating activities 30,000 feet up. Many trees in city parks exceed 100 feet though. By the time you're immediately outside the window of a 2 story house I think it's fairly obvious that the federal government doesn't get any say in the matter.
> destroying one of those could be felony-level vandalism.
Presumably the operator of such would have the presence of mind not to intentionally hover one over my lawn, outside the window of my house, within range of a 12 gauge. If they don't, well, honestly I might chance the courts. It would certainly depend on the circumstances though. Related, I've seen a few videos from the drone's perspective of the fire department shooting it down with water when the operator flew too close to an active house fire.
Naturally the FAA wouldn't be inclined to advertise such lines of thought.