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Comment by SahAssar | Hacker News Reader

If the cameras are streaming back video that would be a very easy legal case against the person shooting. I'm guessing after it happens a few times and people see the repercussions they would stop.

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Or a a legal case FOR the person shooting. Having a floating spy cam in my yard is shotgun worthy.

This could be an interesting case - how high do property rights extend into the sky above your land? Obviously planes are allowed to fly over, even small private planes like Cessnas that fly pretty low. Is it actually the filming aspect that makes it "illegal"? What if the guy in the Cessna has a GoPro pointing out the window? What if it's not regular filming but say thermal imaging, do the same rules still apply?

In the US at least, I beleive the current legal definition is 500 ft in uncongested areas and 1000 ft elsewhere. Above that is considered "public highway" in federal law.

US v. Causby is the only ruling I could find (that was 83 ft).https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/328/256/

I think there may have been one or two other--possibly state level--cases. It's pretty ambiguous but loose consensus seems to be that you probably have property rights up to 400-500 feet. On rural land, a drone at 50 feet would seem to be fair game for skeet practice.

This actually happened, I believe the guy was in the wrong because the drone wasn’t on his property or something. The details are hazy.

If you requested it and were informed of when and where from it was coming could wouldn't be able to make that argument.

Just like the all the successful legal cases against all those porch package thieves caught on amazons ring cameras.

I'm assuming that if you destroy amazons property they will be a lot more litigious than if you steal some guys headphones.

> people see the repercussions they would stop.

I doubt it. I think it's more likely that they'll do the shooting from cover so they can't be seen by the drone.

Assuming there is a camera pointed in the right direction

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