T-Hawk Micro Air Vehicle (MAV)

T-Hawk Micro Air Vehicle (MAV)

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• For the military drones are used in situations where manned flight is considered too risky or difficult. They provide troops with a 24-hour "eye in the sky¨. Each aircraft can stay in flight for 17 hours at a time, loitering over an area and sending back real-time imagery of activities on the ground
• People can fly model airplanes without restriction, but it is illegal to operate a drone as a civilian above 400 feet and beyond line of sight for any commercial reason unless they have received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration
• The Department of Homeland Security flies Predators, which are about the size of a Cessna airplane, back and forth along the U.S. border to monitor for people crossing illegally
• For fighting wildfires, NASA and the Forest Service tested using a Predator to find and map forest fires in California
• Universities have drone programs, not just to learn how to build and maintain them, but also to train on their various uses
• Some police departments are testing them for uses such as photographing accident sites and finding criminal suspects

Details

Bailie Figley & Alexis Wilson

Mr. Herrman

American Government 3°

21 October 2015

• U.S. Customs and Border Patrol fly drones on behalf of smaller government agencies
• Mesa County Sherrif's Department is one of the few departments in the U.S. authorized to fly unmanned drones
• "We can pretty much fly them wherever we want." -Program Director Ben Miller
• Their original intent was for search and rescue missions but the drones hsve only been used for those purposes twice, and the missions failed
• The county deploys drones mostly for police chases and crime scene reconstruction
• "Nobody wants to do it by the book. I bet half of them go out [and fly the drones] anyways without approval. What it ends up doing is creating a culture of noncompliance for police agencies who, are ironically supposed to be the ones following the law." - Miller
• 80% of people express some level of concern of privacy infringement by law enforcement with high-tech cameras
• Technological advances are attempting to make drones smaller and smaller, so they are harder to detect

Alexis' Opinion

4th Amendment Effects

• I believe that the possibilities of drones in investigations is a tricky subject. The ability to fly anywhere they need and go anywhere they want it to go, there is a lot of room for corruption. With drones, it'd be so easy to invade someone's privacy, and no way to regulate it. I know we're supposed to have faith, and trust in our police force, but just has Officer Ishmael said, they hire from the general public. Also, according to the officer in the article, it requires a lot of paper work to use a drone in any sort of investigation. I feel like there is really just a lot of room for mistakes to be made, and no way to make sure those mistakes get corrected.

Bailie's Opinion

• According to the Mesa County Sherrif's Department, say that "Any flight that has been deemed a search under the 4th Amendment and does not fall udner court approved expectations will require a warrant. A pilot will not conduct a mission deemed a search under the 4th Amendment without permission of a signed warrant or personal knowledge that one has been issued."

• I believe that for military purposes, drones are acceptable because it could save innocent bystanders lives. As for law enforcement purposes, it is concerning to know how easily they could search your home with you being unaware of it taking place. With an increased number of drones for law enforcement it allows easier access for people to hack them and could use them to mess with government data bases or even searching peoples houses inappropriately.