Winn was charged with shooting at an aircraft, criminal mischief damage over $1,000, and discharging a firearm in public or residential property.
Business Insider notes that the FAA doesn’t distinguish between a drone and a passenger jet when it comes to attempts to sabotage a commercial aircraft. It means that shooting a drone is classed as a felony and could see perpetrators fined and sent to prison for up to 20 years.
Walmart says it has completed more than 20,000 safe drone deliveries over the last two years, and that it is expanding its drone delivery program for up to 75% of the Dallas-Fort Worth population, covering an additional 1.8 million homes.
In other recent drone news, more police forces are considering using the UAVs in first responder (DFR) programs, in which they are sent to 911 calls ahead of officers to assess a situation. Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that while this may sound good in practice, the programs can be used for privacy-invading surveillance and over-policing.
My favorite part is that the legal consequences for shooting at a passenger airplane and a fucking Walmart drone could potentially be the same.
There absolutely is, call the cops. Take a video of the drone spying on you as evidence. Spying on your neighbors is illegal, you just can’t take the law into your own hands and shoot it out of the sky.
I do wish there was more power we had as individuals to stop this but I do not think using a dangerous weapon to destroy it which could potentially also harm another human is the solution either.
Yeah, call the police so they can come shoot your dog. (only kind of /s)
The recent expansion of warrantless domestic surveillance legalizes the use of your neighbors spying on you if the government wants to. Senators, congressmen, cops, etc. It’s a fun bill.
Otherwise it kind of depends on the context. A drone filming over your yard or the outside of your home probably wouldn’t be enough to do anything.