Police can use drones to arrest Americans on US soil: New court ruling

• Examiner.com
• August 3, 2012
• By: Deborah Dupre

High tech human rights abuses escalate with court green-lighting drones to arrest Americans on US soil 

A North Dakota court has approved using drones to help arrest American citizens on US soil as domestic drone human rights abuses escalate.

“The whole thing is full of constitutional violations,” lawyer Bruce Quick told US News.

Quick is representing Rodney Brossart, who was arrested by using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to inspect his property.

Using a taser against Brossart was “torturous” and likened it to “water-boarding,” he said.

“UAVs have primarily been used to conduct strikes against purported militants in countries like Pakistan, but their use at home has been on the rise as of late,” reports Russia Today.

District Judge Joel Medd denied a request to dismiss charges against Brossart, after law enforcement resorted to using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), according to court documents obtained by US News.

Judge Medd wrote that “there was no improper use of an unmanned aerial vehicle” and that the UAV “appears to have had no bearing on these charges being contested.”


In the small rural town of Lakota, N.D., farmer Rodney Brossart was involved in a bizarre sequence of events that occurred in June 2011 —beginning with cattle theft accusations and ending with a military-style Predator spy drone and an elite SWAT team deployed.

Quick said “guerilla-like police tactics” were used against Brossart and that authorities had no legal right to use the drone to help capture him, as the plane had been “dispatched without judicial approval or a warrant.” He noted that the entire case reeked of constitutional violations.

John Villasenor, of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, says legality of domestic drone use probably stems from two Supreme Court cases allowing police to use "public, navigable airspace" to gather evidence.

"Wednesday, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced a draft bill that would tighten regulations on drone use for government and private companies," reports Russia Today. "The proposed Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act of 2012 requires that police obtain warrants to use drones for certain types of surveillance."

“When it comes to privacy protections for the American people, drones are flying blind,” Markey stated, according to the Huffington Post. “Drones are already flying in US airspace – with thousands more to come – but with no privacy protections or transparency measures in place.”

The Congressman said America was entering a “brave new world” and stressed that a company should not be allowed to make a profit out of selling consumer information obtained through drone surveillance.

“Currently, there are no privacy protections or guidelines and no way for the public to know who is flying drones, where, and why,” stated Markey. “The time to implement privacy protections is now.”

The FAA estimates that by 2020, there may be as many as 30,000 unmanned drones operating over American cities.

As poverty rates rise in the United States, in late July, the Pentagon ordered $531 million worth of drones.

Drone technology use began in other countries as a means for surveillance and then it was used to kill.