Confronted With Drones, The Texan Cockroaches Scuttle

You don't understand - Texas is precisely the right place for drone intrusiveness! Those damned Tejanos have so much to hide!:

State Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, said he is carrying legislation to prevent this futuristic technology — increasingly used by everyone from aviation hobbyists to law enforcement authorities — from capturing “indiscriminate surveillance.” It is an effort, he said, to defend Texans’ right to privacy: “Why should the government or anyone else be able to watch my every move?”

...Gooden’s House Bill 912, which is being sponsored in the Senate by John Whitmire, D-Houston and chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, would make it a Class C misdemeanor to use an “unmanned vehicle or aircraft” to capture video or photographs of private property without the consent of the property’s owner or occupant. It would be an additional penalty to possess, display or distribute an image or video captured by an illegally operating drone.

The bill provides exceptions for law enforcement authorities, as long as they have a search or arrest warrant and are in immediate pursuit of a suspect. It also does not apply to property within 25 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, where drones are used to enhance border security.

“It will be a greater burden on the hobbyists, but I think that’s okay,” Gooden said. “If you’re asking me to choose between my right to privacy and a hobbyist’s right to take pictures from the sky, my privacy comes first.”

Unmanned-aircraft experts say the bill is vague and would effectively nullify the benefits of drones for private use.

...“If I’m using it to continuously monitor somebody, I think we could make a law that would forbid such a thing,” Humphreys said. “But if I’m up there doing some other benign research and happen to capture your picture inadvertently, I don’t think ought to be outlawed.”

...Gooden said that the bigger question is one left unanswered by his bill: whether Texans should be able to shoot down drones hovering over their private property illegally. His answer? Absolutely.

“We should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our home or on our private property,” he said.