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Title: ACLU Accuses California Local Government's Drones of 'Runaway Spying
Operation'

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/06/07/23462...

An anonymous reader shared this report from SFGate about a lawsuit alleging a
"warrantless drone surveillance program" that's "trampling residents' right
to privacy": Sonoma County has been accused of deploying hundreds of drone
flights over residents in a "runaway spying operation"... according to a
lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. The North Bay
county of Sonoma initially started the 6-year-old drone program to track
illegal cannabis cultivation, but the lawsuit alleges that officials have
since turned it into a widespread program to catch unrelated code violations
at residential properties and levy millions of dollars in fines. The program
has captured 5,600 images during more than 700 flights, the lawsuit said...
Matt Cagle, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern
California, said in a Wednesday news release that the county "has hidden
these unlawful searches from the people they have spied on, the community,
and the media...." The lawsuit says the county employees used the drones to
spy on private homes without first receiving a warrant, including
photographing private areas like hot tubs and outdoor baths, and through
curtainless windows. One plaintiff "said the county secretly used the drone
program to photograph her Sonoma County horse stable and issue code
violations," according to the article. She only discovered the use of the
drones after a county employee mentioned they had photos of her property,
according to the lawsuit. She then filed a public records request for the
images, which left her "stunned" after seeing that the county employees were
monitoring her private property including photographing her outdoor bathtub
and shower, the lawsuit said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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