> Law enforcement officers could only use drones while executing a search warrant or if they had probable cause to believe someone is committing a felony, and firefighters can only use drones for fighting fire or to rescue a person whose life is “in imminent danger.” Texas’ border-patrolling Predator drones are exempt within 25 miles of the Mexican border. There are additional penalties for possession, display or distribution of data captured by an illegally flown drone. Gooden said the goal is to protect Texans’ privacy.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/privacy-and...

The "probable cause" exemption is bullshit. If you have probable cause, get a warrant.

No patrols, no police drone leaves the ground without a warrant targeting a specific person or group.

Depending on the details, the "probable cause that someone is committing a felony" exemption is common to law enforcement. Exigent circumstances. If a police officer hears signs of a struggle in your house, he doesn't have to get a judge to sign a warrant before he kicks the door down.

But the way that gets used seems to be the officer somehow smells pot on every damn person they want to violate.

It's interesting you bring that up, as whether or not a drug-sniffing dog's alert is considered grounds for determining probable cause was recently tested by the Supreme Court.

I won't bore you with the full explanation of who won or why, but what I found interesting is that the dog's past performance comes in to play, the results of their testing, time in the field, etc. Also, the k-9 (human) officers are supposed to keep a record of their results to be provided should this come into question (which raises all sorts of things about false positives, false negatives, etc., due to ignored reporting of incidents that didn't otherwise generate paperwork).

I'm wondering now if there shouldn't be some similar standard of proof for police officers. I've never had the "smells like pot in there" pulled on me for any reason, but I almost hope that it happens at some point so that I can poll the officer's record to see how many times he's used that line as probable cause and what the feasibility of that is.

That's why I said "no patrols." A drone shouldn't just be flying around waiting to see something. It should be sent only after there is a warrant.

I agree completely, but it takes the government paying a private entity to do surveillance. Far fetched, but still plausible

Why is that far fetched? It's how roads and prisons are managed.

Not sure if the latter is a good example, since the prison industry is one of the most corrupt in the country.

Neither are meant to be good examples. The outsourcing of prisons, in particular, should seem to be a far-fetched concept that nevertheless occurs regularly. I don't see the outsourcing of domestic surveillance to be any more far-fetched.

Also, a very great deal of sensitive government IT operations are outsourced to contractors and vendors and the like.