The following column by House Minority
Leader Bradley H. Jones, Jr. (R-North Reading) appeared in the September 17
edition of the Boston Globe’s North Section:
One
of the most fundamental legal protections enshrined in the US Constitution as
part of the Bill of Rights is the prohibition against unreasonable searches and
seizures. Under the Fourth Amendment, all citizens have a reasonable
expectation of privacy and cannot be subject to a search without a probable
cause warrant.
The
growing popularity of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, presents a challenge
to upholding personal privacy rights in Massachusetts because our state laws
have not kept pace with this rapidly evolving technology. That may soon change.
Proposed legislation I am cosponsoring would require police to obtain a search warrant
before using drones as part of a criminal investigation. Several other states –
including Florida, Maine, North Dakota and Virginia – already have similar
requirements in place, and Massachusetts residents should be able to enjoy
these same protections.
Requiring
warrants for drone surveillance would in no way hinder law enforcement’s
ability to investigate suspected criminal activity. Rather, it would simply
ensure that state and municipal police departments are following the same
procedures they already use when conducting an investigation without the use of
drone technology.
The
proposed legislation contains a provision allowing drones to be used without a
warrant in certain limited emergency situations, but only if there is
“reasonable cause” to believe there is an imminent threat to the life or safety
of a person, such as when a child goes missing. In these cases, the operator of
the drone would be required to document the specific nature of the emergency,
and a supervisor would need to file an affidavit detailing the reasons for the
warrant-less emergency usage within 48 hours of the drone’s deployment.
The
bill contains additional privacy protections by mandating drones be used only
to collect data on the individual who is the actual subject of the warrant, and
requiring any data collected on other individuals not targeted by the warrant
be deleted within 24 hours.
Currently,
only a handful of municipal police departments in Massachusetts have purchased
drones, including Attleborough and Hanover, but that number is likely to
increase in the future. Implementing statewide guidelines now, including a
warrant requirement for conducting drone surveillance, is critical to ensuring
residents’ civil liberties and civil rights are properly protected.
