May it please this august body to accept testimony from a former member:
As head of the regional judiciary I don't often get involved in partisan political issues, but I feel compelled to strongly speak out against this ill-conceived legislation before it negatively impacts the entire court system.
Assemblyman Inks has it right: There is no valid legal or ethical reasoning for restricting observation of matters truly in the public view. The bill's sponsor seeks "legal safeguards so that instances of abuse can be greatly reduced". We already have such protections: The Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The law may permit a police officer to walk into an alley to see what's going on in the shadows, but not peek through the window curtains of a private residence. The law likewise may allow a policeman in a helicopter flying at an altitude of several hundred feet to observe what's going on in public woodlands below, it doesn't allow an officer to hover 50 feet above a residence to see what's going on over one's privacy fence in one's back yard. In both scenarios any observations made in the former cases would be rightly admissible as being in plain public view, whereas the latter cases would equally rightly result in the exclusion of all evidence as being clear violations of the right to privacy. Again, the safeguards already exist to curtail abuses.
This law makes 2 huge mis-comparisons: First is to falsely distinguish between what a private citizen could lawfully see of public surroundings from the air with a drone or helicopter, but making the exact same view of public areas by police under the exact same circumstances illegal. Because........
Secondly the bill makes a false dichotomy between matters seen in public through technology (always a scary buzzword) rather than actual police officer eyes. There is not--nor should there be--any legal distinction between the right of an officer on street patrol to turn and look at what's going on in a nearby alley then there is for a police camera to turn and see what's happening in that same PUBLIC area (not that I want to open the can of worms about street security cameras). Likewise, this bill would only force police officers to get a helicopter, plane, or other manned aircraft to get an air view of public spaces, rather than opt for a far cheaper, taxpayer-friendly, unmanned drone. Again, reasoning for this distinction is absent.
To be brutally frank, this bill seems inspired more by a nebulous feeling of "drones = Big Brother" and "most cops iz bad" than any tangible protection of privacy rights. Simply put, one's activities in truly public areas are just that---public, and no less subject to legitimate observation by passers-by, and that doesn't nor shouldn't change one iota simply because the passer-by is wearing a badge. Likewise, someone with a remote controlled helicopter with a camera (available relatively cheap from Radio Shack and the like, I understand) is permitted to monitor what's going on in the nearby park, but can't legally use their technology to be a peeping tom through a neighbor's window. There is no reason on earth to change that equation of freely viewing public behavior simply because one is a police officer.
To say this bill is overreaching and a VAST reversal of long-established legal precedent would be an understatement. I urge the Assembly to defeat it.
