[HN Gopher] FAA institutes nationwide drone no-fly zones around ...
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FAA institutes nationwide drone no-fly zones around ICE operations
Author : dayofthedaleks
Score : 208 points
Date : 2026-01-25 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aerotime.aero)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aerotime.aero)
| xvxvx wrote:
| Not shady at all. Can't have the public see what's going on.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| You don't understand. You must always respect authority. Trump
| is the highest authority in the land, put there by God.
| koiueo wrote:
| I no longer know if it's sarcasm
| garciasn wrote:
| It depends on what team you're rooting for in the sports
| game that has become politics in the US.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| This has been the case for a long time. What's new and
| weird with this "sports" game is that the side with the
| umpire in their pocket has suddenly decided the game is
| _bloodsport_.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Oh from their point of view it always was. You can't
| explain the last decades in any other way. It's been
| brewing over time and as long as the blood spilled was
| mostly foreign blood on foreign soil it was all fine. Now
| the masks are dropping and suddenly it is plain to
| everybody what was plain to outsiders looking in for a
| long time.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| If you're a minority in America then it's been a blood
| sport for a while. It's only recently that the majority
| demographics are now at risk.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| People believing the president of the United States has
| been ordained by God, and can therefore do no wrong,
| should be extremely concerning to EVERYONE, no matter
| what team your rooting for.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of
| the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so,
| it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these
| people frighten me. Politics and governing demand
| compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting
| in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I
| know, I've tried to deal with them. Barry
| Goldwater
|
| He had a few more pertinent quotes on the issue, but he
| recognized the very problem he was courting. You cannot
| have a debate with God.
| prmph wrote:
| Correction: you cannot have a debate with people who have
| set up their politics as a God.
|
| In the scriptures God is depicted as someone who
| sometimes is willing to have a debate, and reason with
| people, of course not to learn anything, but to explain
| why things are (or must be) the way they are.
|
| In some instances, God is even depicted as willing to
| listen to man and do things he otherwise would not have
| done, so long that they don't deviate from his
| fundamental purpose.
| terminalshort wrote:
| The preachers lost control of the Republican party in
| 2016. And if me from 10 years ago could hear me from
| today saying that I wish they were still in control, he
| would have a stroke, but I do.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| That's because this is a pretty mainstream opinion now. I'd
| say... a quarter to a third of the population holds such
| beliefs.
|
| If you ever shook your head at theocratic regimes such as
| Iran, well maybe look a little closer to home. "But... the
| people in charge of Iran are hypocrites, they do nasty
| stuff at home behind closed doors."
|
| Again, may I point to Mom: "we have mullas at home".
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| This is the real danger of religion. When you train people
| from birth to turn off their brains and submit to authority
| without question, this is what happens.
| salawat wrote:
| Not quite. Religion, when taught properly, can serve as an
| innoculant against corrupt states, as it ingrains a kernel
| of understanding that man, and all his works are flawed,
| falling short of the perfection only attainable by the
| divine. There is always something higher worth maintaining
| loyalty toward. Like most things though, practicing that
| doesn't make you super popular with "leaders of worship"
| who wield their position in a human institutions as a tool
| to their own ends.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I agree wholeheartedly. Religion, practiced as designed,
| is extremely positive in my experience. I think the issue
| is that religion is and has been abused throughout
| history. I'm really not sure how to deal with this issue
| though. It seems the Abrahamic religion are quite
| vulnerable to this kind of abuse, likely because a core
| part of the doctrine is submission to authority.
|
| I've never seen a Buddhist led genocide for instance, and
| I think a big part of that is the emphasis on looking
| inward for answers instead of outward.
| shawn_w wrote:
| I don't know if it ever was labeled a genocide, but Sri
| Lanka has a long history of Buddhist lead attacks against
| Tamils and other minorities.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Fair enough. Seems like the common thread is religion +
| government = atrocities
| terminalshort wrote:
| The common thread is groups of people = atrocities.
| Religion and government are two common properties that
| emerge from groups of people, but there are also
| countless examples of atrocities that involve neither.
| terminalshort wrote:
| This is not an accurate description of religion, at least
| not as practiced by anyone I have ever known who is
| religious.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Religiosity is negatively correlated with intelligence,
| so it sounds directionally accurate.
| bicx wrote:
| I'm sure they said the same about Obama.... Right?
| margalabargala wrote:
| Each time that Obama expanded a domestic policing
| organization that then went to American cities and executed
| citizens, the same thing was said about him, yes.
| dayofthedaleks wrote:
| Bubble of protection is 3000 feet laterally and 1000 feet
| vertically. From the article:
|
| "Unlike traditional Temporary Flight Restrictions, the NOTAM does
| not provide geographic coordinates, activation times, or public
| notification when the restriction is in effect near a specific
| location. Instead, the restricted airspace moves with DHS assets,
| meaning the no-fly zone can appear wherever ICE or other DHS
| units operate."
|
| "In practical terms, a drone operator flying legally in a public
| area could unknowingly enter restricted airspace if an ICE convoy
| passes within the protected radius."
| dragonwriter wrote:
| So the unannounced movements of the secret police in their
| unmarked vehicles also create a bubble around them where
| usually-legal activity is illegal?
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's the goal, it just isn't spelled out.
| speed_spread wrote:
| And reciprocally, where usually illegal activity (beating up
| people and kidnapping them) is legal.
| oawiejrlij wrote:
| You mean, shooting them ten times in the back?
| unangst wrote:
| See no crimes. Hear no truth. Speak no facts.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| One of the hallmarks of authoritarianism is to have laws that
| are virtually impossible to _not_ break.
|
| I hope this gets tested in court and declared unconstitutional
| for being overly vague and arbitrary. For example, Montana used
| to have some maximum speed limits that were just "reasonable
| and prudent", but they were eventually rejected by courts as
| being too vague (what's prudent to you may not be prudent to
| someone else). This is similar, in that the FAA has a no fly
| zone but they don't actually publish what it is.
|
| Catch-22 and 1984 weren't supposed to be instruction manuals.
| gtowey wrote:
| > I hope this gets tested in court and declared
| unconstitutional
|
| The rule of law has left the building. The SC is willing to
| rubber-stamp nearly anything right now.
|
| Waiting and hoping for common sense to prevail is what allows
| authoritarian regimes to bulldoze through existing laws and
| norms. Even if the courts were an avenue for redress, they
| are being overwhelmed by the daily barrage of new illegal and
| unconstitutional actions. Once the courts get around to
| addressing these cases, the damage has been done and the
| precedent has been set.
| scoofy wrote:
| If you think the SCOTUS has been arbitrarily rubber
| stamping the administration's goals, you haven't been
| paying attention. I'll fully agree with you it appears to
| have been fairly partisan, but less than a month again they
| blocked the administration from deploying the national
| guard to states:
|
| >In one of its most consequential rulings of the year, just
| before breaking for the holidays last week the Supreme
| Court held that President Trump acted improperly in
| federalizing the National Guard in Illinois and in
| activating troops across the state. Although the case
| centered on the administration's deployments in Chicago,
| the court's ruling suggests that Trump's actions in Los
| Angeles and Portland were likewise illegal.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-12-30/supreme-
| cou...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| But they also said the president can't be punished for
| doing illegal things, so what difference does it make?
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| That's not what they ruled.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| How so? The ruling was that he had full immunity during
| "presidential duties", which has many times been
| interpreted by the SC as "anything he wants to do while
| president."
| fzeroracer wrote:
| And notably, before any further disagreement pops up the
| other dissenting judges literally said as much. The
| relevant quote:
|
| "When he uses his official powers in any way, under the
| majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from
| criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to
| assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a
| military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe
| in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
| Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the
| trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use
| his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that
| he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he
| might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to
| be. That is the majority's message today."
| terminalshort wrote:
| Unless ordering assassinations and launching a coup are
| "core constitutional powers" of the president, then no
| the ruling does not give him immunity for that.
|
| As a practical matter, if the president is ordering the
| military to do those things and the military is obeying
| those orders, we are far beyond the point where concepts
| like legal immunity matter.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > Unless ordering assassinations and launching a coup are
| "core constitutional powers" of the president, then no
| the ruling does not give him immunity for that.
|
| Just to be clear: you are disagreeing with a dissenting
| Supreme Court justice on how much the law protects the
| president. Are you a lawyer? Do you know more about how
| much the law binds the president than the literal office
| that has the final say on the law?
| seattle_spring wrote:
| If you think Roberts, Alito, and especially Thomas have
| actually been following the law as it was intended, then
| I have a beautiful bridge in New York to sell to you.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Make no mistake, I fully believe the Supreme Court is
| complicit in this manner and has long since abdicated
| their duties to uphold the law and the constitution. But
| my point is that when the Supreme Court comes out and
| says that the President is immune to all actions they
| take, it seems like a folly to try and pretend that they
| don't mean what they say, at least as long as Trump is
| President. The 'law' is what the Supreme Court says it
| is, and they've decided Trump is the law.
| terminalshort wrote:
| Are you disagreeing with all 6 concurring Supreme Court
| justices on much the law protects the president? Are you
| a lawyer? Do you know more about how much the law binds
| the president than the literal office that has the final
| say on the law?
|
| See how stupid that argument is?
| avidiax wrote:
| Ordering violence orchestrated by the military is a core
| constitutional power. It's called being "commander-in-
| chief" of the armed forces.
|
| The ruling makes it very clear that core constitutional
| powers have conclusive and preclusive (absolute)
| immunity.
|
| Other official acts have presumptive immunity.
|
| In all cases, the motive is above question. If Trump has
| a fight with Melania, he can order the CIA to rendition
| and disappear her. He doesn't even need to claim that
| she's a spy. It can never be questioned in court. He can
| then pardon everyone involved, so even the underlings
| face no court.
|
| In all cases, the official acts are explicitly not
| admissible as evidence. Using the example above, the
| District of Columbia can try to prosecute for murder, but
| is unable to introduce the fact of the order as evidence.
| If Trump receives a bribe, the official act that he
| undertook at the briber's behest is similarly
| inadmissible.
| terminalshort wrote:
| > Ordering violence orchestrated by the military is a
| core constitutional power. It's called being "commander-
| in-chief" of the armed forces.
|
| Incorrect. The commander in chief, same as all military
| officers, has the authority to issue lawful orders to the
| chain of command below him. He does not have the
| authority to issue unlawful orders, and if he does, his
| subordinates have the legal obligation to disobey them.
| The president does not have constitutional power to order
| arbitrary violence.
|
| > If Trump has a fight with Melania, he can order the CIA
| to rendition and disappear her
|
| No he can't because this is against the law, and it is
| therefore not a presidential power. The president has no
| constitutional authority to order agencies to violate the
| law.
|
| > He can then pardon everyone involved, so even the
| underlings face no court.
|
| This is, unfortunately, true. But it has been true as
| long as the US has existed.
|
| > If Trump receives a bribe, the official act that he
| undertook at the briber's behest is similarly
| inadmissible.
|
| This is true, but the act of taking the bribe is not an
| exercise of presidential power so he can be charged with
| accepting a bribe. This is not new to the recent SC
| decision.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Ok he can tell his chain of command some lies then. Same
| difference.
| refulgentis wrote:
| You're a student of history, thus I think you understand
| how "commander in chief of the armed forces" is a
| constitutional duty without needing further explanation
| of why.
|
| I think you intended to communicate the Supreme Court
| would balk at it happening.
|
| Yes.
|
| Much like Kavanaugh balking at ethnicity-based stops
| after allowing language + skin color based stops. By
| then, it's too late.
| terminalshort wrote:
| You are obviously not a student of military law or you
| would understand that being commander in chief confers
| only the right to issue lawful orders.
| terminalshort wrote:
| > The ruling was that he had full immunity during
| "presidential duties"
|
| Yes. This was basically agreed upon before that the
| president has legal immunity for exercising his
| constitutional powers, but was never explicitly ruled on
| by the court. If the president does something outside his
| legal authority, then that isn't his presidential duty,
| and he can be punished.
|
| > which has many times been interpreted by the SC as
| "anything he wants to do while president."
|
| This part is just false
| derektank wrote:
| They made that ruling while Biden was president. It seems
| hard to call that an example of rubber stamping for an
| administration that did not exist yet.
|
| John Roberts and other conservative members of the court
| do have an ideological commitment to the Unitary
| Executive Theory of the presidency (foolishly, in my
| view) but this has the potential to benefit both
| Democratic and Republican presidents.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| And they will be perfectly happy to walk it back when (or
| if) a Democrat is elected president in the future. Stare
| decisis is no longer a thing with this bunch.
| avidiax wrote:
| That ruling[1] is even worse than rubber stamping. It's
| saying that no stamp is needed at all.
|
| > It seems hard to call that an example of rubber
| stamping for an administration that did not exist yet.
|
| The Trump administration absolutely did exist, both in
| the past and the present (waiting in the wings) in July
| 2024 when the ruling was issued.
|
| While it's true that all past and future presidents are
| affected by the ruling, there's exactly one former
| president and presidential candidate at that time that
| was likely to face criminal charges for actions taken
| while in office, in either first or second terms.
|
| It's a bit much to claim that the ruling doesn't have at
| least the appearance of benefiting Trump exclusively,
| especially given the timing. The ruling caused many of
| Trump's trials to be delayed to be effectively concurrent
| with the 2024 election.
|
| We went 235 years without clarifying that presidents had
| presumptive immunity; all previous presidents (even
| Trump) acted under the presumption that prosecution for
| official acts might be unlikely but was possible.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Trump claimed repeatedly and vigorously that whatever the
| President does is by definition legal. He also repeatedly
| and vigorously claimed that Obama had broken the law by
| spying on then-candidate Trump in 2016. I don't know if
| he himself noticed the contradiction but blustered on
| anwway or was too dense to notice.
|
| [BTW, Trump wasn't spied on -- Russian assets were spied
| on and it turned out that some of those communications
| were with Trump's team. There are ~100 pages of these
| communications captured in the Mueller report. ]
| bonsai_spool wrote:
| > they blocked the administration from deploying the
| national guard to states
|
| That is not what the decision stated - there was even a
| quote from a justice saying that the administration could
| easily attain the same result with a different legal
| mechanism, all but encouraging such a change in behavior.
|
| Edit: the 'improperly' portion of your quote is the
| operative term
| scoofy wrote:
| Yes, and my point is exactly that a rubber stamping
| SCOTUS would have literally allowed it even though it was
| "improper." That's what rubber stamping means.
| overfeed wrote:
| "Change this sentence, change the date and resubmit" _is_
| rubber-stamping - they just require a big-enough fig-leaf
| and are bold enough to publicly hint at the parameters of
| the fig-leaf they will accept.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| that perspective is not backed by data, and the
| administration doesn't appeal everything
|
| very few supreme court cases make it to headline news, and
| the ones that do are the ones you're thinking about it.
| those are the ones split by ideological lines, which are
| less than 10% of what SCOTUS rules on. the government loses
| many cases unanimously as well. there are some unsigned
| opinions that do punt things back to lower courts that may
| be in the government's favor, or not.
|
| all to say, its more nuanced than that. the trend, as a
| last and compromised bulwark, is there, but that's not how
| the court consistently behaves.
| penultimatename wrote:
| This is literally backed by data. 21 out of 25 emergency
| docker cases taken up with the Supreme Court were ruled
| in the Trump administration's favor. Only one of the
| cases against the administration was unanimous.
|
| At the appellate level, Trump appointed judges vote in
| favor of his policies at a substantially higher rate than
| any previous president at 92% of cases.
|
| https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/01/looking-back-
| at-2025-the-...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/politics/trumps-
| appeal...
| atonse wrote:
| Is there a reason you're only choosing the emergency
| docket in your sample size though?
| ggggffggggg wrote:
| And the emergency docket is _exactly_ where one should
| look for these very recent very blatantly illegal actions
| and lawsuits aiming to counter them.
|
| So yes the data is in, and yes it's bad, and emphatically
| _yes_ it's exactly what this thread is saying. In case
| anyone reading in good faith was wondering.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Anything but an administration being able to manipulate the
| Fed, it seems. Most legal experts believe that will be a
| hard strike down on the administration
| mothballed wrote:
| The gun free school zone act has been upheld even though you
| could be within 1000 ft of one with no real indication there
| is one there. Supposedly you can only be convicted for doing
| it knowingly, but IIRC knowingly has been interpreted to mean
| as little as you live near the area so reasonably should have
| known.
|
| Also note, i.e. stuff like statutory rape has been upheld
| even in cases where the perpetrator in all good faith thought
| the victim was 18+, the victim initiated selling the
| services, and the victim provided fake ID showing they were
| 18+.
|
| So there is not necessarily any need for mens rea in the US
| legal system.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| But your examples are markedly different to me. Yes, those
| examples do put the onus on the individual to ensure there
| are no schools around or that an individual is of legal
| age, but those are at least discoverable things - school
| locations are public info, and I think for any adult it's
| not that difficult to steer clear of anyone who looks
| mildly close to underage.
|
| But in this instance, the movements of ICE are
| _specifically hidden_ by the government - heck, they 've
| even threatened to prosecute people who publish this
| information!! It is the literal definition of a Catch-22.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| >> Also note, i.e. stuff like statutory rape has been
| upheld even in cases where the perpetrator in all good
| faith thought the victim was 18+, the victim initiated
| selling the services, and the victim provided fake ID
| showing they were 18+.
|
| You had me up to the "selling the services" part.
|
| If you are 'engaging' with someone in a criminal enterprise
| it's probably reasonable to assume they might misrepresent
| certain facts to make the sale.
| jjav wrote:
| School buildings don't randomly and secretly move around
| all the time.
|
| So while there isn't a line drawn on the ground, it's
| completely different.
| assaddayinh wrote:
| Speed limits are biology and physics derived. The eye has a
| max speed, over which it starts to rewrite the history of
| what you saw. Everytime you have been "frozzen in fear" the
| first few milliseconds are just the eye rewriting the logs.
|
| So you take that the saccade speed
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade) + speed of visual
| buffer reaction + reasonable time to break and you get a max
| speed for that.
|
| Same goes when you have two points of attention, like traffic
| in front of you and merging traffic, the speed gets reduced
| to compensate.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Weird that when you're in Nevada the eye moves fast enough
| for you to react when going at 80 mph but in Arizona your
| eyes can only move fast enough for 75 mph, and in
| California no ones eyes move fast enough to react over 70
| mph.
| gcanyon wrote:
| One time I was racing across the country in a moving van
| because my wife was injured. The truck was speed-governed to
| 75 mph, which I was sitting at for most of the trip. I have a
| picture of the back of a school bus that handily passed me by
| on highway 90 :-)
| oawiejrlij wrote:
| I'm guessing that's entirely the idea. There will be even more
| cameras on them after yesterday, and they're trying to be
| proactive in having the authority to arrest all of them. They
| want the authority to arrest someone who was just out flying a
| drone and happened to film them as they moved.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| IDK, it's probably more a matter where they don't want people
| to be flying RPGs into their windscreens and this is the
| first step for them to carry around frequency jammers. The
| last time I was in Iraq they used them to stop the cellphone
| detonated IEDs and all the convoys has one or two.
|
| Coincidentally, folks won't be able to live stream their
| encounters but I'm sure that's totally unrelated...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, because the USA is totally undistinguishable from an
| active war zone...
| twelvedogs wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is, are you saying ice will
| draw a line because that tech was used in war?
|
| Trump has ordered troops to be ready deploy, pretending
| lines exist is silly
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _"In practical terms, a drone operator flying legally in a
| public area could unknowingly enter restricted airspace if an
| ICE convoy passes within the protected radius."_
|
| "For my friends everything, for my enemies the law." -- Oscar
| R. Benavides (Peru)
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| This is a useful measure to point the law as a weapon against
| drone operators who may be recording what's going on by accident
| or on purpose. Any drone made in the last few years is going to
| be emitting its ID, which likely has been registered with the
| pilot's name and contact information.
|
| They can then after the fact come down on that person without
| having to get facial recognition, grab cellphone beacons, or
| other similar steps.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's trivial to build your own drone without a DroneID.
| oawiejrlij wrote:
| For some people
| gtowey wrote:
| And you will be labeled a terrorist for doing so, regardless
| of intent.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I don't mind being labeled a terrorist. Fortunately I'm not
| in the USA. But you couldn't pay me to go there. One man's
| terrorist...
| themafia wrote:
| > I don't mind being labeled a terrorist.
|
| You should. It's not meant for your vanity and it
| represents and extreme overreach by the government. It
| doesn't make you "cool."
|
| > But you couldn't pay me to go there.
|
| Of course we could. Aside from that this mentality always
| shocks me. There are more civilians in the US than
| government agents. What were you expecting when you got
| here? It's madness..
|
| > One man's terrorist...
|
| Is another mans freedom fighter. Sure, fine, if you want
| a civil war. Perhaps a more civilized approach is called
| for? Unless you particularly enjoy digging graves for
| your friends.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| Yeah, that's been the GOP playbook for 20+ years. It's only
| recently been used for US citizens.
| kernal wrote:
| If you do not want to be labeled a domestic terrorist
| then the solution is rather simple - do not conspire,
| coordinate and attack law enforcement.
| mothballed wrote:
| DHS flagged my passport on a list for literally fighting
| against terrorist in a US sanctioned anti-terrorist
| militia. When I returned they interrogated me as if I was a
| terrorist.
|
| So if you are against the terrorists, you are also a
| terrorist.
| roughly wrote:
| The Americans who fought against the Francoists in the
| Spanish civil war faced enormous scrutiny back home for
| what was later described as "being prematurely anti-
| fascist." The state worries about people willing to take
| up arms to protect their ideals without being told to do
| so (or what those ideals are).
| nine_k wrote:
| This is the administration of the same FDR who stayed in
| power for 4 consecutive terms, which imprisoned nearly
| 150k ethnic Japanese, most of them US citizens, without
| any due process, and which executed one of the biggest
| power grabs by the federal administration. In a way, FDR
| was much more impudent towards law than Trump, but he was
| not publicly arrogant or silly, and WWII has been won
| under his rule, so he is considered a good guy.
| sheikhnbake wrote:
| Every protester and registered democrat has been labelled a
| domestic terrorist already in both rhetoric and policy.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| My understanding is that DJI drones no longer enforce no-fly
| zones. Supposedly they still warn you when entering a restricted
| zone, but hard geofencing functionality is no longer in effect.
| Anyone know if that's true?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I highly doubt this
|
| Edit: owner of matrice m100 and a few other DJI drones
| jacquesm wrote:
| Matrice is a nice bit of kit. Building that kind of
| functionality from scratch with the same weight and range is
| very difficult.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I was unable to ever get it to fly reliably without GPS. It
| was probably stupid to drop $7K on drone GPUs and all kind
| of gadgetry (6 battery bay for rapid charging, etc), but it
| was just really really hard to pilot around in Maryland
| (Montgomery County). I would constantly have it throw up
| warnings and alerts, even only hovering a few feet above
| the ground for small scale testing. I would have to disable
| the GPS to do small scale testing, and then with GPS
| enabled, it would straight up not allow me to pilot it.
| When I moved to Miami, brought it down there, but I managed
| to find an apartment right smack-dab in the MIA no-fly zone
| as well. The smaller drone was allowed to fly though, so I
| eventually got a small Mini 2 IIRC, which was a lot easier
| to pilot, but I was just so disappointed in not being able
| to use the larger scaled up version. I wanted to do
| realtime facial recognition (not at scale, just to show
| that commercial drones can be turned into research
| demonstrators) on the onboard GPU (apparently just a NVDA
| Jetson from 2017 era)
|
| The irony is the M100 is genuinely great hardware - the
| payload capacity, the SDK access, the flight time with
| extra batteries. But DJI's geofencing treats the entire DC
| metro like a no-go zone, which makes sense from their
| liability perspective but means the thing is basically a
| $7K shelf ornament unless you want to deal with LAANC
| authorizations for every single flight.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Gah that sucks. I've looked at the hardware specs and
| basically ended up drooling over it and realizing that my
| homebrew stuff will never be able to compete. But the
| optics alone on that DJI stuff is nothing short of
| science fiction compared to what you can put together on
| a hobbyists budget. But for $7K you can build an
| octocopter with twice the range and twice the payload,
| which may not be as impressive on paper but can be pretty
| useful as well.
|
| The larger agricultural drones are also amazingly
| impressive, those I've seen up close doing real work and
| they are so reliable it is almost boring.
|
| I wonder what the reason is that yours behaves the way it
| does, that sounds like a real challenge to find out
| though with the closed system like that.
|
| Drones that rely on GPS are very iffy as soon as the GPS
| fails, I've seen more than one inexplicable 'fly-away'
| happen. I've found a really neat trick to test drones
| that are not 'known good': just find yourself a long
| stretch of really light chain and tie it to the drone. As
| long as it behaves: no problem. But if it tries to take
| off by itself at some point the length of chain weighs
| more than the drone can handle and it will stop
| ascending. That way at least you have some kind of safety
| measure that does not immediately impact the drone in a
| material way as long as it is near to you.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Since them I've acquired a 3D printer, so I've increased
| the surface area of expensive things I can break.
|
| If I can ever figure out how to repurpose some of these
| electronics maybe for some kind of AI robot (yes, the
| gimbal + camera optics are so nice, it feels like a sci
| fi eyeball from 2037!) I will be back in business.
|
| Some people sell exploits to "jailbreaks DJI drone
| firmware but with current US admin I don't think it is
| prudent to do too much "off-label" usage of this kind of
| tech.
|
| But seeing this geofencing post.... I just had too much
| experience trying to get around these restrictions to
| actually believe that they'd drop the geofencing,
| especially after a consumer drone ban.
|
| Thank you for the chain suggestion, that would have been
| intelligent to do. Matter of fact, my father may have
| made that suggestion at the time. Alas, that was a very
| move fast and break things period of my life.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm flying very experimental drones (~1 Kg only so not
| super heavy, but still, you don't want one to land on
| your head) in an urban environment so I really care a lot
| about keeping things safe and within my yard. This seems
| like it was the easiest way to get really hard safety
| guarantees. That thing is going nowhere further than the
| length of the tether. Building drones is fun, there is a
| ton to learn and the constraints are crazy enough that
| you have to be very creative.
|
| If there is one resource I can point you to that may help
| to inspire you have a look at this:
|
| https://www.drehmflight.com/
|
| Top engineering skills, very likable character and an
| amazing source of hard tech knowledge.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _I just had too much experience trying to get around
| these restrictions to actually believe that they 'd drop
| the geofencing, especially after a consumer drone ban._
|
| DJI has got to be pretty sore about the ban. The
| geofencing was always voluntary on their part as I
| understand it, basically an attempt to proactively engage
| with the US and other aviation authorities in good faith.
| Then, when Trump blew up the truce by ordering the FCC
| not to approve future products, they may have felt they
| had no reason to continue to cooperate.
|
| That's what I was wondering -- whether or not that
| speculation really does describe the situation
| accurately. If it does, it sounds like good news for you,
| since that hardware may now be usable after a firmware
| update. I only have a 249g first-gen Mini, myself... and
| being out in the middle of nowhere, I don't know if it
| ever had those restrictions to begin with.
| thedougd wrote:
| There's a checkbox in the app that implies that. I haven't had
| a reason or way to test it yet.
|
| I can confirm altitude restrictions can be turned off.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| I don't fully understand why drone operators follow these laws.
| Or any "no-fly" rules in general. Around an airport, it seems
| like common sense to not fly. Can't someone just...buy/build a
| drone and fly is surreptitiously?
| Sevii wrote:
| Potential criminal charges are enough to deter most people.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| What if you're already flying when they enter your vicinity.
| It's pretty easy to do in a city. Also they may not announce
| themselves until you're already violating or even after when
| they charge you
| salawat wrote:
| Do not attribute to fascists/tin pot governments any concern
| over law/rulemaking with judicious consideration for
| minimizing blast radius or logistical/legal concerns for the
| populace. At this point, they are hardcore speed running the
| delegitinazation of the U.S. state in just about every
| practical sense.
| arter45 wrote:
| Traditional, permanent no-fly areas tend to be enforced by the
| drone firmware (via GPS checks), so sometimes there is also a
| technological obstacle.
|
| This is probably not the case here, but IIRC there are criminal
| charges attached to violating NOTAMs, so there's still some
| kind of deterrence.
| gear54rus wrote:
| What is the best hackable drone brand these days? Where you
| can remove all this bs remote ID and GPS disobedience?
| acc_297 wrote:
| It may be simpler to build from scratch using parts from a
| hobby store if you want a drone which cannot be tracked
| back to you or your credit card
| jacquesm wrote:
| $150 will build you a 7" with a reasonably long flying
| time, a bit more and you can do some pretty impressive
| things. You still need a controller but those can be had
| for cheap as well. The main issue would be hiding it for
| pickup until after the event.
| 05 wrote:
| You're talking about bargain bin analog FPV drones? Most
| people can't operate them and even for an experienced
| operator it's far from the best tool for the job of
| filming armed thugs..I mean ICE..
|
| You'd need a digital system with a gimbal, and the DJI O4
| Pro alone will run you $200+. For dual lenses with
| different zoom levels and feed switching it's getting
| pretty expensive very fast.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Most people can't operate drones, period.
|
| FPV is a skill you can learn though and for filming armed
| thugs I actually can't think of a better tool because it
| allows you to fly the drone out of LOS so you can do it
| from a relatively safe position while still getting
| footage that matters.
|
| For extra protection you could even abandon the drone and
| record the video directly on your headset.
| DennisP wrote:
| > Most people can't operate drones, period.
|
| Technically true I guess, but learning to fly a recent
| DJI drone takes about ten minutes. You're not so much
| flying it, as telling it what you want and letting it fly
| itself. And the controller has a built-in tutorial with a
| simulator.
| sweetjuly wrote:
| You don't have to fly in acro mode lol. The common
| hobbyist drone firmwares have full support for even
| things like autonomous GPS missions. You also don't need
| expensive gimbal stabilized cameras; you're not making a
| cinematic film, so you can just hot glue a 360 camera to
| the bottom and deal with the slight oscillations.
| buildbot wrote:
| Doesn't anything under 250g basically slip under the radar (not
| literally radar). Seems like most drones they care about might
| end up not being trackable anyway.
| djoldman wrote:
| > ALL UNMANNED ACFT ARE PROHIBITED FROM FLYING WITHIN A STAND-OFF
| DISTANCE OF 3000FT ... LATERALLY AND 1000FT ABOVE ...
|
| > TO: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD), DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE),
| AND DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS) FACILITIES AND MOBILE
| ASSETS, INCLUDING VESSELS AND GROUND VEHICLE CONVOYS AND THEIR
| ASSOCIATED ESCORTS, SUCH AS UNITED STATES COAST GUARD (USCG)
| OPERATED VESSELS
|
| Much more restrictive than just ICE operations.
|
| See also: https://udds-faa.opendata.arcgis.com/search
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Are you saying the FAA has a permanent and up to date list of ICE
| operations? Because if so, that's a public list and something
| that some might be very interested in for knowing when and where
| ICE is operating.
|
| And if they don't, there is no basis for enforcement, so we're
| done.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It's just an extra chilling effect. Or yet another reason to
| shoot you and your terrist drone.
| amluto wrote:
| How is an operator supposed to recognize these "MOBILE ASSETS"?
| For the case of ICE, ICE is reputed to try fairly hard to make it
| challenging to recognize their mobile assets. But the NOTAM says
| nothing about ICE per se, and there are lots of things that seem
| like they would qualify. On multiple occasions, I suspect that I
| have personally transported "DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ... MOBILE
| ASSETS", and any drone flying nearby would have seen this as ...
| a rental car with a couple people in it. All the DOE assets would
| have been in the trunk or maybe the back seat. Definitely assets
| and definitely mobile, but I suppose a court would need to
| determine whether they were MOBILE ASSETS or whether they were
| sufficiently associated with the DOE.
|
| (Also, had this been in effect and if a drone had been a part of
| the project, which would not have been unreasonable [0], it would
| have been really annoying if I was carrying a portable do-not-fly
| zone and needed to get permission from the agency to take some
| photos of the equipment I was carrying.)
|
| [0] To be fair, part of this project was in a location where
| operating a drone would have been inappropriate for reasons that
| have nothing to do with the FAA or national security.
| foxglacier wrote:
| I wonder if these vessels, convoys, etc. are going to jam drones
| or use some other anti-drone weapon and this NOTAM allows that by
| saying "we can intercept or destroy it if it comes too close".
| That way they don't have to identify how much of a threat each
| individual drone is.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| That's when the fiber optic lines will become necessary
| roughly wrote:
| Loudly broadcasting electronic signals out of something you're
| trying to keep hidden seems like a tactical error, but these
| cats aren't the best trained, are they?
| terminalshort wrote:
| They aren't trying to keep hidden. They are trying to avoid
| their murders from being filmed by drones with cameras.
| Jamming is perfectly compatible with this goal.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > But how will i know where such zones are ?!
|
| Pilot here. This is not unprecedented. The same kind of thing
| applies to all major sporting events. They have no-fly zones but
| FAA provides NO official source for getting the info of when such
| events occur and why. It is left to the pilots to find out all
| major sporting events and stadiums around and when they have
| events, under serious penalties. It forces pilots to care about
| sportsball.
| ls612 wrote:
| Also relevant to this situation is that the groups this is
| likely targeting are actively tracking ICE convoys and
| personnel in group chats (and random civilians who they think
| are ICE too) so the excuse of "oh woe is me how can I know
| where not to fly" falls flat. My parents are in Minneapolis and
| they are saying things haven't felt this dangerous since the
| riots in 2020.
| squigz wrote:
| Aren't NOTAMs published for those with specific information
| about the TFR, including location and time window?
| ottah wrote:
| This is literally been the entire purpose of all drone
| regulations. Hobby aircraft have never been a legitimate public
| safety issue, but they are an issue for the state's ability to
| hide. There is and will always be a public interest in recording
| activity happening in public places, but a majority of drone laws
| essentially make it impossible to legally record public events
| from a private drone.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| When I was a child I was a libertarian. I was screaming about
| how these regulations were going to be enforced at gunpoint,
| how this was just a way for the establishment to make money,
| etc...
|
| I'm not a libertarian anymore, but I can tell you, I was a
| genius fortune teller.
|
| My assets performed really well ignoring economic orthodoxy
| about supposed 2% inflation.
| hedora wrote:
| So, is the FAA going to provide something like IceBlock so that
| it's possible to obey the new regulations?
| tantalor wrote:
| This is overreach. Congress didn't give them this power.
|
| See Loper-Bright
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...
| skhameneh wrote:
| It's been overreach since the start of FAA claims on low
| altitude space.
|
| From what I understand their jurisdiction didn't begin until
| 500 feet into the air.
|
| Not only is it overreach, it's encouraging impediments on what
| has been largely considered private property.
| Bender wrote:
| So be a polite and compliant drone operator and when you find
| yourself in the middle of an operation because there was not an
| actual TFR, park the drone on the edge of a building roof where
| the camera can still operate thus the drone is silent, saving
| power and compliant. Being parked on the edge of a roof with
| props powered off is not flying.
|
| @FAA can you tell I am still annoyed by your poorly thought out
| highly spoofable RemoteID implementation and lack of integration
| to ADS-B...
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