Aviation Legislation Case Study: Florida Vs. Riley

Aviation Legislation Case Study: Florida vs. Riley
Name:
Institution
Aviation Legislation Case Study
The increased science and technological innovation that are permeating in America population has allowed for the development of numerous domestic drones that are easy and cheap to acquire and make. This has resulted in exposing numerous opportunities and challenges in regulation of not only privacy policies but most importantly, aviation rules and ordinance. This situation has been exposed by numerous cases in breach of aviation norms and privacy policy (Villasenor, 2010).
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have brought in the phenomenon where an aircraft can be flown without the presence of a pilot in the cockpit. They could be controlled remotely from home for domestic UAVs of from the base in military cases. Cases of domestic and military drones carrying cameras and prying or spying on Americans citizens private lives has resulted in a review of aviation laws and private policy (Villasenor, 2010). Nonetheless, this is not solely restricted to unmanned aircrafts but even the common aircrafts that are used in breaching privacy.
Florida vs. Riley
One of the numerous cases that are concerned with Surveillance by use aircrafts and the breach of privacy is one of Justice O’Connor’s Florida v. Riley. This comes in the wake of numerous surveillance activities by government agents from the air than it has been the norm from the ground. The lack of established laws that govern and regulate surveillance from the air using aircrafts and satellites poses as an exacerbation to the major problem and challenge to the human right to privacy. Several rules of privacy have been implemented in order to promote safety and security.
However, it is evident that some rules have not been clearly defined as far as human privacy is involved. While trespassing into else’s property is regarded as privacy violation, hovering an aircraft miles over the owner’s abode is yet to be clearly defined as privacy breach as ascribed in the Fourth Amendment. The State of Florida had used a helicopter to pry and spy into Riley home from meters away above his abode to peek into his greenhouse farm for marijuana (Olivito, 2007).
Riley’s greenhouse had two missing panels through which the surveillance aircraft’s was used to peep into from 400 feet into the air. The deputy Sheriff, who suspected the growing of the illegal plant by Riley, intruded without obtaining a search warrant. The court cases was ruled against Riley, the defendant who had relied on privacy breach to fight his charges, since the helicopter used hovered above the required 400 feet above the ground above which one’s abode relinquishes private ownership of the space above their home.
The airspace 400 ft from the ground are considered navigable airspace by aviation laws and regulations and the space is publicly owned. Thence the Florida Sheriff did not require obtaining a search warrant to peep into Riley’s private home. The court also stated that Riley lost a tenable expectation of privacy since his green house’s roof did not particularly offer privacy by missing two panels (Friedman, 2009). Riley’s farm was skirted with huge cart...