To Chairman Willis, Vice Chair Daniels, Ranking Member Grim, and members of the House Transportation Committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide opponent testimony on Amended House Bill 425.
Preserving and protecting personal privacy is a laudable goal. Especially in an age where our privacy is under constant assault in multiple ways by government and non-government/private actors.
To that end, the ACLU of Ohio is always eager and willing to work with members of this committee and body to accomplish pro-privacy goals. However, we also believe HB 425 is a deeply flawed bill.
As this committee knows, House Bill 425 is legislation to criminalize using a drone to surveil, record video of, photograph, stream video, and so on, the property of another. These restrictions are extremely broad. They include not only the real property of some person or some corporation, but also their personal property when located on the real property.
HB 425 also extends off one’s property, applying to anywhere a person or business has a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
The ACLU of Ohio often supports restrictions on non-government drone use regarding places and spaces where individuals have a legitimate expectation of privacy. But HB 425 goes far above and beyond such prohibitions. To put it succinctly, HB 425 raises First Amendment and practical problems. Consider these three examples, among others, I hope illustrate at least some of our concerns:
- A journalist uses a drone to record tornado damage, or police pursuing a suspect in a car or on foot, across several blocks in a neighborhood. The footage includes overhead video of multiple peoples’ homes and surrounding property. Under HB 425, all this is apparently illegal if done without consent of each and every homeowner.
- A realtor utilizes a drone to demonstrate and publicize the size of a property for prospective buyers. That video is recorded at a height that also reveals surrounding property, homes, and property lines. Arguably, this is illegal under HB 425.
- An advocacy organization wishes to demonstrate, via drone recording, that waste flowing from a gigantic agribusiness in their local community is dangerously polluting a nearby body of water. With HB 425, recording evidence of that makes them a criminal with possible jail time.
Regarding this third example about corporate pollution, it appears HB 425 is partially, if not largely or entirely, motivated by other states’ drone legislation and laws that deliberately target advocates, whistleblowers, and journalists.
In addition, it should not be ignored in Ohio, and elsewhere, states are rushing to create two tiers of drone laws. The first tier involves government use of drones with very few, if any, meaningful restrictions on government’s ability to use drones to conduct mass surveillance on everyone in a community or defined area for almost any reason whatsoever. The second tier is about private, non-government use and creating and expanding criminal offenses for drone use in numerous situations where government use is permitted.
One set of rules for government, a different set for everyone else.
Instead of creating broad and vague laws with applications and implications that go far beyond what have been previously discussed before this committee, the ACLU of Ohio respectfully offers, among others, at least two general suggestions regarding HB 425.
The first is to consider a different approach and incorporate any restrictions regarding personal privacy and drone operations into any combination of Ohio’s current trespassing, nuisance, harassment, and invasion of privacy laws. The second is to consider such factors as intent, and drone operation at lower distances, longer flights, and repeated flights before people are subject to imprisonment for innocent behavior or actions protected by the First Amendment.
Again, the ACLU of Ohio is and remains steadfast advocates for the personal privacy of others. But HB 425 is not the solution and will cause far more practical and legal headaches than it will ever solve.
For these reasons and more, the ACLU of Ohio urges this committee’s rejection of Amended House Bill 425.
