“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.”
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.
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.
See also Alito's outrage about deportations being fast tracked to SCOTUS.
>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...
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.
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.
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.
So while there isn't a line drawn on the ground, it's completely different.
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.
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.
Coincidentally, folks won't be able to live stream their encounters but I'm sure that's totally unrelated...
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” ― Oscar R. Benavides (Peru)
This creates a chilling effect for normal people who don't want to become professional activists.
They can then after the fact come down on that person without having to get facial recognition, grab cellphone beacons, or other similar steps.
So if you are against the terrorists, you are also a terrorist.
(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.
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".
> 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 Loper-Bright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...
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.
FAA has asserted jurisdiction below 500' for a long time: balloons and kites since 1963, ultralights since 1982.
FAA certainly asserts regulatory authority over aircraft below 500', everything does takeoffs and landings of some sort, but ground operations are also subject to regulation.
Then come affordable drones and suddenly the FAA attempts to exert full regulation over the space.
To answer your question, roughly 2012 is when this started.
@FAA can you tell I am still annoyed by your poorly thought out highly spoofable clear text RemoteID implementation and lack of integration to ADS-B... Also, NOTAM != TFR unless all drone operators are using foreflight to consolidate all surrounding NOTAMS which hint, they are not.
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.
(who am I kidding, even my fake statement is too coherent for this clown car of fascists)
And if they don't, there is no basis for enforcement, so we're done.
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.
I can confirm altitude restrictions can be turned off.
Edit: owner of matrice m100 and a few other DJI drones
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.
i dont think the concern is drone weaponry, but the photography, and intelligence that may be derived.
i expect to see an attempt to work against any cameras that may cover activities
You can still fly drones in and around ICE agents, bases, etc. and literally their words cannot stop the drone.
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.
