Aerial persistent surveillance

Evidence rule

This page is public-interest research. An argument grade is not a court finding. A watchdog page describes the device. It is not proof a Nevada agency bought it or turned a feature on. A product description is not a Nevada practice. Agencies are not merged: the City of Las Vegas Department of Public Safety, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Clark County School District, the City of Reno, and the Nevada Department of Public Safety stay separate. A hotlist hit is not a confirmed crime. Legal review of this page is unverified.

What it does

Persistent aerial surveillance records a wide area from an aircraft for a long time, so analysts can rewind and follow vehicles or people through the city. It is not one flight to one call. EFF describes the privacy problem as collection on people who are not suspects. This page has not opened a separate court opinion about citywide aerial recording and does not adopt one.

Privacy watchdog concerns

Electronic Frontier Foundation. Drones and Robots. EFF says police drones can carry cameras, thermal sensors, plate readers, Wi-Fi sensors, and other tools, including tethered aircraft and drone-as-first-responder docks, and that this enables surveillance of people who are not suspects. EFF also wrote that, as of late 2022, the Clark County Sheriff in Nevada planned to buy 400 drones for first response. This page has not reviewed that purchase. The sentence is EFF’s claim, not a contract, and it is not relabeled here as an LVMPD deployment.

Constitutional issues

Analogical constitutional argument

Fourth Amendment, First Amendment, Nevada Constitution art. 1, § 18

Warrant practice not established for a Nevada agency

Aerial persistent surveillance: No Nevada persistent-aerial program is documented. Ciraolo is counterauthority for a different kind of flight. Jones does not decide an aircraft. No new case is added from the watchdog page.

California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986). Counterauthority. United States Supreme Court. Naked-eye observation of one yard is not a holding about a recorded wide-area system.
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012). Analogical constitutional argument. United States Supreme Court. Jones concurrences discuss long-term tracking. The mosaic theory is not a majority rule, and Jones does not decide an aircraft.

Statutes attached to read, not findings.

NRS Chapter 239. Nevada public-records law is the route to ask for contracts, policies, and logs. Citing it is not a finding that a surveillance practice is unlawful.
Nevada Constitution art. 1, § 18. State search-and-seizure provision. This page does not quote the section. No section anchor was verified. It is listed only where a search question is actually implicated.
42 U.S.C. § 1983. A civil remedy for a deprivation of federal rights under color of state law. It is not a warrant statute, and it does not itself make a surveillance practice unlawful.

Nevada use

Not documented on this page.

Capability only. No opinion outside this library is adopted.

Next record

Aerial persistent surveillance: Do not describe a citywide recording program from a drone snippet.

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