Jefferson Parish Sherriff´s Office First To Use Drones in Louisiana for Law Enforcement Purpose

Jefferson Parish Sherriff´s Office First To Use Drones in Louisiana for Law Enforcement Purpose. American Civil Liberties Concerned.

The Baton Rouge Advocate, on July 20, 2014 had an article concerning Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office use of an unmanned aerial drone for law enforcement purposes.  The drone flew over the scene of a shooting earlier this month in a Marrero neighborhood. It appears that the Sherriff´s Office does not yet have clear policies and procedures on how it will be used and what will happen to the footage it records.

Drones are relatively small and cheap which makes them accessible and practicable for all sorts of practices.  We know the U.S. spy agencies use drones liberally to conduct surveillance and attacks. Further, we recently published an article describing how drones are poised to become the “mule of choice” for drug cartels. But

According to the Advocate, it is the unmanned vehicles capacity to shoot and transmit video and pictures that raise a number of concerns regarding police surveillance and privacy rights to ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Marjorie Esman said.  “We don’t know what they’re doing with these drone images, and the public has a right to know if these things are flying around overhead,” Esman said.

We have reprinted a good portion of the article below because it clearly describes how law enforcement in Louisiana is handling drones.

The Advocate Newspaper:

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Col. John Fortunato would not discuss details about the drone, saying the agency is still determining how it will be used. “We’re not ready to disclose what our intentions are at this point,” he said.

A public records request by Esman seeking information about policies on the use of the drone was met with a similar response.

“We are in the process of reviewing the issues involved in using unmanned aircraft systems and have not yet developed any policies,” Sheriff’s Office legal adviser Tim Valenti wrote.

The lack of specific policies is a concern, particularly because drones are so cheap to operate that they could be used far more extensively than other types of surveillance or manned helicopters, Esman said. That raises the possibility they could be flown frequently and the video they capture could be archived indefinitely, she said.

“The public has to be protected against the establishment of a massive public database,” Esman said.

Read More:

JPSO has no policies yet on how and when to use its drone.

We at Regan Law, P.L.C zealously protects our clients constitutional right to privacy and we will not hesitate to challenge use of these drones whenever and wherever the need arises.

I am Attorney Martin E. Regan and these are my personal thoughts….