The Charlottesville, VA City Council is calling on Congress to pass legislation barring the introduction of information gathered by drones into a Federal or State court.
Charlottesville is therefore the first city to pass an anti-drone resolution.
Councilmember Dede Smith supported the resolution, saying that “drones are…clearly a threat to our constitutional privacy.”
Added Smith: “If we don’t get ahead of it [and] establish some guidelines for how drones are used, they will be used in a very invasive way and we’ll left to try and pick up the pieces.”
As passed, the anti-drone resolution is watered down from its original version. The original draft of the resolution contained an all-out ban on the use of drones over Charlottesville and barred “municipal agencies from buying, leasing, borrowing, or testing any drones.”