Fair is fair. If the police can use drones to watch the public, then the public should be able to use drones to watch them. Too bad Turkish riot police don't share those ethics. When a demonstrator in Istanbul used a radio-controlled quadcopter to film police blasting protesters with tear gas and water cannon, police returned the favor by shooting the copter down.
The video above shows the shootdown (there are more videos on Vimeo). One protester left this comment:
Tuesday afternoon on June 11th 2013, Police was violently attacking peaceful protestors. Police fired guns at one of our RC drone during the protests in Taksim square, Istanbul. Police aimed directly at the camera. Due to the impact on the camera (it did have a housing) the last video was not saved properly on the SD card. The camera and drone were both broken. Managed to keep the SD card.
The protests in Taksim Square were triggered by public fury over the government's plan to commercially develop Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green spaces in Istanbul. This sparked a violent police response that has already killed four demonstrators.
This is not the first time drones have been shot down. Iran and Israel have downed drones entering their airspace, but those were military responses to foreign surveillance operation. I don't know Turkish law regarding the operation of private drones over Istanbul, though given the attitude of hard-line Islamist Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and his government, legalities probably aren't important in this case. Just like American cops don't enjoy being filmed by the public while they make an arrest, it's not surprising that Turkish police don't want to be filmed shooting protesters.
The more interesting question for Americans is, if a private drone were to film a police officer making a traffic stop, could the drone operator be arrested? More than one American has afoul of law enforcement for filming them with a cell phone camera (here is an ACLU guide on a photographer's rights). And many states are now working on legislation that would strictly regulate both police and private drone surveillance.
However, here is an intriguing scenario that I suspect will be tested sooner or later. A radio-controlled copter circles a police officer making a traffic stop. The officer gets nervous, but he can't warn off the drone operator, who is hundreds of yards away. So he draws his gun and shoots the drone down. Overreaction? Absolutely. But I'll wager that the cop will get a halfhearted reprimand from his department and a pat on the back from his buddies.
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