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As if those satellites owned by governments won't spy on you. :rolleyes:

You too aren't addressing the poster's point (too interested in trying to make a smart-arse comment). Of course government satellites can spy on you, but they can only do so from a great height (which is legally defined). If the government were to put a bug in your home it would be illegal (unless given a spurious legality by the Patriot Act...), and what is a low-flying drone but a mobile bug? Are you happy to have your every move photographed, videoed and recorded by a horde of Google-glass wearing voyeurs, or by drones, their mobile equivalents?
 
Off topic: is nobody going to talk about the big iCloud celeb photo leak? Who could have thought that uploading all your photos automatically as soon as you made them to an Apple server could have consequences?
 
For some odd reason I was half-expecting a SAM launch from the dig site to come up and take the drone out :)
 
The best part of the video for me was at the very end when the drone lands and the owner walks up to it and starts whistling like it's all in a days work. LOL
 
I'm sorry but even though having a video is better than no video (because that's what half of you are going to say so I thought I'd save you the time), that's one of the worst drone videos I've seen. A couple of aerial photos gives you pretty much the same info. Learn how to fly a drone.
 
Airspace is controlled by the FAA, which is also working on rules governing the use of unmanned aircraft. With all the excitement about drones, a person could fly a manned aircraft over this site at 1,000 feet and take as many photos as they want and neither Apple nor anyone else could do anything about it. The references to the supposed "privacy fences" around this construction site are equally silly. Anyone who thinks this is something special or unusual apparently haven't seen any other construction sites.

I don't think you're really addressing the original poster's question. Flying over at 1000ft is clearly a different legal issue altogether. Imagine if the campus was your house - do I have a right to fly a drone into your house's airspace and take pictures? I would say not, it is an invasion of the landowner's legal right to privacy within his own space. The drone clearly invades that private space.

Sort of looks like the question was answered in the first sentence. The FAA is working on rules governing UAV's. Until the FAA makes a decision, drones fly (intended) in a murky area.

It really won't matter because at a greater height, a manned aircraft can simply fly over and get the same or better footage; especially a helicopter.

At the end of the day what's the big deal anyway? It's a construction site for an office building, not Groom Lake.
 
I don't think you're really addressing the original poster's question. Flying over at 1000ft is clearly a different legal issue altogether. Imagine if the campus was your house - do I have a right to fly a drone into your house's airspace and take pictures? I would say not, it is an invasion of the landowner's legal right to privacy within his own space. The drone clearly invades that private space.

In terms of who regulates the airspace, it does answer the question. A number of states are considering or passing laws to limit the use of drones, but lacking any rules from the FAA, the important airspace issues won't be settled. States and local governments simply lack the authority to regulate airspace and you as a property owner don't own the air above your property, for all intents and purposes. The rest of what you are talking about is invasion of privacy. If your neighbor insisted on standing on a ladder and taking pictures of your back yard, the invasion of privacy argument against the behavior would be the same as if he was using a drone.
 
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At the end of the day what's the big deal anyway? It's a construction site for an office building, not Groom Lake.

Yeah, and especially this. In the last few stories on the Apple campus project, MR has strongly implied that the construction is some sort of secret, as if it was a rumored product that Apple will reveal in a keynote. Hey, maybe it isn't an office building at all. Maybe it's really a top-secret government installation. Or could it be a real space ship that Apple will be using to colonize Mars? Who really knows? After all, it's surrounded by "privacy fences" so it could be anything!
 
Anyone that's been to an outdoor festival recently would have noticed a number of these drones in the air. It's getting annoying seeing them out there. :rolleyes:
 
I'd like to see if this same guy has the balls to fly his drone over the completed campus...
By then Apple will have installed its air defense system.

The way to spy on the campus will be to hide a camera in an iCloud that drifts unsuspected over the campus.
 
Cool. But where are all the workers? Shouldnt they be on it 24/7, or are they perhsps constructing an equally large underground csmpus that they have to complete first? ;-)

Liked the whistling at the end.
 
Yeah but not like our goverment will post pictures and videos of their spying on flickr and youtube for anyone to see anytime soon.

You are correct. They will use them for more clandestine purposes in the years to come.
 
Okay. I want that quad-copter.

Oh, and the spaceship is awesome too :D
 
I must say that the first thing I thought of when I saw the aerial shot was Google's chrome logo. Particularly when it was advertised directly underneath! :)
 
Apple closed off sidewalks and built a number of privacy fences to keep the area hidden

This is standard procedure for construction sites. Apple's not being secretive, this is mandated by law.
 
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