Link: https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/10/californians-revolt-against-police-drones-after-rapid-adoption/

Across California, police departments are rapidly expanding "Drone as First Responder" programs, triggering intense public backlash over warrantless surveillance and corporate overreach.

It'd be a terrible coincidence if home astronomy kits malfunctioned across the state and auto pinged drone cams with their laser pointers instead of stellar phenomena. Terrible.

apparently SFPD is using them to find building code violations without any legal pretext to inspect homes.

I was on a walk with my partner and we saw a drone, so she did a good while flipping it off, and walking flipping it off.

She makes a habit of trying to make sure drone footage is unsuitable for whatever the drone filmed was going for.

We got around the block and there’s two cops in their car running it lol

Uncertain of how jurisdictions are broken up for this power; but construction/inspection warrants are far easier to get and dont require the same level of rigidity as a search warrant. This was my uncle's realization of what type of people police really are. He was a construction contractor who obtained a construction warrant for a building that police have had their eye the residents of for years, and the police showed up to the facility when he did to get around the requirements for their search warrant, basically using him and his construction warrant as an excuse to search what they had wanted.

Something something, drones looking for construction failures --> contractor gets a construction warrant --> police have a way around a search warrant.

Also edit: This is a secondhand story from a while back, and the caveat of the construction warrant was that they could not enter unless someone answered the door. That being said, many people know not to answer doors for police, but construction workers? I can see even myself falling for that one.