1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I urge you to oppose and vote "No" on SB1421 (Schroer) and HB2587 (Jones), which dangerously expand government power and threaten the 4th Amendment rights and privacy of Missourians under the guise of security. These bills create a legal trap. By setting specific offset distances and listing places where drones are not allowed, they implicitly endorse the idea that drones CAN be legally operated everywhere else. This includes within 400 feet of your private home, your backyard, or your farm. The message is clear: the government can tell you where you are not allowed to fly, but it will not protect you from drones hovering outside your bedroom window. We are handing police the power to disable or destroy drones they deem threatening, yet private citizens have no such right to protect their own privacy when a drone is surveilling them in their curtilage. The threat to accountability journalism, activism, legal observation, and community assembly rights is severe. These bills would criminalize drone flights near any venue with a capacity of just five hundred people, which includes protest sites, political & union rallies, and public gatherings (parks, concerts, & even High School football games). More alarmingly, the bills expand restrictions to cover correctional centers, newly expanded “critical infrastructure”, and mental health hospitals. This directly targets legal observers and journalists seeking to document conditions inside ICE detention facilities. Under this law, using a drone to expose abuse, neglect, or human rights violations at these facilities could result in felony charges. The public has a right to know what happens behind those walls, and drones have become a crucial tool for transparency when governments refuse access. The bills also allow law enforcement to use jamming, hacking, and even force to destroy unmanned aircraft based on vague standards like a "credible threat" or when a drone is "involved in criminal activity." There is no requirement for a warrant before an officer decides to disable private property. This invites warrantless and unconsented search and seizure from the sky, violating the 4th Amendment. Because of systemic bias in law enforcement, citizens of color and other marginalized communities will be the first to be targeted. The hypocrisy is glaring. These bills claim to protect patients at mental health facilities from the stress of drone overflights. Yet the same state legislature is actively defunding mental health services. This is not about compassion; it is about control. The bill sponsor argued that this legislation is needed to counteract the “threat” of drones like those being used in Russia’s war on Ukraine. That is what our military is for. Not the police. We should not give blanket permission for police to wage electronic warfare on personal property, silence government watchdogs, and hand the state the technological means to suppress accountability under the broad banner of “fighting crime”.