The Brief
- The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Sonoma County Code Enforcement Division alleging the department has been conducting a warrantless surveillance program on county residents.
- Multiple residents allege county spied on them without a warrant, and may have seen them naked.
- The county, according to the lawsuit, has acknowledged surveilling properties via drone, but defended it by saying no warrant was required.
OAKLAND, Calif. – Sonoma County’s Code Enforcement Division was today named in an ACLU lawsuit alleging the department has been using high-powered drones to conduct an illegal, warrantless surveillance program on county residents.
The program, launched six years ago, was intended to address unpermitted cannabis grows in hard-to-access rural areas, but the lawsuit, filed by the ACLU and a partner firm on behalf of three residents say it’s become something more insidious.
“We all have the right to go about our lives in privacy in and around our homes without having to worry about a government drone flying overhead and recording us without a warrant or our knowledge,” Matt Cagle, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, said in a press release. ” For too long, Sonoma County code enforcement has used high-powered drone to warrantlessly sift through people’s private affairs and initiate charges that upend lives and livelihoods. All the while, the County has hidden these unlawful searches from the people they’ve spied on, the community, and the media.”…