Drone Pilot Arrested After Flying Over Two Stadiums, Dropping Leaflets (cbslocal.com)

"A man with an anti-media agenda was arrested in Oakland after he flew a drone over two different stadiums to drop leaflets" last Sunday, writes Slashdot reader execthis. A local CBS station reports: According to investigators, [55-year-old Tracy] Mapes piloted his drone over Levi's Stadium during the second quarter of the 49ers-Seattle game and released a load of pamphlets. He then quickly landed the drone, loaded it up and drove over to Oakland. He flew a similar mission over the Raiders-Broncos game. Santa Clara Police Lt. Dan Moreno said after Mapes was apprehended he defended the illegal action as a form of free speech.
USA Today reports there's now also an ongoing federal investigation "because the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits the flying of drones within five miles of an airport. Both Levi's Stadium and Oakland Coliseum are within that range."

"The San Francisco Chronicle added that the drone was a relatively ineffective messenger because 'most of the drone-dropped leaflets were carried away by the wind.'"

Comments

Free speech does not exclude laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you can have free speech but you cannot break laws in expressing that. Are people really this stupid these days?

Never mind the illegal flying

[DontBeAMoran]

Charge him with littering.

Re:What did the leaflets say?

[Known Nutter]

Most media outlets aren't reporting the content of the leaflets, probably to avoid promoting this sort of thing, but the initial report I saw indicated something about corrupt media and assault on freedom.

A rep for the Santa Clara Police Department (SCPD) told the San Francisco Chronicle the leaflets included, "something about free speech and his belief that television stations are corrupt."

source

Re:What did the leaflets say?

[Hal_Porter]

CBS have declined to explain but a bit of searching turns up this

https://www.facebook.com/RedXS...
https://archive.fo/eoZiN

https://www.facebook.com/Tracy...
https://archive.fo/IcXKV

https://www.facebook.com/notes...
https://archive.fo/ywhAk

tl;dr - nothing particularly interesting. Archive links because FB will probably pull his account to protect us all from reading his rather empty, but basically harmless rants.

FAA still to speak

[HornWumpus]

You're not supposed to fly directly over crowds.

I always maintain a horizontal offset while trolling crowds of paranoids with my model predator drone. Protip: Put a plant into the crowd to 'spot the drone' or 90% of flights are wasted.

TFR

[mattwarden]

Regardless of the proximity to the airport, all stadiums are under a TFR up to 3000 AGL above and around a stadium during NFL games. See https://www.faa.gov/uas/where_...

Good for him

[WrongMonkey]

Fighting the good fight, out in the real world, instead of hiding behind a monitor. Sure, he broke the law, but that comes with the territory. Even in a peaceful revolution.

so anachronistic!

[Gravis Zero]

all stadiums are under a TFR up to 3000 AGL above and around a stadium during NFL games.

It's been my experience that transferors usually have less than 3000 agility points but I don't see what this has to do with Newfoundland's games. ;)

Carefully ignoring what he said

[DNS-and-BIND]

I can't help but notice that the content of the leaflets is not spoken of. Only "anti-media", which we all know is Wrongthink[tm]. We all should believe the media, they wouldn't lie or shelter sex offenders. Or have dead people show up in their offices like MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. A fucking female intern died in his office and he got off scot-free.

No, the story is about how he did wrong. This kind of crap is why nobody trusts the mainstream media any more. If they say the sky is blue you go outside and check.