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Drone Man, the vigilante filmmaker suddenly notorious for recording Willamette River boat-dwellers firing a gun at his flying camera, announced Wednesday night on Reddit his plans to "double down" his efforts to shoot footage of Portland homeless camps from the sky.
"The fact the sheriff did nothing gnaws at me. I want to double down. I want to get organized. I want to top the video from yesterday," Drone Man wrote, hinting that his next filming location might be the Springwater Corridor.
Drone Man has amassed a number of admirers on Reddit, with one poster saying that his videos "make fools of all the agencies that are supposed to be enforcing the laws."
Another Redditor wrote, "We need your boots in the air, since there are so few on the ground."
Related: Hobo pirates fire gunshot at drone filming their Willamette River boat camp.
Drone Man is seemingly becoming a hero for those who think Portland's most powerful are ineffectual at dealing with the city's homeless crisis.
His stated reasoning for monitoring the camps is documenting and spreading awareness about damage to the environment, but his detractors say that he's a voyeur, harassing and dehumanizing the homeless.
But he doesn't seem to be violating any laws.
According to Oregon's laws regarding unmanned aircraft systems, filming from a drone is only a violation of privacy if the person being filmed had a reasonable expectation of privacy and if nudity is involved or if the footage was filmed for the purpose of sexual arousal.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1946 that an aircraft flying over someone's property could be a violation of the Constitution's Takings Clause if it is "a direct and immediate interference with the enjoyment and use of the land."
It's unclear if that applies to river dwellings. A Portland Police spokesman was not immediately available for comment today.
"Might not be illegal, but pretty rude," said another Reddit user of Drone Man's activities.
Willamette Week