Phillip Steel is asking politicians
in Deer Trail, Colorado, to pass a bylaw offering a bounty of $100 for shooting
down government drones.
Steel says it would be a symbolic
protest against government snooping by the town’s 563 residents.
He drafted a proposal after hearing a
radio news report that the federal government is drafting a plan to integrate
drones into civilian airspace.
The Federal Aviation Administration
warns that anyone who does shoot down a government drone could face criminal or
civil litigation.
“That plan is
a taking of property rights, a taking of civil rights,” said Steel, 49, who
wears a black duster coat and a cowboy hat, says a Bloomberg news report.
“According to a 1964 Supreme Court decision, a property
owner owns airspace up to 1,000 feet above the ground,” Steel says.
