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Man sues NC Survey Board after being issued cease and desist for flying drone
mathteacher replied 2 years, 11 months ago 25 Members · 61 Replies
I’m confused, from the bit I read it seems like this should be under whatever board licenses photogrammetrists. I’m thinking they have some type of board. I’ve worked with the local companies for 40 years but never asked about it.
If they don’t care why should surveyors?
Maybe I’m missing something, is the guy providing topos or boundaries?
I contend the “most states” comment isn’t quite right. Some states have a horrid definition of professional surveying. One in particular only includes work done to support an engineering project. The justification was ‘surveyors always work for engineers”. Pure horsecrap, but I degress.
If you deconstruct the recent big losses they fall into two categories.
First is overstep. Oregon tried to discipline an unlicensed person for using the unprotected title of engineer. The law only protects ‘professional engineer’. There are many variations on that theme and they are damaging licensure and regulation efforts across the country. One or two examples is all it takes to put blood in the water.
The second is the abject failure of the attorney – surveyor team. Surveyors (generally) take a seminar, read a few articles (maybe a book) and declare themselves expert witnesses. They not only work beyond their areas of competence, they actively market services they have never even seen being performed. When they get a job they lead the courts through senseless fact patterns to unsupportable conclusions based on old wives tales. This happens in discipline cases, civil actions and criminal prosecution of unlicensed practice.
Problem one can only be solved when the professionals involve themselves in regulation. Solving problem two starts with looking in the mirror. If you try learning by doing with your clients financial well-being at stake you know you’re doing it. Stop it.
This thread title is extremely misleading. The cease and desist letter was to stop offering “surveying and mapping” services, not flying a drone.
“Surveying and mapping” is listed as service they provide in there web site. There is obviously a problem with their advertising. I’ll stay out of the discussion about whether the services they actually offer fall under the the NC definition of surveying, and whether they should or not.
I think the fact that they offer surveying as a service is why the land surveying board is interested.
I think that is almost the way that it should be (through in some title stuff, and creating boundary stuff), but that is not at all true in most states, including NC.
Ha! I always use that line….and evolve it I to “Got it surveyed” as the dialogue expands showing the value of having real survey data in the GIS.
How’s the new gig going anyway?
From his website.
Look at the “services” section.
NCBELS is the board that regulates Photogrammetry in NC. Photogrammetrists were grandfathered in as a PLS many years ago.
Look closer, this is not his personal website, just a third party site that others are networked on in an attempt to gain work. The surveying and mapping link is just 1 service that there may or may not be qualified individuals listed on the site that could offer those services.
The individual in question has not purported to offer those services on his page on this website.
@jbranson
When this thread first appeared clicking on “surveying” brought up a list of companies offering “surveying”. It included the subjects company.
“First Amendment-Violating Surveyor Licensing Laws”?
Crap article.
“His lawsuit claims that, first of all, he’s not actually engaging in the land surveying that falls under the control of the North Carolina Board of Examiners. Or, at least, he shouldn’t be, but the Board has engaged in some weird form of eminent domain, rolling up every possible definition of aerial drone photography and converting it into something it can sell licenses to engage in.“
1. Eminent domain – I do not think that word means what you think it means. (OK, no, that’s too nice. Look up the flipping definition, Mr. “Reporter”.)
2. Every possible definition? Nope. Both the IJ and the author need to do some reading of the applicable statutes.
3. Selling licenses? Cool, go buy one if you think it’s that easy. Oh wait, it’s not? Guess you’re gonna have to go through the licensure process, just as you did with your Part 107.
Oh wait, getting your PLS is more difficult than getting your Part 107? Better sue!
From the complaint itself:
In North Carolina, however, drone start-ups have found themselves targeted by a centuries-old profession: land surveyors. As most people would understand it, ??land surveying? involves establishing legal boundaries between tracts of land.
Ugh. What “most people understand” doesn’t mean jack when it comes to professional licensure. There’s a reason we are licensed to protect the public….because the public often doesn’t understand what we do or how we do it. Listening to randos on the street is not the way to determine or interpret licensing statutes. Utterly irrelevant.
More from the complaint:
Michael has never purported to be a ??surveyor,? and he and his business have never purported to mark the legal boundaries of land; like many similar businesses, they sought merely to create and convey images and information. Even so, the Board told them to stop. The Board formally warned 360 Virtual Drone Services LLC that without a land-surveyor license, it was unlawful to engage in ??mapping,? ??providing location and dimension data,? and ??producing orthomosaic maps, quantities, and topographic information.?
Well, let’s see here…from the NC General Statutes Paragraph 89C-3(7), defining the practice of land surveying: “Determining the configuration or contour of the earth’s surface or the position of fixed objects on the earth’s surface by measuring lines and angles and applying the principles of mathematics or photogrammetry”.
If he was offering topographic mapping services using drone photogrammetry, it’s pretty open-and-shut. It’s not about regulating technology, it’s regulating professional practice based upon the skill set, education and experience required to engage in such practices without harming the public. Just because drones and GoPros are widespread and cheaper than manned aircraft and metric cameras doesn’t mean every yahoo gets to play surveyor.
If he actually was NOT offering those services, he might have a chance.
But from “technology is cheap and available to more people than ever”, it does NOT automatically follow that “anyone who purchases this technology now knows the advanced principles of using technology to perform reliable professional services that affect the public and may have wide-ranging and possibly detrimental impact on both public and private projects”.
Have you noticed all the LICENSED idiots out there abusing/misusing GNSS? No one is stopping them from buying the gear.
Everyone might have the right to buy and fly a drone, but that doesn’t give them the knowledge of how to use it at the advanced level, even with a Part 107 license. I ride sportbikes, but I ain’t suing the FIM to force them to let me race at the MotoGP level…
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil PostmanCrap article? I wouldn’t be so generous. This is a crap opinion piece. The board may be abusing Constitutional rights as claimed here, but you cannot come to that conclusion without either reading all the pertinent documents yourself, or reading an actual reliable article.
Off topic, but one of the benefits of a required education is being able to determine the reliability of media sources.
Yeah, it’s sensationalist trash intended to get clicks.
I tell my friends and family from time to time that if the US were to crumble like Rome did it would be because of media company pursuit of the almighty dollar. They mock and undermine the things that made this country the powerhouse that it is, antagonize anyone who isn’t stupid, and pander to the rest. The fact that they do it for cold, hard cash is the ultimate irony.
This trash piece is a perfect example and I suppose it was only a matter of time before it came to our neck of the woods.
Dog bites boy isn’t sensational enough. Boy marries dog will be profitable enough, though.
This issue of aerial photos being taken by drone users with the correct licensing is in my opinion unjustified. Michael Jones and his team of lawyers are simply fighting for the right to operate their necessary and important company function. When owners of property or prospective buyers of land want to hire a drone operator to take aerial photos of the land they should have the right to do so. Also, in the first article Michael clearly states to his customers that these photos are merely photos and they cannot be used in any official way to create boundary lines or anything else of that matter. The state of North Carolina seems to be overstepping its bounds by ensuing that Michael and his team are advocating themselves as land surveyors and are operating an illegitimate way of business. Drones are simply the way of the future and can offer customers high definition and very accurate photos of land that can help in many different ways.
- Posted by: @patrick-fitzgibbon
This issue of aerial photos being taken by drone users with the correct licensing is in my opinion unjustified. Michael Jones and his team of lawyers are simply fighting for the right to operate their necessary and important company function.
They make it pretty clear that they want to perform services defined as the practice of land surveying.
From the complaint:
77. Plaintiffs wish to offer and provide drone services that include the following:
…
c. Capturing aerial images of land and structures (along with location data,
coordinates, elevation data, and volume data) and making those images
and that data available to paying clients.
d. Capturing aerial images of and data about land and structures; processing
those images and data to create 3D digital models of land and structures;
and making those 3D digital models available to paying clients.With this, the complaint itself tacitly acknowledges that the board is acting within its mandate and makes it clear that the plaintiff and his legal team are being less than honest about their aim.
If they think that the statutes are wrong and that photogrammetry or 3D modelling/mapping from aerial photos should not be encompassed by the statutes, then they need to say so. If people (including surveyors) want the law changed, then get the law changed.
We should not mistake this for Big Bad Government stepping all over the Humble Hardworking Everyman.
Professional services aren’t free speech.
Posted by: @patrick-fitzgibbonDrones are simply the way of the future and can offer customers high definition and very accurate photos of land that can help in many different ways.
So what? No one is arguing that this guy shouldn’t be allowed to take pretty photos with his drone. The same argument could have been (and likely was) made about GNSS when it first appeared on surveyors’ radar.
Having new tech doesn’t exempt you from the requirements for performing professional services. If it did I could buy an MRI and start charging people for imaging and medical diagnoses.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman I think that website is a clearing house for people offering different services. Simply because someone would want surveying and mapping from Droners.io doesnt mean that he provides that service (from what i understand).
It is possible that actual surveyors are signed up to get work from the website.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.Having obtained my Part 107, I have come to conclude that the entire FAA system is actually a (manned flight) pilot’s club.
It is a whole ecosystem of flight instructors etc which has resulted in an admittedly great system of producing qualified pilots. But, it also has acted as a drag on drone tech and implementation in this county and has actually discouraged the safest implementation and uses of drones in order to protect the jobs of their pilots.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.
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