Iowa Drone Surveillance May Become Warrantless and Admissible as Evidence in a Court of Law
Two rights-crushing bills are currently moving through the Iowa Legislature this session for possible passage and the Governor's signature. The typical lack of concern for Iowans' interest characterizes our faux representative governance in the 21st Century, thanks in large measure to We the People's equally crushing apathy.
The first best example is the House File 2104/Senate File 2067 to provide private companies with “Eminent Domain” takings of private property, regardless of owners' objections, for projects by definition serve no public purpose.
On January 20, 2026, The Iowa Capital Dispatch's Cami Koons reported: “A Senate Republican leader introduced two pieces of legislation Tuesday to address ongoing issues with property rights and eminent domain.
“One bill would allow hazardous liquid pipeline operators to choose alternative routes to avoid the use of eminent domain and another would place a severance tax on sequestered carbon dioxide.”
The Eminent Domain bill was almost immediately modified and amended, co-opting the complimentary House Bill (House File 2104) to conform to legislation from Iowa's Senate Commerce Committee, Senate File 2067, spearheaded by Iowa Senator Michael Kilmesh (R-Spillville). But instead of protecting private property owners, the amended bills HF2104/SF2067 betray Iowa's private property owners. The Senate bill completely drops any notion of prohibiting/banning eminent domain found in the original bill, so that private companies can acquire the most convenient, cost effective tracks of land for easements required for their pipeline projects, including CO2 sequestration and storage. If a pipeline company, such as Summit Carbon Solutions, can demonstrate all efforts to negotiate an agreement with a private property owner(s) were exhausted, Eminent Domain may be requested from the Iowa Utilities Board, to take the land desired by the private company for its private purpose – namely profit.
Legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=91&ba=SF%202067
Legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=91&ba=S-5002
The House amended its companion bill by deleting the language that prohibited Eminent Domain in CO2 pipeline projects, and replaced it with a mirror image of SF2067, then passed it forward for further debate by the entire Commerce Committee, providing a small window for he public to weigh in loudly and purposefully with its own language, such as “no ban, no reelection.”
Because this new specialized version of Eminent Domain provides all the criteria necessary to trigger an Eminent Domain proceeding presided over by the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB). However, IUB would have no authority to deny the taking if all the criteria was met. In other words, this legislation denigrates private property ownership rights with direct interference by lawmakers, who violate their oaths by utterly failing to represent the people's greater interests over that of narrow special interests, again.
If truth be told, these pipelines are actually all about CO2 capture, sequestration and storage, even though that language in this specialized version of eminent domain legislation is also curiously replaced with the more general reference of “hazardous liquid,” and as such, is headed for debate and final potential passage this week.
Supporters' rationale for passage of HF2104 and SF2067 is to save Iowa's Ethanol manufacturers, who receive “green” subsidies for producing Ethanol for fuel, as well as carbon credits to offset their CO2 emission quotas, both of which contribute mightily to the profitability of their enterprise.
[Sidebar: Subsidies are not the true capitalist way. Taxpayer subsidies exist for enterprise that cannot sustain itself without them. Consumer demand, high input costs, et al, cannot justify the product(s), therefore a market for them is unworthy of capital, labor and resource investment, and can only survive with the infusion of funds with no obligations attached. Simply put, government subsidies, green or any other color, are the same old corporate welfare with a more palatable descriptor.]
It is always a strong signal when legislation is worded broadly enough for varied interpretation, leaving gapping holes for myriad mischief, exactly like HF2104/SF2067 does for its conjured specialized version of Eminent Domain.
However, it further indicts itself as potential legislative chicanery-bordering-on-larceny with its language forbidding Iowa Code Chapter 22 FOIAs (Freedom of Information Act), permitting public access to relevant information for investigative purposes to hold government and companies accountable. Since when does commerce legislation specifically forbid the use of FOIA as this Eminent Domain legislation proposes to do? Where is the public interest in this feature of HF2104/SF2067?
Iowa's original Eminent Domain law, enacted in 1846 and amended in 2006 to further limit government’s use of eminent domain, has been transparent enough that all participants have access to the expressly defined rules that apply equally across the board, including allowable variances where they occur; provide basis for equitable formulas that determine land values; and disclose all individual compensation each property owner receives, to name a few conditions that are openly shared as a matter of current Eminent Domain law.
Keep in mind that nothing prevents private pipeline companies from negotiating with private property owners for tracks of land to satisfy easement requirements. If everyone was in agreement, then easy peasy. Eminent Domain would not enter into it for obvious reasons. Legislation providing it as an option for one side of negotiations (companies), disadvantages the other side (property owners), and demonstrates one more instance of representative democracy working only for a handful of companies at the expense and diminishment of sacrosanct individual property owners' rights.
There is a study referred to in another Iowa Capital Dispatch report by Cami Koons, January 21, 2026, that claims Ethanol plants implementing carbon capture, sequestration, and storage is vital to restoring marketability to this industry, as well as to farmers who grow corn that is used in making Ethanol. However the data is light on exactly how this conclusion is derived. Marine fuel looks to be a viable new market for Ethanol fuel, but the “green” standard cannot be met without this CO2 capture and sequestration feature? If true, it is high time to challenge whether the evidence proves CO2 is the culprit causing worldwide global warming, let alone is sufficient justification for potentially disastrous public policies.
This proposed specialized version of Eminent Domain HF2104/SF2067 does the polar opposite. It allows private companies to do, out of view with no accountability or recourse, what only government is permitted to do relative to the interruption of private property ownership, strictly for a public purpose such as takings thru Eminent Domain. I doubt this current Legislature's dilution of Iowans' constitutionally protected rights would pass Judicial Review by the Supreme Court (another constitutional topic being messed with), but these days, without public pressure that flows from an informed citizenry, who knows?
The original version HF2104 claimed it pertained only to pipelines carrying carbon dioxide and no Eminent Domain to acquire land for easements was permissible. The following version(s) of both House File 2104 and Senate Bill 2067 amended the language to permit a cohesive specialized version of eminent domain for only pipelines carrying hazardous liquid, curiously deleting any mention of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Could it be that for nearly three decades now, the climate “crisis” accusing anthropomorphic (manmade) CO2 was the singular existential cause of global warming, thereby used as the rationale to siphon billions from countries' labor and resources, most of which deleteriously flowed into the pockets of corporate oligarchs?
But how are governments and NGOs justifying this level of funding, hugely excessive expenditures facilitated via what amounts to legislative and executive treachery, without a single climate change prediction ever occurring, or even coming close to occurring, let alone certainty that it was caused by increases of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere? Evidence abounds that the planet is still in a state of abundance with no signs of depletion that justify existential concerns.
Availing yourself to the evidence presented for both sides of this climate argument requires intellectual courage to absorb the information honestly, moral character to weather being wrong and admit it, detaching from partisan reasoning altogether, then actually adapting your world view to accommodate your new vantage point. Go ahead and indulge in a little self-righteous anger at the perps over the sheer enormity of climate change disinformation because much suffering has ensued because of it. Then forgive and resolve to make a herculean effort at holding our government and participating fellow human beings accountable to the truth of things by making a convincing case based on solid rational provable evidence.
You can do this best by first getting involved in the business of your local government, meaning your
county, city, and townships, state legislative bills is also a must, but leave partisanship out of it. Attend meetings (by Zoom, if necessary) and read the agendas and associated documentation Pick subject matter of interest to you first. See what nearby counties, cities, townships are doing for comparative value. Read any newsletters and visit websites for evaluation, and tell your relatives and friends what your doing, share on social media if that is your happy place. In other words share what you learn. As Special Agent Dwayne Pride (NCIS: New Orleans) would say, “Learn things.”
Drone Surveillance May Become Warrantless and Admissible as Evidence in a Court of Law
The second miserable rights-jeopardizing legislation under consideration would impact our privacy and due process rights, It allows law enforcement officers in pursuit of a ground vehicle to use unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to surveil the chase from above as the pursuit persists without a warrant. After which, video footage from the drone's surveillance of the pursuit can be admissible as evidence in any criminal or civil prosecution.
This legislation is being catapulted through the House by our own Representative Michael Vondran, who is the sponsor of Iowa House Study Bill 612, and is fast tracking it through Committee for a House vote. This potential mission creep legislation means it will creep beyond drone surveillance of vehicle pursuit incidents to include drone surveillance of house calls, regular traffic stops, altercations, domestic violence, you get the idea, all without having to get a warrant for probable cause.
Legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=91&ba=Hsb612
What would stop law enforcement from using unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance wherever it pleases precisely because warrants are no longer required? And what would prevent law enforcement from cutting and pasting evidence together for prosecution using warrantless (code for no probable cause to surveil unwitting citizens), admissible evidence, such as cleverly crafted video footage, when needed, especially with the capacity to add AI into the equation. It may seem like a stretch now, but the way you protect against rights violations is to use your imagination to consider how proposed laws can backfire and subjugate by compromising due process.
Not to mention privacy. Warrantless use of surveillance drones can inspire all manner of unintended consequences relative to drone spying, especially if it occurs unbeknownst to citizens.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org) has done a comprehensive evaluation of drone surveillance as it relates to constitutionally protected privacy rights. Drone surveillance implementation by law enforcement and commercial enterprises increasingly intrudes on Americans' lives via the amount of unprecedented surveillance already occurring via prolific street cameras, license plate readers, commercial and personal drones, all of which is basically unregulated in terms of any rules prohibiting violative offenses against First and Fourth Amendment protections.
In 2016, the City of Baltimore ran an experimental drone surveillance program that interfaced via software with Baltimore's license plate readers, security camera footage, and its “Shot Spotter” gun detection. The Fourth Circuit Court, however, ruled that “'Baltimore's program violated the Fourth Amendment because it enables police to deduce from the whole of individuals' movements' EPIC joined an amicus brief, arguing under Carpenter v United States that 'Baltimore Police Department's ability to track individuals with at least 45 days of flight video augmented by automated license plate readers systems constituted a search.'”
Moreover, the rapid increase in commercial use of drone surveillance not subject to the same obligations to protect privacy rights as government uses, such as the pending legislation to allow law enforcement's warrantless drone surveillance for car pursuits and the associated admissibility as evidence to prosecute criminal and civil crimes, is a slippery slope for want of better defined rules of the road. For my part, I would like the legislators votes to fall in favor of protecting Iowans' privacy rights first and foremost as their oaths of office promise.
Epic.org/issues/surveillance-oversight/aerial-surveillance/
Election Update from VOTERGA.org
The following evidence proving the 2020 election malfeasance was inorganic, highly diverse, and definitely widespread enough to have impacted the outcome. Georgia featured prominently in such election irregularities that were relentlessly denied until it was no longer possible to defy courts rulings to turn over documents, ballots, et al. It has become morally, physically, and logically unfeasible to continue the facade, already having spent millions in covering up the morass of offending conduct, especially since too much evidence was exposed for fair-minded Americans to ignore.
The tipping point was arguably the discovery of Georgia's use of Dominion's corrupted Democracy Suites 5.5A. It was eventually adjudicated as the result of a five-year effort to prove what non-partisan VoterGA participants knew to be true, that diverse widespread election fraud occurred in the 2020 election. The following are highlights take from VoterGA.org's much deeper dive into their findings, with far more robust, detailed explanations that I encourage you to explore.
* On October 11, 2020, a District Court found that the Dominion Voting System used in the 2020 election is unverifiable to the voter in violation of two Georgia statutes.
* 43,000 Dekalb County dropbox ballots had no Chain of Custody forms.
* 350,000 original in-person ballot images are missing in Fulton County in violation of federal and state retention laws.
* 393,000 original in-person ballot images in Cobb County are missing in violation of retention laws.
* 17,720 certified in-person recount votes in Fulton County have no ballot images at all.
* 18,325 Georgia voters had vacant residential addresses according to the US Post Office.
* All the above are parts of an estimated 2 million original ballot images from over 70 Georgia counties fare missing from the 2020 election.
* Failure to perform mandatory comparison checks of ballot envelope signatures to signatures on the voter registration files resulted in an unprecedented 90 percent drop in Georgia's absentee ballot rejection rate.
* On September 30, 2024, Dekalb County GOP vs Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger heard unrefuted expert witness testimony and forensics demonstrating the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) certification of Dominion's DOS 5.5-A voting system in 2019 is illegitimate.
* For example, a forensics examination of Dominion's equipment revealed no encryption key protection, and no encoded password protection, two basic ground level security standards required for EAC certification. In addition Dominion used a common shared value for a single password shared worldwide, making access possible from all over the world.
* On December 22, 2025, Plaintiffs VoterGA, Dekalb County GOP, Chatham County GOP, Individuals Garland Favorito and Richard Armstrong, filed suit against the EAC Executive Director and Board of Commissioners. The relief sought in this suit is to (1) permanently vacate Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5-A system certification; and (2) Suspend certification in the interim pursuant to 5 USC 505.
* The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is tasked with providing administrative assistance for elections, but curiously makes no mention of security in its mission statement(s).
* A forensics analysis of an authenticated Georgia County 2020 Election Server proved over 3,000 Emergency Management System (EMS) server program files were modified after installation without detection. The server contained an uncertified compiler that accepts instructions that allows malware to be created and spread to all components.
* In Arizona, a forensics analysis of a Maricopa 2020 Election Server has an unapproved dual hard drive, and a dual boot configuration containing non-election, non-Arizona data as reported in an Arizona Senate Audit Report. In addition, 855 directories and 85,673 election files were deleted between 10/28/20 and 11/05/20 in direct violation of its EAC Certification.
* VoterGA provides updated election information as it occurs, including Colorado's reputation as the emerging epicenter of election malfeasance after four world-class cyber experts performed forensics analyses and exposed evidence of election irregularities rife in the 2020 election.
* In Mesa County, Colorado, where Gold Star mom Tina Peters was Auditor at the time and wrongfully prosecuted and incarcerated by rogue judge Matthew Barrett intent on disjustice, it was discovered that their Election Management System (EMS) was deliberately configured for remote access by separate non-Dominion computers using only password verification, easy to do with a universal password.
Firewalls were virtually unrestricted for access to databases, ballot images, and election results.
* 35 wireless devices were installed throughout the EMS, all with internet connectivity, allowing cell phone users to wirelessly connect to the EMS network and change calculated vote totals.
The analyses also found that thousands of files were deleted during the “Trusted Bill” upgrades ordered by Secretary of State Jenna Griswold exactly as Auditor Tina Peters had feared. This was explained by Matt Crane, Executive Director of the Colorado County Clerks Association and husband to Dominion/Sequoia's 18-year long Product Services Manager, as legally permissible because the files deleted in the EMS were operating system files, and not 2020 election files -an inane explanation that even someone like myself (three strokes shy of a Luddite), knows is complete nonsense, that operating system files are integral to program files and interact holistically, not compartmentally, especially if it is a dedicated system, such as an election management system. Whether this demonstrates a particularly egregious level of ignorance or of diabolical hubris, all voters lose. This is intolerable conduct and needs excising from public service at worst, prosecution and incarceration at best.
The horse has left the barn, folks, there is no more sustainable denial that election irregularities were indeed diverse and most definitely widespread. So much evidence has emerged, even though the mainstream media mutts and show dogs are still mum, that it triggered the FBI's raid of Georgia's Fulton County Election Office, where it seized a mountainous list of evidence as part of an investigation that finally has legs. I claim this because NI Director Tulsi Gabbard was present, overseeing the confiscation of election records, ballots, machines, poll books, et al.
There are lawsuits piling up in courts nationwide to exact some desperately needed accountability before more of the same election insecurity occurs. But for many of us, validation has finally reared its pokey head. We now have confirmation that poll books and tabulators do have two-way Internet connectivity, election management software has hidden files stored internally in inaccessible locations throughout election management systems that also have undetectable internet connectivity, including systems from vendors like Liberty Vote (previously Dominion/Smartmatic), ES&S/Total Vote, potentially along with only a few more large vendors in this space.
Meanwhile auditors/election clerks download and upload thumb-drive contents without a verifiable clue as to what is actually resident on a single one. County election results are downloaded from tabulators onto said thumb drives and without before/after verifications processes, taken to a central location, along with all the other voting locations' thumb drives, and uploaded onto a dedicated computer in a secure room, after which the cumulative data is sent to God knows where for who knows what because auditors certainly can't or wont tell us. And just like the thumb drives, whose content is unknowable, so it is with the tabulators and pollbooks. This scrutiny or lack thereof is protected as vendor proprietary rights because … corporations are people, too?
If a private company or entity, such as an NGO, is performing a public service, as election management vendors most certainly do, “proprietary' withholding of any part of the mechanizations of a system paid for by taxpayers should not be allowed as part of any contract with government. Private entities cannot do what government cannot do when contracted to provide an otherwise public service. Albeit such lines are being blurred, evidenced by Iowa auditors no longer compelled to share the county's Chain of Custody policy with the public.
For my part again, many of the tricks, cheats, and switcheroos have been identified relative to detecting manipulation and unfair play during the 2020 elections, but because no one has been allowed to inspect any of the equipment until recently, it should no longer be the people's burden to prove that irregularities, fraud, malfeasance, unfair, unsafe activities are possible and did occur in 2020. As absurd as it is, we the people are not allowed access for inspection of the voting systems we use to exercise one of the few authorities that belongs exclusively to the American people, our individual vote. Therefore the burden must belong to the vendors and election offices at every level to prove to us voting systems aren't compromised. And they can't, then we must return to paper ballots and old-fashioned counting under our purview again.
The remarkable news is that for five years, devoted civic participants have donated their time and treasure to uncovering the election subterfuge, identified the many tricks, unraveled the layered plots and cover-ups, discerned the methods, the math, and the probabilities, then charted the trajectory of election misconduct, including applicable lawfare, from which the compilation appears to have begun of the trove of bad acts and actors, a disloyal bureaucracy, a corrupt elected body, and a hornets nest of monomaniacal oligarchs who metaphorically stand at the cages of those they've captured and trapped, feeding them morsels of power and money. To what end? Happily, that is still for us to decide.
