Louisiana Drone Laws: Privacy, Critical Infrastructure & Shoot-Down Rules

Louisiana treats a camera-equipped drone the same as any other recording device under its video voyeurism law, and treats it as a security risk when it flies over a refinery, prison, or military site. Federal rules control where a drone may fly; Louisiana law controls what an operator may record and where a drone may not go at all.

Federal Airspace Rules vs. Louisiana State Law

The Federal Aviation Administration regulates the national airspace. Every drone is an "aircraft" under 49 U.S.C. 40102, which pulls it into 14 CFR Part 107 (commercial flight, Remote Pilot Certificate, registration, Remote ID broadcast) or the recreational exception at 49 U.S.C. 44809. States cannot regulate flight altitude, flight paths, or airspace access; the FAA's state-and-local regulation guidance and the persuasive federal decision in Singer v. City of Newton, 284 F. Supp. 3d 125 (D. Mass. 2017), both draw that line. What Louisiana regulates instead is conduct: what an operator records with a drone-mounted camera, and where a drone may not fly regardless of altitude when a protected facility sits below it. The Fifth Circuit's decision in National Press Photographers Ass'n v. McCraw, 90 F.4th 770 (5th Cir. 2024) (reissued January 2024, superseding the withdrawn October 2023 opinion), upheld Texas's comparable image-capture and critical-infrastructure statute against both a First Amendment and a preemption challenge, the strongest current appellate confirmation that conduct-based laws like Louisiana's survive scrutiny that airspace rules would not.

Louisiana's Video Voyeurism Law Covers Drone Cameras

La. R.S. 14:283, Louisiana's video voyeurism statute, defines a covered device broadly enough to include "an unmanned aircraft system equipped with any camera," treating a drone the same as a hidden camera in a bedroom. The statute makes it a crime to use such a device to observe, view, photograph, film, or videotape a person without consent, either for a lewd or lascivious purpose, or to record specified sexually explicit conduct, such as sexual intercourse, masturbation, or exposed intimate body parts, in a place where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. A first conviction carries up to a $2,000 fine and two years in prison; subsequent convictions carry six months to three years at hard labor without benefit of parole or probation. If the recording is sexually explicit, penalties rise to up to $10,000 and one to five years at hard labor, and up to $10,000 and two to ten years at hard labor if the victim is a minor.

Subsection F of the statute requires anyone convicted of video voyeurism to register as a sex offender under Chapter 3-B of Title 15. That registration requirement is significantly harsher than the penalty structure most other states attach to a first drone-privacy offense, and it applies regardless of whether the underlying conduct involved a minor. Subsection H exempts bona fide news broadcasts and legitimate news-gathering activity.

Flying a Drone Over a "Targeted Facility" Is a Separate Crime

Beyond individual privacy, La. R.S. 14:337 criminalizes using a drone to conduct surveillance of, gather evidence about, or photograph a defined list of "targeted facilities" without the owner's prior written consent. That list covers petroleum and alumina refineries, chemical and rubber manufacturing plants, nuclear power generation facilities, school premises, grain elevators and storage facilities, and critical infrastructure as defined in La. R.S. 14:61(B). A first offense carries a fine of up to $500 or up to six months in jail; a second or subsequent offense carries a fine of $500 to $4,000 or six months to two years, plus mandatory forfeiture of the drone. The statute has been amended repeatedly since it was first enacted in 2014, most recently by Acts 2025, No. 23 and No. 170, reflecting how quickly this area of Louisiana law is moving.

Separate subsections of the same statute bar operating a drone over a correctional facility without authorization (up to $2,000 and six months on a first offense, escalating on repeat) and interfering with a military installation (fines from $2,000 to $5,000 and up to five years at hard labor). Louisiana has recent, concrete reasons to police that airspace: Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City, home to a B-52 bomber wing, confirmed multiple waves of unauthorized drones over its flight line between March 9 and March 15, 2026, prompting a shelter-in-place order and an active federal investigation. That incident involved a federal military installation, not a civilian prosecution under R.S. 14:337, but it illustrates why Louisiana lawmakers keep tightening the targeted-facility statute.

A 2025 amendment added a subsection giving a law enforcement officer or agency express authority to take "reasonable and necessary mitigation measures," including detection, tracking, jamming, hacking, or physical capture, against a drone when there is reasonable suspicion the aircraft is involved in criminal activity, poses an imminent threat to public safety, or is otherwise operating in violation of state or federal law. That authority belongs to police, not to the facility owner or a private citizen who spots a drone overhead.

Does Louisiana Require a Warrant Before Police Fly a Drone Over My Property?

Louisiana has not enacted a general statute requiring a law enforcement agency to obtain a warrant before using a drone to surveil a private citizen or their property, unlike roughly a dozen other states that have adopted one (see Drone Laws by State for how other states handle this question). Absent a Louisiana-specific statute, ordinary Fourth Amendment case law governs: whether warrantless drone surveillance of a particular area violates a reasonable expectation of privacy depends on factors like altitude, duration, and whether the area is curtilage. Louisiana's targeted-facility statute constrains how a drone may be used near the specific list of protected sites, but it does not create a general warrant requirement for flying over an ordinary residence. Readers should not assume Louisiana mirrors states that have adopted an explicit statutory warrant floor; it has not.

Can I Shoot Down a Drone Over My Property in Louisiana?

No. Federal law, not Louisiana law, controls this question, and the answer is the same everywhere in the United States. The Aircraft Sabotage Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 32, makes it a federal felony to willfully damage, destroy, or disable an "aircraft," and the FAA has classified drones as aircraft within the National Airspace System since 2012. A conviction carries up to 20 years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and permanent loss of Second Amendment rights as a convicted felon. Federal prosecutors rarely bring a full Section 32 charge over a neighbor's hobby drone; publicized incidents, like the 2015 "Kentucky Drone Slayer" case, typically end in reduced or dismissed state charges instead. That outcome reflects prosecutorial discretion, not a legal right to shoot down a drone. The drone owner's federal civil suit in that case, Boggs v. Merideth, was dismissed in 2017 for lack of federal subject-matter jurisdiction; the court never ruled on whether a drone over private land is a trespass, so the underlying question remains unresolved nationally.

No Louisiana statute, including the 2025 mitigation authority added to R.S. 14:337, authorizes a private property owner to disable or shoot down a drone. That authority runs to law enforcement agencies only, and only under the specific threat conditions described above.

Recreational and Commercial Drone Flights in Louisiana

Whether a Louisiana flight is recreational or commercial is a federal, not a state, question. A hobbyist flies under 49 U.S.C. 44809 after passing the free TRUST safety test; anyone flying for business, including real estate photography or agricultural mapping, needs an FAA Remote Pilot Certificate under Part 107. Both groups must register any drone over 0.55 pounds with the FAA and broadcast Remote ID. Near Louisiana's busier airports, including Louis Armstrong New Orleans International and Baton Rouge Metropolitan, a drone flight inside controlled airspace also needs a LAANC or DroneZone authorization before takeoff, on top of whatever La. R.S. 14:283 and 14:337 require once the drone is in the air. None of that federal layer changes the state-law analysis above; a fully FAA-compliant flight can still violate Louisiana's privacy or targeted-facility statutes if the camera is pointed at the wrong subject.

Penalties at a Glance

Local Ordinances and Where Louisiana Drone Law Is Headed

La. R.S. 2:2 gives the State of Louisiana exclusive authority to regulate the testing and operation of unmanned aircraft systems, and expressly preempts any parish or municipal ordinance that tries to do the same, subject to narrow carve-outs for local law enforcement, fire departments, and utility companies using drones within the scope of their duties. A resident who wants to know whether a local drone rule applies should start from the assumption that it does not; state law occupies the field. For the security-camera side of Louisiana privacy law, including hidden cameras and workplace monitoring, see Louisiana Surveillance Camera Laws. Louisiana's drone statutes have been amended in nearly every legislative session since 2014, so residents and operators should confirm the current version before relying on older secondary summaries, and Louisiana's one-party consent recording rule under Louisiana Recording Laws governs the separate question of recording conversations rather than images.

More Louisiana Laws

• Louisiana Data Privacy Laws
• Louisiana GPS Tracking Laws
• Louisiana Police Bodycam Laws
• Louisiana Recording Laws
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