"Catherine Crump, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California–Berkeley School of Law, and director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic, pointed out that while police have a right to monitor protest activity, a line must be drawn when that surveillance becomes oppressive.
"That said, mass surveillance of protesters merely because they are exercising their First Amendment rights, or because a small handful may engage in unlawful activity, is oppressive and bad policy. Today there are powerful technologies – automatic license plate readers, cell phone tracking devices – that can work to identify everyone who was in a given area. The police should not use these technologies in a dragnet fashion to sweep up protesters. And flying a predator drone over protesters is uncalled for, given the association between those drones and our wars in places like Afghanistan and Yemen.""