Every time I try and assuage fears laypeople have about drones and privacy there’s a story or anecdote about some dumbass who does stuff like this anyway...
Surprised that even tech enthusiasts are often so fearful of drones while not worried about the hundreds of cameras already filming their activities in most public places.
In the scenario I wrote about above, every house in the neighborhood has a seven-foot-tall cinderblock wall around it. The guy was flying over these walls to look in the people's first-floor windows from their backyards. A cell phone on a stick isn't a problem in that scenario.
Large lenses are very heavy and benefit greatly from a stable platform. Tripods and low earth orbit are preferred by spies of consequence.
The cameras are also in neighborhoods, and if you have neighbors, you probably have several cameras pointing at your property, too.
Ring cameras are everywhere, and since they upload to the cloud, their recordings are one request to Amazon away from being in the government's hands.