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Module 11

Legal, liability & ethics

What you are not authorized to do, what the law does and does not protect you from, and the character of somebody whose reports can be trusted. Seven lessons on federal law that applies everywhere, the principles behind state law that does not, and the ethics that outlive both.

Start lesson 01

Lessons7

Reading timeabout 3 hrs

Objectives28

The lessons

Take them in order, or don't

01What you are, and what you are notA trained volunteer with no authority, and a federal immunity that excludes the single most dangerous thing you will do all season.Legal contextEvery course tells you spotters have no special authority. This one reads you the statute that supposedly protects you and shows you the clause that takes it away again.25 min 02When the forecast is wrongGovernment immunity, a forty-year-old case about lobstermen, and the reason a report on this platform will never be labeled a warning.Legal contextWhy nobody successfully sues the Weather Service for a missed forecast, and what that reasoning means for a platform that publishes what you report.25 min 03The law on the roadFive areas of traffic law that catch spotters, taught as principles because the details are different in every state and change most years.Legal contextModule 8 told you the car is what kills spotters. This is the same road seen from the other side: what gets you cited, sued, or prosecuted.30 min 04Where you may standPrivate land, damage zones, police lines and curfews, and why the most useful thing you can do at a disaster scene is usually to not be in it.Legal contextThe lesson about the twenty minutes after the storm, when a well-meaning spotter does the most damage.22 min 05The rules on the airWhat may not be transmitted, why you identify every ten minutes, and the alert tone you must never put in a video.Legal contextModule 10 taught you how a net runs. This is the federal regulation underneath it, including the one that fines content creators into six figures.28 min 06Drones, cameras and who you say you areTwo regulatory lanes for drones, a right to record with real limits, who owns your footage, and the name you may never use.Legal contextThree separate legal worlds a modern spotter walks into without noticing: aviation regulation, copyright, and the federal law about claiming to be somebody you are not.30 min 07Honesty, aid, and the rest of itFalse reports, fabricated images, when you must help and when you merely may, and the standards nobody enforces.Legal contextThe last lesson in the course, and the only one whose subject is what kind of person to be.30 min

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