The drone hovered low, whirring like a giant bug above the lush, green northern California fields. Its camera was trained on the curved roof of an aging dome home. Inside, Keni Meyer, a petite, ponytailed 54-year-old, didn't know her property was under surveillance again. But the Sonoma County authorities were taking another step in a harassment campaign, ostensibly aimed at unpermitted cannabis grows.

Drone photos of the property spurred the county to allege a series of building code violations. Those citations drew Meyer into a doomed six-year fight to save her property, as Sonoma's covert cannabis surveillance operation warped into an attack on less affluent residents. For dozens if not hundreds of people, a crackdown on unlicensed cannabis crops has led to six-figure fines, foreclosur

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