You cannot fly drones over 400ft above the ground (with some very narrow exceptions).

So this isn't narrow, it's extremely broad. You can't read such rules in a vacuum without knowing their context.

Ummmm… I fly drones at 8,000ft for arial mountain shots… drones are surprisingly capable given good wind conditions.

That would be against the law in the US. https://www.faa.gov/uas/recreational_flyers

Not if you stay within 400 feet AGL of the mountain terrain. You can be over 400 feet MSL (mean-sea-level) but still be within 400 feet above-ground-level from where the drone's sitting in the sky.

If I'm still following the plot, this means protesters just need to get their mountains to follow ICE activity (but remain 3000 feet away, laterally) for lawful recording.

Only if you’re caught. It’s perfectly fine to put your body and life on the line and go paragliding at those altitudes but the moment you strap a headset on for FPV, it’s “illegal”.

Drone altitude restrictions are AGL, not ASL.

I go out on top of the highest local mountain and send a drone up to 12,300' and the FAA won't care. I do the same thing over my house, they would very rightly be quite upset. (But I think it's BLM would care about the drone over the mountain--it's wilderness terrain, no powered vehicles of any type except for emergency use.)

> I'm sure you can still effectively film them from 1100ft.

But also having to be 3000ft laterally which gives you a distance of about 3160ft which is probably beyond the useful camera range of most consumer drones?