FBI Using Drones For Domestic Surveillance

FBI director promises use is narrow

Reason 24/7

Not satisfied with how expansive and pervasive the surveillance state is in 2013? Put this in your pipe and smoke it, preferably somewhere out of sight of the authorities.

From USA Today:

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged Wednesday that the agency has deployed drones to conduct surveillance in the U.S., and that the bureau was developing guidelines for their future law enforcement use.

Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the un-manned aerial vehicles, whose use by law enforcement has raised questions from privacy advocates and civil liberties groups, are deployed in "a very minimal way and very seldom.''

"Our footprint is very small,'' the director said. "We have very few.''

In addition to setting rules to govern the use of drones, Mueller also promises to provide the Congress with more information on how it collects (which definition?) and uses data, which he promises is narrow. Oversight in action!

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Comments

[Bardas Phocas]

As I ask a friend - who likes to call me a 'conspiracy theorist' - "If all the conspiracy theories are coming true (that is, they're not theories anymore), when will the open Area 51 and show us the flying saucers?"

[Hash Brown]

We're so far beyond the dystopic USA depicted in Atlas Shrugged that it's not even funny.

[alan_s]

It's like they somehow managed to deliberately combine Atlas Shrugged with 1984 and turn them into a true story. The worst part is that they didn't even do it in the dark of night behind our backs. They did right in front of our faces, and for the most part, people are okay with it as long as the next episode of American Idol still comes on.

[Hash Brown]

The USSR would be thriving today if Lenin, Stalin, et al. had just been more patient.

[Matrix]

"Our footprint is very small,'' the director said.

You know what they say about small feet.

[Episiarch]

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged Wednesday that the agency has deployed drones to conduct surveillance in the U.S.

Well, of course they have. Was there ever any doubt?

[Pro Libertate]

And to think I laughed at you when you said a drone followed you to work. You have my deepest apologies and total disavowal of any knowledge of you whatsoever.

[Invisible Finger]

First they laugh at you, then they call you paranoid, then they apologize, then you get abducted.

[Pro Libertate]

I think some British MP recently announced having had sex with a space alien.

[NeonCat]

Are you sure that's not a euphemism for going to see a dentist? Or maybe a nitrous induced hallucination? I mean, there's a bright light in your face and everything.

[Pro Libertate]

I dunno, it was a British MP. It could mean anything.

[sarcasmic]

Maine just passed a law requiring the police in the state to get a warrant before using a drone. While somewhat comforting, that doesn't apply to the feds.

[CE]

The judges will probably just add a fly-through window for the drones to swing by on their way to surveillance missions. The rubber-stamped warrant can be spray-painted on as it flies by.

[CE]

You know who else had a federal police force with vast surveillance powers?

[alan_s]

Big Brother

[Rrabbit]

Kim Jong-il?

[sarcasmic]

Napolean?

[Hash Brown]

Napolean -- same great generalship, but with half the fat!

[Bardas Phocas]

Queen Elizabeth I

[Rrabbit]

small - when compared to the number of atoms in the universe

[CE]

Small, when compared to the number of crimes in the federal register.

[np]

Someone needs to come up with anti-drone EM or laser system. While there are high powered military lasers, I'm thinking of relatively lower powered systems for home or portable generator via a truck, enough to disrupt UAVs, especially lower altitude ones for civilian surveillance.

[World's Oldest Fraggle]

Bet you get charged with murder of a police officer for that.

[Rasilio]

As usual the problem here is not the drones but rather the purposes they are used for, the drones themselves don't really give law enforcement any new capabilities that could not be achieved through other means (just mounting the same equipment on a police aircraft for example), they just make it cheaper to deploy

[The Last American Hero]

If you haven't seen the new Arrested Development episode where Buster becomes a drone pilot, stop what you are doing and go watch it.