Dear FBI: Keep Guns Off Your

artappraiser — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 01:37:32 +0000

In reply to FBI admits to using surveillance drones over US soil

Dear FBI: Keep Guns Off Your Drones, Please. Yours, Congress
By Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg News, July 2, 2013

Want to know what Congress finds disturbing about the FBI’s no-longer-secret domestic drone program? A letter penned by two House members this week and posted online by Hillicon Valley offers a few clues.

Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Ted Poe (R-Tex.) demanded more information about the agency’s drone program, which FBI Director Robert Mueller let slip in a congressional hearing last month. He assured lawmakers that his agents didn’t use drones often and doesn’t have very many of them. Even though the FBI apparently felt the need to start flying the drones before writing rules for their use, Mueller told lawmakers he wasn’t opposed to coming up with some for the future. He said the agency was in the initial stages of creating privacy regulations related to surveillance drones.

But Lofgren and Poe, in their letter, make it clear they want FBI agents to obtain warrants before using drones for surveillance of individuals, and to go to a court before using drones to do generalized snooping. They also want the agency to promise not to equip its drones with lethal weapons. Interestingly, while the lawmakers ask about the FBI’s plans for drones carrying nonlethal weapons, they don’t ask the agency to swear off them.

The requests dovetail with the Preserving American Privacy Act of 2013, a bill in congressional committee since February that doesn’t seek to restrict nonlethal weapons like tear gas on drones. The draft legislation specifies only that domestic law-enforcement officials refrain from putting guns on their drones. The Preserving American Privacy Act also purports to govern the private use of drones, making it illegal to record people engaging in “personal or familial activity” in a way that “is highly offensive to a reasonable person.”

This week’s letter from Lofgren and Poe also pointed out [.....]

Another shift-the-topic

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:55:13 +0000

In reply to FBI admits to using surveillance drones over US soil

Another shift-the-topic response from Feinstein. The futuristic may-be-a-problem vs. the huge largely unsupervised problem we have today. Drones are out in the open - we can see them. Electronic surveillance is happening behind the scenes on a massive scale. And certainly more is going on than anyone readily admits to.

Of course drones can carry out electronic surveillance as well...

For those with extreme

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:58:16 +0000

In reply to FBI admits to using surveillance drones over US soil

For those with extreme interest:

“Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation”

Senate Judiciary Committee
Full Committee

DATE: June 19, 2013
TIME: 10:00 AM
ROOM: Dirksen 106

Mebbe they will have a transcript up later....

dagblog - Comments for "FBI admits to using surveillance drones over US soil"

Dear FBI: Keep Guns Off Your

Another shift-the-topic

For those with extreme

“Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation”