Selected
parts:
“New
Documents Trace Controversial Use of Drones and other Aerial
Surveillance for Domestic National Security – from Safeguarding
Major Sporting Events to Law Enforcement to Tracking Wildfires.”
“'FBI
spy plane zeroes in on Dearborn area' was the headline in The Detroit
News on August 5, 2015. The story, which broke the news that the FBI
had conducted at least seven surveillance flights recently over
downtown Detroit, also raised a broader issue. It illustrated the
fact that along with the controversy concerning electronic
surveillance activities focused on telephone and e-mail records of
United States citizens there exists a corresponding source of
controversy – the use of satellites and assorted aircraft (manned
and unmanned) to collect imagery and conduct aerial surveillance of
civilian targets within the United States.”
“The
most controversial uses or potential uses of overhead systems have
been for law enforcement and border security. Plans to incorporate a
law enforcement support component into a proposed National
Applications Office (NAO) within DHS that would have replaced the
Civil Applications Committee was the key factor in the opposition
that ultimately led to cancellation of plans to establish the
office.”
“Another
current subject of controversy has been the FBI’s use of drones for
surveillance purposes. In 2013, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in a
letter to Director Robert Mueller, posed a series of eleven questions
concerning the bureau’s drone use, including: how long has the FBI
been using drones without stated privacy protections; what measures
do you intend to adopt to protect Fourth Amendment and privacy
rights; in what circumstances would the FBI elect to use drone
surveillance; and is there ever a scenario you can envision where
the FBI would seek to arm its drones? That letter led to further
correspondence involving Paul and the bureau’s assistant director
for congressional affairs (responding on Mueller’s behalf). In
addition to the bureau’s responses to Paul and other members of
Congress, another recently available explication of the FBI’s views
concerning the use of unmanned vehicles for surveillance is a
briefing obtained by the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers.”
“A May
2012 DHS Inspector General report noted that the purpose of the CBP
unmanned aerial vehicle program was to 'provide reconnaissance,
surveillance, targeting, and acquisition capabilities across all CBP
areas of responsibility' but 'CBP had not adequately planned
resources to support its current unmanned aircraft inventory.' It
also identified assorted agencies on whose behalf the CBP had flown
missions – among them the United States Secret Service, the FBI,
the Department of Defense, and the Texas Rangers – as well imagery
obtained for border surveillance and other applications.”
“A
December 2014 Inspector General report stated that although the CBP
unmanned aircraft system contributed to border security 'CBP cannot
prove that the program is effective because it has not developed
performance measures.' A few months earlier, a GAO study was sent to
key members of the Congressional homeland security committees. It
noted that the CBP operated nine unmanned vehicles from four
National Air Security Operations Centers (and gave the locations of
those centers), and identified the different sensors (including
infrared, electro-optical, and synthetic aperture radar) flown on the
vehicles. It also reported favorably with regard to CBP’s civil
liberties and privacy oversight practices, noting that 'CBP has an
oversight framework and procedures that help ensure compliance with
privacy and civil liberty laws and standards.'”
[Highlighted
parts by current blog]
Full
report and documents:
These
materials are reproduced from www.nsarchive.org
with the permission of the National Security Archive.
Previously:
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We already see the test fields of
the weapons of future˙ the drones in Afghanistan, Iraq and
elsewhere. It's not accidental that the arms industries
demonstrate new weapons designed to be used inside urban areas for
suppression of potential riots. There will be no “outside enemy”
in the future. The threat for the dominant system will come from
the interior, the big urban centers.
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