FBI Admits To Domestic Surveillance Drone Use

An anonymous reader writes "At a hearing today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI director Robert Mueller confirmed the agency is using unmanned drones for surveillance within the U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley asked, 'Does the FBI own or currently use drones and for what purpose?' Mueller replied, 'Yes, for surveillance.' Grassley then asked, 'Does the FBI use drones for surveillance on U.S. soil?' Mueller said, 'Yes, in a very, very minimal way, and seldom.' With regard to restricting the use of drones to protect citizens' privacy, Mueller said, 'It is still in nascent stages but it is worthy of debate and legislation down the road.' According to article, 'Dianne Feinstein, who is also chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said the issue of drones worried her far more than telephone and internet surveillance, which she believes are subject to sufficient legal oversight.'"

Comments

Re:Why not?

[Applekid]

Why shouldn't they use drones? They use surveillance helicopters. This is just another method of doing the same thing.

Because we all would like to think "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy and not a human certainty.

A drone is just a light aircraft with a camera

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooooh, lookit the scary drooooone! For fuck's sake, people, we do not have to buy into hysterical rebranding of bog-standard technologies. It's a fucking camera on a fucking light aircraft. ZOMFG, the FBI is using CAMERAS! ZOMFG, they are putting the scaaary cameras on LIGHT AIRCRAFT! Are you scared yet??? Cameras! On aircraft! I bet nobody ever fucking thought of putting a camera on an aircraft before. This changes everything!

Think about it

[Sparticus789]

If the FBI had drones in 1992, they would have launched a hellfire missile and killed the entire Weaver family. And it would have been blamed on a gas leak and covered up.
If the FBI had drones in 1993, they would have launched a hellfire missile at the Branch Davidians and killed all of them. The FBI would have blamed the Branch Davidians and said they committed mass suicide.

We would have never known the truth.

Re:Think about it

[Sparticus789]

Never said it was. With drones in the skies, the FBI doesn't even need to bother with a siege or coverup. It makes their ability to get away with murder even easier than before.

They can just launch a drone in Chicago, fly it over to Idaho, and blow up anybody's house. Nobody would know about it, no witnesses, and most importantly, a drone with minimal radar signature and no recorded takeoffs in the area (remember, these things can fly for 36 hours). Only 1 person even has to know the mission, the person behind the joystick.

Where do I expect privacy?

[Intropy]

See, this drone thing doesn't really bother me. When I'm out and about I expect my actions to be public. If a drone is monitoring a private residence or business or following someone to one I think a warrant ought to be required (subject to the normal hot pursuit exceptions). But if you're monitoring some public area, no big deal. The internet and telephone surveillance on the other hand is a complete invasion of an area where I expect privacy and am guaranteed it by the constitution.

Re:Let's hope so

[Sparticus789]

What they do not tell you, is that the same mount points underneath the wings used for fuel tanks can be changed to carry missiles in a matter of minutes. So even those "civilian" drones have the capability in 20 minutes to be sending hellfire missiles to the ground.