FBI Studied How Much Drones Impact Your Privacy -- Then Marked It Secret

v3rgEz writes When federal agencies adopt new technology, they're required by law to do Privacy Impact Assessments, which is exactly what the FBI did regarding its secretive drone program. The PIAs are created to help the public and federal government assess what they're risking through the adoption of new technology. That part is a little trickier, since the FBI is refusing to release any of the PIA on its drone project, stating it needs to be kept, er, private to protect national security.

Comments

Transparency

[PopeRatzo]

Any way you want to measure it, there's never been a more secretive administration in the US. And this from a president who promised "the most transparent administration in history".

I apologize to everyone here for having voted for them a second time.

Re:Transparency

[gstoddart]

I find this a little creepy ... the study to tell us how much they're violating our privacy and civil rights is now a secret.

Which I'm going to have to assume they're pretty much doing everything they're not supposed to.

When government will no longer tell you what they're doing, you have to assume they're doing the worst.

Re:Transparency

[Krishnoid]

No argument on how much is being held back, but maybe it just seems secretive because of how fluidly the press and people are now using the Internet as an information medium within the past 5-10 years. Classified information and state secrets that would have previously taken decades to come to light, seem to have details globally available within years or months, and basic awareness of their existence even sooner.

As such, I continuously wonder if there were just as many secrets before, but it's just faster to find out about their existence nowadays, leading to the current administration appearing to have more of them. On the other hand, storage has increased alongside communication, so maybe more secrets are being kept (and correspondingly leaked).

Re:Transparency

[Antique Geekmeister]

> there's never been a more secretive administration in the US.

Oh, my. I don't know if you're young, or if the easy access of the modern Internet has confused you about just how _little_ information was available to the general population about government programs 30 years ago or more. Do, please, look up the history of the Pentagon Papers.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

More secretive when it comes to intelligence and national security, but pretty much everywhere else there have been huge strides in transparency. The amount of information available to the public today that wasn't when Obama was elected is staggering.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think they are rushing into an automated military?

Re:Transparency

[Collective 0-0009]

Maybe? I don't think there is any chance the government could hide something like Area 51 in 2014. Watergate would have been revealed as quickly as Bridgegate. Secretes that would have previously taken decades to get out now take hours, days and weeks. Secrets that could have been squelched just a decade ago are now easily retrievable from computer storage and backups and surveillance and the ease of communicating not just messages, but evidence such as video, audio and pictures.

Without a doubt, the governments of the past were able to keep more secrets. This is why the Arab Spring happened. Information is easily transferred and stored thanks to technology that has become mainstream in the past 5 - 10 - 15 years.

Re:Transparency

[phantomfive]

The real problem was, if you didn't vote for Obama, you'd be voting for the sockpuppets the GOP put up against him.

Are there only two parties?

Re: Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

(And fighting tooth and nail at every opportunity to outlaw any means the citizens have to resist.)

Re:Transparency

[MaskedSlacker]

Compare Ellsberg to Snowden. Obama is worse than Nixon.

Re:Transparency

[jeIIomizer]

Nope. If you did any research on him whatsoever, you would have known he was a scumbag even before his first term.

Re:Transparency

[phantomfive]

I honestly would expect nothing less.......if this study is worth anything, it is going to discuss classified programs in detail, and as such, falls in the category of classified.

Now, whether anything at all should be classified is another question, but if anything should, then a study that discusses in detail classified programs should also be.

Re:Transparency

[dnavid]

Any way you want to measure it, there's never been a more secretive administration in the US.

On what basis do you judge that? On the fact that in the past, you didn't hear about all the things the government kept secret?

Both the initial drone strike program and the NSA surveillance programs were initially authorized and then kept secret during the Bush administration. The difference between then and now is not that this administration has kept them secret, but that they were discovered during this administration. What seems to be different is that during this administration more secret programs are coming to light rather than they are keeping significantly more secrets.

I often wonder how it is people forget that the Reagan administration included such gems as the Iran-Contra illegal arms sales and a huge number of federal investigations leading to indictment by executive officials (including James Watt, the former Secretary of the Interior), Bill Clinton was actually impeached by Congress (but not convicted), and George W. Bush started a war with Iraq costing thousands of American lives based on information we now know the administration knew was highly questionable. Even in the current far more partisan atmosphere far more Reagan officials were actually indicted or convicted of actual federal crimes, and last I checked the current administration hasn't started any questionable wars leading to thousands of casualties. Not to excuse any misconduct on the part of the current administration, but I think its an exaggeration to say this administration is objectively more secretive or less competent. It certainly isn't objectively more criminal.

Anyone remember Dick Cheney once attempted to claim simultaneously that as a member of the executive branch (being the Vice President) that he could claim executive immunity and refuse to disclose information to Congress, but also that as a member of the Senate (being the Constitutional President of the Senate by virtue of being the Vice President) the rules that apply to executive officers (including the President) when it came to security oversight did not apply to him? That's the standard upon which to judge the degree to which the current administration is "not transparent." Its a high hurdle.

Re:Transparency

[Nephandus]

Nope, just the one circus. The two rings are part of the same show.

Re: Transparency

[erikkemperman]

(And fighting tooth and nail at every opportunity to outlaw any means the citizens have to resist.)

Oddly enough, some of the staunchest defenders of the second amendment claim to do so on the principle that an armed populace can keep a government in check -- and overthrow them by force if need be -- and yet those same people seem some of the least likely candidates to criticize the government for all these bogus measures and information black-outs in the name of "national security".

This instance is particularly shocking. They are required to make privacy assessments, presumably as a remnant of more enlightened times when the government still operated on the assumption that at least *some* members of the public are well-meaning, mostly harmless citizens. Times in which the folks who wrote up this requirement didn't even think, apparently, to include a demand that the results be made public.

And now they claim that the results of that assessment must be kept secret. For your own good, honestly. Well, that fact in itself should tell you all you need to know.

Re:Transparency

[Concerned Onlooker]

"You think this began with THIS president?"

No, but many of us were hoping it would at least be reduced by this president. I am finally getting it through my head that Romney or Obama would have both basically done the same job of letting our rights slide down the tubes. This goes for any Democrat or Republican candidate. As long as Americans are fooled into not-voting or into voting for either of the two big parties nothing will change.

Re:Transparency

[Savage-Rabbit]

Compare Ellsberg to Snowden. Obama is worse than Nixon.

Nixon presided over the slaughter that was Vietnam which included the Phoenix program of targeted killings and torture of suspected communists. Phoenix prisoners were subjected to rape, gang rape and they were murdered using some pretty bestial methods that included starvation and pounding dowels through prisoners heads. So even if you factor in drone assassinations and the torture allegation against them neither Obama nor GWB Jr can hold a candle to Nixon.

Re:Transparency

[JonathanR]

This was never the case, even when the ink on the declaration of independence was still wet.

How many of "the people" were involved in these decisions?

Re:Transparency

[PopeRatzo]

That's an interesting question you bring up. Are there more secrets today or are we finding out about them faster?

Well, one measure is the number of work-product documents of the Executive and Congressional branches that are being classified as secret. And it appears that the number is growing unbelievably fast. In 1996, there were about 5 million documents classified by the Federal Government. By 2006, the number had jumped to about 23 million. By 2009 it had gotten to 54 million and by 2011, we were at 92 million documents classified. Remember, these aren't super-secret nuclear codes or the plans to the underground bunker under the White House. We're talking about simple work product documents. Stuff like EPA regulations. FDA regulations. The minutes from meetings discussing trade agreements. Actual laws that we're not allowed to know about, but must obey. And this is not counting the documents that were marked secret decades ago, whose classification is supposed to sunset but has been extended further into the future, protecting us from knowing what our government is doing.

No, I'm pretty sure our government has become a hell of a lot more secretive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ind...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Transparency

[PopeRatzo]

Well, you know, maybe. Considering the nearly incoherent warlike rantings we're getting from John McCain, and the fact that his running mate was a half-bright weathergirl who might have had brain damage from sniffing too much nail polish, we probably made out OK in 2008.

But I'm not so sure any more that boring Mitt Romney would have been much worse than the guy I voted for in 2012. At least when Mitt Romney lies, he looks a little embarrassed and his throat sounds a little tight and he pulls the sides of his eyes back. The press would have caught on to those tells and torn him apart (which is good for keeping them honest). Obama lies smoother than any president I've seen since Reagan. Clinton was also a very good liar, but not in the league of Reagan or Obama.

Or maybe it's me. It's easier to miss lies when you're hearing what you want to hear. Maybe I didn't look for Obama's tells because he was saying all the things I wanted to hear. For example, look how the Tea Party is taking to Ted Cruz. Now go listen to one of his interviews without the picture. Now listen again with the video. The guy is phonier than a 6'2" hooker on Halsted St. after midnight. If Ted Cruz was an insurance salesman in Topeka trying to sell a policy, those same Tea Party types would throw his ass out in a second. Especially the women, who are better at catching out lies.

Re: Transparency

[anegg]

I'm sympathetic to some of the ideals of the Tea Party. I believe that the 2nd amendment describes a pre-existing individual right to keep and bear arms for private defense as well as to maintain the security of a free state. I tend to vote conservative. I was aghast at some of the provisions of the Patriot Act and other similar legislation when they were proposed and stunned that they were voted into law.

I am certainly a person, although you may claim that I'm not a "true Tea Party person" because I'm not rabidly foaming at the mouth in support of the entire platform. I was opposed to those programs well before 2009.

I think actual people's beliefs are more nuanced than the overly broad "left wing", "right wing" labels would suggest, and that there are a number of "right wing" folks who are very concerned about privacy and freedom, not willing to trade it away for an illusive security benefit.

Re:Transparency

[greenbird]

Maybe? I don't think there is any chance the government could hide something like Area 51 in 2014. Watergate would have been revealed as quickly as Bridgegate. Secretes that would have previously taken decades to get out now take hours, days and weeks. Secrets that could have been squelched just a decade ago are now easily retrievable from computer storage and backups and surveillance and the ease of communicating not just messages, but evidence such as video, audio and pictures.

Without a doubt, the governments of the past were able to keep more secrets. This is why the Arab Spring happened. Information is easily transferred and stored thanks to technology that has become mainstream in the past 5 - 10 - 15 years.

This is just plain wrong. Those same technologies that you mention (and more) allow governments to collect and maintain orders of magnitude more information on individuals then in the past. There are more leaks because the amount of secrets has increased orders of magnitude. And the ratio is severely skewed towards the secrets rather than the leaks.

Just 20 years ago it took a large number of man hours and money to monitor one individual to the level they can monitor whole populations now. You would have a dozen or more people just to follow them around determining their location. You would have to bug every phone they used. The conversations recorded and each one manually listened to for pertinent information. And even with all that effort you still wouldn't have the level of information they collect now.

Right ....

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have nothing to fear from the reports content then they should have nothing to hide.

Let's take a page from their book...

[SeaFox]

I guess the contents of the report show that their drone programs impacts privacy in ways that violate the law. So their drone program needs to be stopped.

What's that, FBI? It doesn't? Well then why don't you release the report, without any omitted material or redacting.
I mean, you say the program is working within the correct boundaries. You should have nothing to hide if you're not doing anything wrong.

Re:Sometimes...

[jeIIomizer]

Only sometimes? And since when do average Jane and Joe Schmoe care about the constitution or fundamental liberties? Most people seem to want safety above all else, despite pretending to want freedom.

I'd give you an opinion

[Coditor]

but I classified it as top secret.

Wait a second

[s.petry]

You should really qualify "The Press" in these types of statements. The Press could be ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC, and many more who today claimed an 82 year old man shot a pregnant woman as a headline, when the person was both not pregnant and also committing armed robbery for at least the 2nd time against the same 82 year old man who was beaten as well as robbed. The Press could be the same crew that edited audio to make it look like a guy on neighborhood watch simply claimed to the Police that he was following a Black guy where the full audio shows he is responding to a 9/11 operator asking what race he believes the suspect was. The same media claimed that that guy was White when he's Hispanic, and portrayed the victim in a 7 year old picture to make it appear like the guy shot a little kid instead of a 6'1" nearly legal adult. All to sway public opinion (that one was for numerous purposes). The same media that interrupted a Congresswoman discussing the NSA for "breaking news" that Justin Beiber was arrested, and ensured that a twerk skank received more air time than dialogue about numerous political issues.

The media we normally see and hear IS on the same team as the government, make no mistake.

As such, I continuously wonder if there were just as many secrets before, but it's just faster to find out about their existence nowadays

To some extent I agree that this, but up until 20 years ago we had some real journalism. Nation wide every station lost their "investigative reporters" within the same couple years, and that was the end of any real journalism with any of the 3 letter media outlets.

With rare exceptions today, the only thing that get air time is propaganda.