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

Posted by timothy on from the awfully-suggestive dept.

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.

8 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Transparency by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Transparency by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Transparency by Krishnoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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).

    3. Re:Transparency by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Informative

      > 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.

    4. Re:Transparency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:Transparency by Collective+0-0009 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
    6. Re: Transparency by erikkemperman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      (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.

      --
      Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  2. Let's take a page from their book... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.