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FBI Forced To Release 18 Hours of Spy Plane Footage (vice.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from Motherboard:
It's been just over a year since amateur aviation sleuths first revealed the FBI's secret aerial surveillance of the civil unrest in Baltimore, Maryland. Now, in response to a FOIA request from the ACLU, the Bureau has released more than 18 hours of aerial footage from the Baltimore protests captured by their once-secret spy planes, which regularly fly in circles above major cities and are commonly registered to fake companies.
The cache is likely the most comprehensive collection of aerial surveillance footage ever released by a US law enforcement agency... The footage shows the crowds of protesters captured in a combination of visible light and infrared spectrum video taken by the planes' wing-mounted FLIR Talon cameras. While individual faces are not clearly visible in the videos, it's frighteningly easy to imagine how cameras with a slightly improved zoom resolution and face recognition technology could be used to identify protesters in the future.
The FBI says they're only using the planes to track specific suspectds in serious crime investigations, according to the article, which adds that "The FBI flew their spy planes more than 3,500 times in the last six months of 2015, according to a Buzzfeed News analysis of data collected by the aircraft-tracking site FlightRadar24."
The cache is likely the most comprehensive collection of aerial surveillance footage ever released by a US law enforcement agency... The footage shows the crowds of protesters captured in a combination of visible light and infrared spectrum video taken by the planes' wing-mounted FLIR Talon cameras. While individual faces are not clearly visible in the videos, it's frighteningly easy to imagine how cameras with a slightly improved zoom resolution and face recognition technology could be used to identify protesters in the future.
The FBI says they're only using the planes to track specific suspectds in serious crime investigations, according to the article, which adds that "The FBI flew their spy planes more than 3,500 times in the last six months of 2015, according to a Buzzfeed News analysis of data collected by the aircraft-tracking site FlightRadar24."
Understand they professional liars, please look again at the email server testimony.
Just like in the Shooting by FBI agents in Oregon, they reduce the quality of their video capture to some grainy piece of useless crap then hand it over to the public. Do you honestly think they spent billions, and can not facially recognize people from a plane camera? They could read a newspaper in the 60's from 38000 feet up.
Now ask yourself who is authorizing of this? Why? Robert "LaVoy" anyone?
Perhaps the FBI realizes there might be an issue with the way they conduct their surveillance flights.
Otherwise, they wouldn't bother trying to hide the ownership of the aircraft behind a shell company.
Just because it can be done, does not mean it must be done and certainly not that it must be recorded.
Many a year ago, what happend was that if you did something, only a few people would know. Say I went to a pub, drank to much and would be singing at night. There would be some people who would wake up.and my friends would know. If I lived in a small town, the people who woke up would know me.
However after a month, they would hardly remeber the day it happened and after a few years they might have forgotten it all, including me and my friends.
If it would have been worse, people might have called the police and that could have ened in a record, but most likely in a stern talk. Where I live it could even mean a night in a cell, but no record anywhere.
Now things have changed. The thing that has changed is the recording of everything and the logging of everything and yet people still have the same mentality around privacy. The game has changes, so the same rules should not apply anymore.
So it is not that they are able to see you, it is that they are able to record you and the majority of the law has not been build around that. That is why we in Europe have a right to be forgotten. That is why to us priviacy does not end at your doorstep. What it is is the most essential right. It is so essential that it is the basis of all other rights. Take that away and all the others become useless.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The FBI says they're only using the planes to track specific suspects in serious crime investigations.... then why are the registered to fake companies under fake names?
The FBI says they're only using the planes to track specific suspects in serious crime investigations.... then why are the registered to fake companies under fake names?
That's the easiest part to explain. Not all criminals are stupid. Some of them are capable of spotting a plane with optics and looking up a tail number. The hard part to explain is why they're gathering footage from protests. Their bullshit explanations don't wash.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The FBI says they're only using the planes to track specific suspects in serious crime investigations.... then why are the registered to fake companies under fake names?
That's the easiest part to explain. Not all criminals are stupid. Some of them are capable of spotting a plane with optics and looking up a tail number. The hard part to explain is why they're gathering footage from protests. Their bullshit explanations don't wash.
I agree. This is especially problematic with organized crime, cartels, etc. This sort of thing allows law enforcement to compartmentalize better. That is, not all investigators on a case need to know the when/where/why of special surveillance activities.
The more problematic part, and the part which gives me conflict about this (i.e., I believe law enforcement should have tools that allow them to do their jobs effectively, but I also believe that tools which promote/facilitate the erosion of civil liberties should be out of reach), is that while many people in the government are upstanding and law abiding, many are not. Remember, the employees of the federal government come from the same population in which we all live. There are good people and bad people. For every "good cop" who respects the rights of the average citizen and takes great care in discharging his or her responsibilities there is at least one "bad cop" who doesn't care or who willfully infringes on people's rights because he or she believes it is OK (e.g., the ends justify the means). We don't typically hear about the good cops and the cases with good outcomes, since those don't tend to make for good headlines. Rather we only hear about the bad episodes, of which there are plenty.
This is most definitely not an easy problem to solve.
You probably think it's OK when cops cover their faces and remove their badges and IDs.
When cops in public cover their faces, remove their badges and ID tags, your civil rights have already been violated.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Like on police cars?
Like these ones?
I suppose undercover officers/agents should have to wear badges too.
...if I had a fleet of planes in my possession that I regularly flew over cities and the planes were also registered to fake companies for the purpose of obtaining video and pictures? Would I be arrested, charged or fined for these actions? If so, then why is it acceptable for the FBI?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Sadly, too many "good" cops are willing to lie and conceal evidence that would expose the activities of "bad" cops.
As far as I'm concerned, that should cost them the "good cop" appellation, but somehow it never does.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I guess law enforcement shouldn't be able to use aircraft or cameras. Maybe they shouldn't be able to use cars or computers, either.
A large part of your privacy derives from the cost of individual investigation. Back in the day when a wire tap involved a human making physical connections and a transcriptionist listening to every conversation, taps were infrequently used, and used only when an investigator was pretty sure it would be fruitful. When surveillance meant sending a team of officers, in shifts, to personally watch their suspect, they were already pretty sure they'd get good information. Budgetary constraints are very strong. If "wiretap" is only a matter of keying a few keywords into a database, then the only limits to frivolous investigation are the police actually following their official procedures and the judge. Rules or laws are not enough to keep law enforcement from stepping on your rights, or to make citizens good, safe drivers.
A police officer failing to show a badge is acting as a civilian. The rest of the uniform does not matter, the badge is the mark of authority and the unique identifier.
The uniform is just clothing, the patches are not controlled or tracked, only the badge can indicate government granted authority to represent the rule of the law.
That truly is frightening. The FBI doing, you know, like...their job!
Their job is mass surveillance without a warrant? Well, at least we're finally being honest about it.
Group surveillance, not mass. Should they get a warrant the next time someone wants a head count of some public event?
People in public spaces have no expectations of privacy.