Mysterious low-flying plane over Twin Cities raises questions of surveillance | Emergency Preparedness | Forums

you think they really didn't know?

Last week, Americans learned that even as the NSA collected information on their telephone and Internet behavior, the FBI was using fictitious companies to secretly operate what the AP called “a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cell phone surveillance technology.”

The news organization reported that surveillance flights may be more than a decade old, and identified “more than 100 flights since late April orbiting both major cities and rural areas.”

The merits of this program will now be debated.

What’s already clear, however, is the anti-democratic nature of keeping it hidden all these years. The U.S. is supposed to be governed by the people. Whether Americans want a federal law-enforcement agency using planes to conduct surveillance on vast swaths of the country is a question properly aired and debated.

It is for Americans to choose.

Instead, an executive branch that has grown alarmingly powerful since the September 11 terrorist attacks, or perhaps even before, imposed its preferred policy in secret. The vast majority of Americans were completely unaware of its choice.

This made voter accountability on the issue impossible.

And many of the FBI’s ostensible overseers in Congress don’t know much more than the public, either. This is evident from letters that legislators have written in recent days. Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, demanded to be briefed no later than this week on “the scope, nature, and purpose of these operations… and what legal authorities, if any, are being relied upon in carrying out these operations.”

Sixteen House members wrote to the FBI, pointing out that the president had just signed a reform ending the bulk collection of phone records. “It is highly disturbing,” they wrote, “to learn that your agency may be doing just that and more with a secret fleet of aircraft engaged in surveillance missions.” They asked for the FBI to identify the legal theory used to justify the flights, the circumstances surrounding them, the technologies on the aircraft, the privacy policy used for data collected, and the civil liberties safeguards that had been put in place.

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don't worry guys, everything is by the book

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI assured Congress in an unusual, confidential briefing that its plane surveillance program is a by-the-books operation short on high-definition cameras — with some planes equipped with binoculars — and said only five times in five years has it tracked cellphones from the sky.

The FBI would not openly answer some questions about its planes, which routinely orbit major U.S. cities and rural areas. Although the FBI has described the program as unclassified and not secret, it declined to disclose during an unclassified portion of a Capitol Hill briefing any details about how many planes it flies or how much the program costs. In a 2009 budget document, the FBI said it had 115 planes in its fleet.

The briefing Wednesday to Senate staff was the first effort in recent years — if ever — to impose oversight for the FBI's 30-year aerial surveillance program that gives support to specific, ongoing investigations into counterterrorism, espionage and criminal cases and ground surveillance operations. While it withheld some details, it offered assurances that the planes are not intended to perform mass surveillance or bulk intelligence collection. However, there is still no formal oversight regimen for the program.

The briefing came two weeks after the FBI confirmed to The Associated Press for the first time its wide-scale use of the aircraft, after the AP traced at least 50 planes registered to fake companies back to the FBI. The AP investigation identified more than 100 flights in 11 states over a 30-day period this spring. The planes since June 1 have flown more than two-dozen times over at least seven states, including parts of Texas, Georgia and the Pacific Northwest.

The ubiquity of the flights, combined with few details about the surveillance equipment aboard the planes, raised civil liberties concerns over Americans' privacy.

The AP had reported that, in rare circumstances, the FBI equipped the planes with technology capable of tracking thousands of cellphones using a device known as a "cell-site simulator." These can trick pinpointed cellphones into revealing identification numbers of subscribers, including those not suspected of a crime.

The FBI said that technology has been used on its surveillance aircraft only five times since 2010, according to one Senate staffer present at the briefing. The FBI would not say how often it has used the technology in ground surveillance operations.

Staffers shared details with the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about them.

The FBI said 85 percent of the aircraft have commercially available infrared still and video cameras. The remaining 15 percent use binoculars for surveillance missions. The FBI said there were only eight high-definition cameras in the fleet, though it would like to have that technology for more of its planes.

The FBI, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, said it hides its aircraft behind fake companies so that it can discreetly conduct surveillance and protect the safety of the pilots. The FBI said most surveillance flights — some 64 percent — are part of national security investigations. It was unclear over what time period those flights took place.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed for answers about the FBI's aerial surveillance program after The Washington Post reported in May that an FBI surveillance plane was used over Baltimore during rioting that erupted following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who sustained grievous injuries while in police custody. In that instance, the FBI was helping local police with aerial support.

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