> "Aircraft surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground teams," the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1m for the program.Holy military state, Batman! It seems that the FBI has really taken to heart the change in mission statement from "law enforcement" to "national security"[1].
> The surveillance flights comply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman said. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of the surveillance.
Given the duration and location of these aircraft, it's very hard to see how these aren't an illegal search, given the past few years of judicial rulings[2][3]. It's become very clear that collecting movement data, even if that movement data is public, requires a warrant. No wonder the FBI wants to keep a layer of fake companies between it and these planes. Also, if you do collect wide area data for a specific target, can you keep the wide area data for use later on for another purpose?
I volunteer for an organization[4] that works with cities to adopt privacy policies regarding the data they collect, receive, and share. To date, our privacy policies have mostly been focused on disclosing how local offices are sharing local data (license plate readers, stingrays, etc.) with the feds, but now it seems we need to add sections about disclosing incoming data feeds from the feds.
[1]: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/fbis-main-mission-now-not...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012...
[3]: https://www.eff.org/cases/united-states-v-vargas
[4]: http://www.restorethe4th.com/
Holy military state, Batman! It seems that the FBI has really taken to heart the change in mission statement from "law enforcement" to "national security"[1].
> The surveillance flights comply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman said. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of the surveillance.
Given the duration and location of these aircraft, it's very hard to see how these aren't an illegal search, given the past few years of judicial rulings[2][3]. It's become very clear that collecting movement data, even if that movement data is public, requires a warrant. No wonder the FBI wants to keep a layer of fake companies between it and these planes. Also, if you do collect wide area data for a specific target, can you keep the wide area data for use later on for another purpose?
I volunteer for an organization[4] that works with cities to adopt privacy policies regarding the data they collect, receive, and share. To date, our privacy policies have mostly been focused on disclosing how local offices are sharing local data (license plate readers, stingrays, etc.) with the feds, but now it seems we need to add sections about disclosing incoming data feeds from the feds.
[1]: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/fbis-main-mission-now-not...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012...
[3]: https://www.eff.org/cases/united-states-v-vargas
[4]: http://www.restorethe4th.com/