A bill intended to reassert individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights when it comes to aerial surveillance operations was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday.
The Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act, introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., would require federal agencies to obtain a warrant before conducting aerial surveillance operations.
Any unlawfully collected information would be inadmissible in court and the government would be prohibited from identifying individuals who show up incidentally in aerial surveillance coverage unless there is probable cause to believe those individuals have committed a crime.
As the Associated Press reported June 2, the FBI alone has flown at least 50 surveillance planes in 11 states since late April for ongoing investigations without court approval.
The bill has its limits, however. “This applies to federal agencies. To the extent that a state entity would fly a drone, this bill wouldn’t address it,” said ACLU spokesperson Neema Singh Guliani.
“It is also important to note that there is a border carve-out exemption of 25 miles. For people who live within that 25-mile border zone, like Tucson [or] San Diego, these protections wouldn’t apply.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshals Service also have their own aerial surveillance fleets. In 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Marshals Service has surveillance planes equipped with fake cell phone tower devices that can pull a suspect’s cell phone data and thereby determine his or her location within 10 feet.
Those devices, called Stingrays, can also seize data from thousands of other innocent people in the process.
Government aerial surveillance became national news in March after residents of West Baltimore started tweeting about small planes looping over areas where riots and protests had occurred in response to the police killing of Freddie Gray. According to the Washington Post, the FBI provided the planes to the Baltimore Police Department to gather “aerial imagery of possible criminal activity.”
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP
This is a great bill. The government has forgot the meaning of the 4th amendment, and passing these bills to regulate new technologies and techniques is necessary to force the government to comply with the 4th amendment.
This story was first published by the independent journalist Sam Richards,
@MinneapoliSam on Twitter.
Why is there so much talk about legislation? The political theater in Washington is beyond absurd in its meaninglessness.
In the California and in Texas the CHP and DPS have as part of inter agency drug task forces have been flying surveillance on the interstates hoping to spot suspicious driving behavior of drug smugglers. They used to fly big circles over my house for days on end. I finally called the FFA to complain and they put me in touch with the local airport air traffic controllers. The controller said those were sanctioned but clandestine flights and I wouldn’t be able to lodge a complaint. I found out it was part of a drug task force in the counties budget because the county was one of the partners in the task force.
I wonder if some of those are the same aerial vehicles who have been ‘covertly’ using infrared to spot grow operations?
Senators Wyden and Heller ought to have tabled modifications to the Second Amendment which reads:
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Man-Portable , Shoulder-Launched , Surface-to-Air Missiles shall not be infringed. “
Absolutely in agreement with your statement. This is where a police state always takes it citizens. Prepare for a rough ride!
Tally-ho , Bill !
And always Check-Your-Six !
Bill, what do you think the law would say about someone shooting someone using direct energy weapons or electromagnetic frequencies against someone. Do you think that would be a legal defense?
Well . . . American law justifies
. . . Apache helicopter pilots blasting away unarmed Iraqi civilians with 30mm cannon shells
. . . obliterating “suspected terrorists” with Hellfire anti-tank missiles w/o due process of law
. . . laying to waste large tracts of Vietnamese countryside with toxic defoliants , white phosphorous and napalm bombs
. . . vaporizing entire Japanese cities with radioactive explosives/incendiary devices
. . . undeclared wars / illegal-occupations , global renditions/unlawful incarcerations with torture
. . . undermining it’s perceived enemies’ existence by means of economic sanctions , unwarranted business asset seizures/freezes
. . . unrestricted espionage on both friendly and hostile nations including its very own civilian populace
. . . and so on , and so forth , and such like
‘A bill intended to reassert individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights’
‘The Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act,’
‘would require federal agencies to obtain a warrant‘
‘Any unlawfully collected information would be inadmissible in court’
‘the FBI alone has flown at least 50 surveillance planes in 11 states since late April for ongoing investigations without court approval.’
Instead of writing and pushing legislation about actions that are already illegal in order to do … I don’t know what, why aren’t there prosecutions happening against the people and organizations who have already been caught breaking the already existing laws?
This. Is. A. Pattern.
W’s T F’in deal with having to rewrite laws that are already on the books when government entities and the people in them break the already On The Books Laws?
Require???
How are they going to require anything of the FBI or the local police for that matter?
I don’t believe for a minute there is any way for congress to compel people in the “keeping us safe” racket to obey the law.
Pass all the laws you want, they are meaningless and don’t apply to law enforcement.
Do you realize what a contradiction what you just stated is? It isn’t LAW ENFORCEMENT if it does not obey its laws! It is something else! An army of oppression perhaps, but not law enforcement as we intended it to be. A military action against the enemies of the state perhaps; the state being the 1%, but not law enforcement! And with your defeatist attitude, we would never even fight for our rights, just lay down and let the tanks run you over then…I will fight back!.
Yea I read Radley Balko at the Washington Post. It’s not news to me that the people normally referred to as “law enforcement” are lawless criminals. And I think your description of them as an army of oppression is quite accurate.
But tell me, how am I supposed to “fight for our rights?” Its a defeatist attitude its merely a sober assessment. There is no fight to be won here. We don’t live in the 1800’s anymore. There’s nothing to fight for.
Having lived in a number of places, I’d like to assert that there actually are things to fight for in places which have more social bonds and cohesiveness. I wouldn’t say there’s nothing to fight for, I’d say there’s nothing really available to fight with (at least nothing that wouldn’t just be turned around to fuel the other sides’ fires and make things even worse). This is, I guess, the problem.