Thread: The U.S. military is operating drones domestically and sharing data with law enforcem

Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The U.S. military is operating drones domestically and sharing data with law enforcement
Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson
Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

As many are now well aware, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is pushing for the integration of drones into the national airspace, especially for use by law enforcement and unsurprisingly a bill was passed and signed into law doing just that.

This is disturbing to some, for good reason. It has become clear that when you give the federal government an inch, they will take a mile. This can be seen quite plainly in the so-called war on terror and how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rapidly expanded into a massive agency which regularly violates our rights.

It can also be seen in how some entities will simply give themselves ludicrous powers over the personal information of Americans, such as the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which not long ago gave itself the power to keep the personal information of Americans – with absolutely no links to terrorism whatsoever – for a whopping five years.

A new report from CBS Los Angeles has revealed some disturbing truths regarding the United States military’s use of drones in American airspace and their sharing of data with various government entities and law enforcement agencies.


While it is far from news to most that the military is working with law enforcement in this regard, as evidenced by the launching of a military drone from a military base in order to conduct a domestic law enforcement operation, the documents obtained by CBS Los Angeles reveal some new information.

A non-classified intelligence report written by the U.S. Air Force dated April 23, 2012 reveals that video and other data captured “inadvertently” or “mistakenly” by military drones flying above the United States could quite easily end up in the hands of federal, state or local law enforcement agencies.

Even the local CBS affiliate in Los Angeles realizes that this is far from minor in pointing out that this procedure is means that law enforcement and the military are “doing an end-run around normal procedures requiring police to obtain court issued warrants.”

I have been an outspoken critic of the blending between law enforcement at the federal, state and local levels for quite a while now, and to me this intelligence report is actually not all that surprising.

I see this as par for the course when you’re dealing with a government which refuses to allow states to have law enforcement with any meaningful separation from federal entities.

This refusal can be seen in many ways and a recent striking example was in Massachusetts where the federal government refused to honor the wishes of the governor in implementing the centralized biometrics program which he refused to allow.

What might be shocking to some is that this military policy is actually far from new, as CBS Los Angeles points out, it is “a continuation of a policy already a few years old, but is causing more alarm now as drones appear poised to soon become a ubiquitous presence in the U.S. skies thanks to a federal policy to promote their use, first by law enforcement agencies, and then by commercial concerns.”

Personally, I do not think that law enforcement use of drones is acceptable, nor is commercial use, as we could very well see something like Google Street Drone View.

“We’ve seen in some records that were released by the Air Force just recently, that under their rules, they are allowed to fly drones in public areas and record information on domestic situations,” explains Jennifer Lynch, an attorney working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

“This report noted that they are able to collect that information and then determine whether or not they can keep it,” she explained.

We must realize that these reports actually allow this data to be passed on to a slew of other agencies, which means that they could very well pass it on to the NCTC, allowing the window for storage to widen considerably.

Under these guidelines, the military is allowed to hold on to data “accidentally” captured by drones for as long as three months before destroying it.

However, since they are able to turn over this data to “another department of Defense or government agency to whose function it pertains,” there is nothing stopping them from giving it to the NCTC which can then hold on to it with years despite no relation to terrorism.

The FAA recently introduced a “streamlined” process which allows law enforcement agencies to apply for permits to fly drones and get them approved and thus get drones in the air much quicker than previously expected.

This is noteworthy because it means that law enforcement will be able to get drones up in the air and operational much more rapidly than one might think.

Some law enforcement agencies have already expressed a willingness to purchase and use drones with support from the state government, such as Virginia where the governor cited the warzone successes of the unmanned vehicles and police chiefs seem more than willing to use them, even for purposes as nonsensical as traffic monitoring.

Officials from the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are evaluating the benefits of using drones in the significantly restricted and congested airspace around Los Angeles, although they have yet to purchase any.

While the U.S. Air Force’s guidelines claim that drones are not allowed to carry out “non-consensual surveillance” on U.S. citizens or property, there are plenty of exceptions to this allowing such surveillance to occur.

Personally, I find it ludicrous that they specify “non-consensual surveillance” due to the fact that drones fly at an altitude so high that they cannot easily be detected and thus there is no way consent could be given.

Some of these many exceptions outlined in the Air Force documents include:

- Investigating or preventing clandestine intelligence activities by foreign powers, international narcotics activities, or international terrorist activities

- Protecting DoD employees, information, property and facilities

- Preventing, detecting or investigating other violations of law

Seems pretty broad, doesn’t it? “Other violations of law” leaves the door wide open for the drones to be used for just about everything. After all, jaywalking is a violation of law. Does this mean that if a drone captures someone jaywalking, the use of military drones in U.S. airspace is somehow justified?

The document also outlines the type of assistance that the Air Force drones may provide to law enforcement, which include:

- Violations of US federal law. Incidentally acquired information reasonably believed to indicate a violation of federal law shall be provided to appropriate federal law enforcement through AFOSI channels.

- Other violations of law. Information incidentally acquired during the course of Air Force counterintelligence activities reasonably believed to indicate a violation of state, local or foreign law will be provided to appropriate officials IAW procedures established by the Commander, AFOSI. Information incidentally acquired during the course of Air Force foreign intelligence activities reasonably believed to indicate a violation of state, local, or foreign law will, unless otherwise decided by AF/A2 for national security reasons, be provided to AFOSI IAW procedures established by the AF/A2, or his/her designee, for investigation or referral to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Information covered by this paragraph includes US persona information.

- Provision of specialized equipment and facilities. Specialized intelligence equipment and facilities may be provided to federal law enforcement authorities, and, when lives are endangered, to state and local law enforcement authorities, only with the approval of the SecAF delegated authority and the concurrence of SAF/GC.

- Assistance of Air Force intelligence personnel. Air force intelligence personnel may be assigned to assist federal law enforcement authorities with the approval of the SecAF delegated authority and the concurrence of SAF/GC.

One of the most disturbing aspects of these guidelines is the inclusion of “foreign law.” This makes one wonder, which foreign laws will they honor? Why would foreign laws be honored in the United States of America? This aspect of the guidelines makes little to no sense to me but hopefully it will be cleared up to some degree.

Air Force spokesperson Captain Rose Richeson told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO in an email, “The Executive Branch has promulgated detailed Departmental and Intelligence Community-wide instructions and directives about when it is appropriate to share information with federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies consistent with the protection of privacy and civil liberties.”

Sure, that sounds great, except Richeson adds that “a court order or warrant is not required in all circumstances.”

The drone industry has boasted in the past about their ability to influence the government and has even said that they should use propaganda in order to influence the public’s opinion of these devices.

If you aren’t worried or even slightly concerned yet, I don’t know what will wake you from your slumber enough to realize that what should be our government is actively working against us, the American people, under the guise of keeping us safe.

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This article first appeared at EndtheLie.com. Read other contributed articles by Madison Ruppert here.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm -- 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

Activist Post: The U.S. military is operating drones domestically and sharing data with law enforcement



hmmmm wonder how long before law enforcement use's the drones in a swat situation!!!! Bets anybody???? Are we awake yet????

Where Is the Outrage?

by Andrew P. Napolitano

Recently by Andrew P. Napolitano: The Secret Kill List




For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government's use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if – had drones existed at the time – King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect that Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as one who is urging the use of violence against the government.

Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes, and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. The folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.

Don't believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the "recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function" in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel inside the United States and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them "to collect information about U.S. persons."

It gets worse. If the military personnel see something of interest from a drone, they may apply to a military judge or "military commander" for permission to conduct a physical search of the private property that intrigues them. And, any "incidentally acquired information" can be retained or turned over to local law enforcement. What's next? Prosecutions before military tribunals in the U.S.?

The quoted phrases above are extracted from a now-public 30-page memorandum issued by President Obama's Secretary of the Air Force on April 23, 2012. The purpose of the memorandum is stated as "balancing ... obtaining intelligence information ... and protecting individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution..." Note the primacy of intelligence gathering over freedom protection, and note the peculiar use of the word "balancing."

When liberty and safety clash, do we really expect the government to balance those values? Of course not. The government cannot be trusted to restrain itself in the face of individual choices to pursue happiness. That's why we have a Constitution and a life-tenured judiciary: to protect the minority from the liberty-stealing impulses of the majority. And that's why the Air Force memo has its priorities reversed – intelligence gathering first, protecting freedom second – and the mechanism of reconciling the two – balancing them – constitutionally incorrect.

Everyone who works for the government swears to uphold the Constitution. It was written to define and restrain the government. According to the Declaration of Independence, the government's powers come from the consent of the governed. The government in America was not created by a powerful king reluctantly granting liberty to his subjects. It was created by free people willingly granting limited power to their government – and retaining that which they did not delegate.

The Declaration also defines our liberties as coming from our Creator, as integral to our humanity and as inseparable from us, unless we give them up by violating someone else's liberties. Hence the Jeffersonian and constitutional beef with the word "balancing" when it comes to government power versus individual liberty.

The Judeo-Christian and constitutionally mandated relationship between government power and individual liberty is not balance. It is bias – a bias in favor of liberty. All presumptions should favor the natural rights of individuals, not the delegated and seized powers of the government. Individual liberty, not government power, is the default position because persons are immortal and created in God's image, and governments are temporary and based on force.

Hence my outrage at the coming use of drones – some as small as golf balls – to watch us, to listen to us and to record us. Did you consent to the government having that power? Did you consent to the American military spying on Americans in America? I don't know a single person who has, but I know only a few who are complaining.

If we remain silent when our popularly elected government violates the laws it has sworn to uphold and steals the freedoms we elected it to protect, we will have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother is everywhere. Somehow, I doubt my father's generation fought the Nazis in World War II only to permit a totalitarian government to flourish here.

Is President Obama prepared to defend this? Is Gov. Romney prepared to challenge it? Are you prepared for its consequences?

Reprinted with the author's permission.

June 7, 2012

Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written six books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.

Copyright © 2012 Andrew P. Napolitano

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Where Is the Outrage? by Andrew P. Napolitano