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Attorney General Eric Holder admitted Tuesday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was in the process of looking at the use of domestic drones. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, questioned Holder during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, asking the Attorney General if he believed if the Federal Aviation Administration or Congress should regulate of drone use. “Would you think that it would be better that Congress intervene and employ legislation safeguarding the Fourth Amendment, right of privacy basically on citizens or do you suggest as Attorney General that the FAA still control who gets a drone or not?”...

In Deer Trail, Colorado, it's could soon be open season on unmanned aerial drones. Residents in the two of 500 will go to the polls on October 8 to decide whether to sell 'hunting permits' that would make it legal to shoot drones out of the sky. Legal, that is, from the town's perspective. Federal aviation officials have warned that anyone who actually fires on a drone could face the same charges as anyone shooting at an airplane. A permit costs $25, with a $100 bounty reward for shooters who bring in debris from an unmanned aircraft 'known to be...

Drone surveillance in the United States does not require a warrant, but the practice remains limited, the FBI told Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in a letter after he placed a hold on James Comey’s nomination to be the new FBI director. “[T]he FBI does not, and has no plans to use [unmanned aerial vehicles] to conduct general surveillance not related to a specific investigation or assessment,” Stephan Kelly, the assistant director at the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs, wrote Paul. Kelly said that UAVs, or drones, have only been used for surveillance in the United States 10 times since 2006,...

Last month, the FBI admitted it had used surveillance drones in domestic airspace but refused to disclose specific details. Now, after pressure from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the bureau has been forced to come clean. In a recent letter to Paul, published on the senator’s website Thursday, the FBI acknowledges that it has used drones domestically in 10 cases in response to a “specific, operational need.” The bureau says that, since late 2006, it has used unmanned planes for surveillance to support missions related to kidnappings, search and rescue operations, drug interdictions, and fugitive investigations. On eight occasions the drones...

The FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance purposes, the head of the agency told Congress early Wednesday. Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed to lawmakers that the FBI owns several unmanned aerial vehicles, but has not adopted any strict policies or guidelines yet to govern the use of the controversial aircraft. “Does the FBI use drones for surveillance on US soil?” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Mr. Mueller during an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Yes,” Mueller responded bluntly, adding that the FBI’s operation of drones is “very seldom.”...

WASHINGTON – Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern on Wednesday about the domestic use of drones, saying the often-tiny, unmanned flying devices could carry undesirable consequences regarding the right to privacy. Republicans and Democrats acknowledged that drones offer law enforcement a potentially valuable tool that could even be used by farmers to survey their acreage at a relatively inexpensive cost. But the device, also known as a UAS, an acronym for unmanned aircraft system, also has the ability to travel nearly undetected into areas where it is unwanted – people’s homes or businesses – and record private information,...

Last week, freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held an old-fashioned filibuster against the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA. Paul's stated reason for taking to the floor and talking for 13 hours was that the Obama administration wouldn't give him a straight answer on the question of whether the president can unilaterally order the killing of American citizens on American soil with "lethal force, such as a drone strike ... and without trial." In other words, if an American member of al-Qaeda is sitting at a Starbucks, can the president sic one of his death-dealing robots on him?...

Here's Kevin explaining why Eric Holder's curt reply to Rand Paul's question on domestic drones is "slippery," at best:   Sen. Paul's communications team declared victory after Eric Holder sent a letter to Paul today saying that no, President Obama does not claim "the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil." ... While it sounds nice that if an American isn't "engaged in combat," she'll be safe, that still leaves the Obama Administration a lot of wiggle room. And precious little oversight.   That was last Thursday.  Fast forward to...

A famous book on negotiation is called "Getting to Yes." Sometimes, though, the better achievement is arriving at "no." That's what Eric Holder and Rand Paul did the other day. It came in a letter from the attorney general to the Republican senator from Kentucky, which said: "It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?' The answer to that question is no." Until then, the two had been engaged in a dialogue...

"Barack Obama of 2007 would be right down here with me arguing against this drone strike program if he were in the Senate," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., declared in the course of his 13-hour Senate "talking filibuster," which delayed a confirmation vote for now-CIA chief John Brennan. That's the thing; the Obama of 2007 no longer exists. Obama 2007 opposed enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA used on al-Qaida leaders under President George W. Bush. Obama 2013 banned the use of those techniques. Now he orders others to just kill al-Qaida terrorists. The imperious president has an attorney general who,...

It didn't snow in DC on Wednesday so I spent the entire afternoon watching Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Sen. Paul's issue wasn't with Brennan; it was with the refusal of President Barack Obama to describe his position on using drones to kill people generally, and Americans in particular, on U.S. soil. Mr. Obama, still believing what his mirror tells him every morning, that he is the fairest in the land, didn't think he needed to explain himself to anyone about anything (much less to...

The Department of Homeland Security has an unmanned drone fleet with technology that can root out civilians who are carrying guns, government documents show. “I am very concerned that this technology will be used against law-abiding American firearms owners,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, in a Breitbart report. “This could violate Fourth Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights.” The Predator B drone fleet has also been designed to track cell-phone signals, Breitbart reports. The information about the fleet came to light via a Freedom of Information request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Breitbart...

A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S. The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – With the use of domestic drones increasing, concern has not just come up over privacy issues, but also over the potential use of lethal force by the unmanned aircraft. Drones have been used overseas to target and kill high-level terror leaders and are also being used along the U.S.-Mexico border in the battle against illegal immigration. But now, these drones are starting to be used domestically at an increasing rate. The Federal Aviation Administration has allowed several police departments to use drones across the U.S. They are controlled from a remote location and use infrared sensors and...

Earlier this week, the federal government announced that the Air Force might be dispatching drones to a backyard near you. The stated purpose of these spies in the sky is to assist local police to find missing persons or kidnap victims, or to chase bad guys. If the drone operator sees you doing anything of interest (Is your fertilizer for the roses or to fuel a bomb? Is that Sudafed for your cold or your meth habit? Are you smoking in front of your kids?), the feds say they may take a picture of you and keep it. The...

This was filmed in Elgin, Illinois about 40 miles from Chicago. I assume it's for the NATO summit this week as a security measure.

Unmanned drones could soon be buzzing in the skies above many U.S. cities, as the federal government green-lights the technology for local law enforcement amid widespread privacy concerns. The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday began to explain the rules of the sky for these newly licensed drones at potentially dozens of sites across the country. The agency, on its website, said that government "entities" will have to obtain a special certificate in order to fly the aircraft, adding that the FAA is "streamlining the process for public agencies to safely fly (drones) in the nation's airspace." In doing so, the...

U.S. Air Force policy permits the incidental collection of domestic imagery by unmanned aerial systems (drones), but ordinarily would not allow targeted surveillance of a U.S. person.  The Air Force policy was restated in a newly reissued instruction on oversight of Air Force intelligence.“Air Force Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operations, exercise and training missions will not conduct nonconsensual surveillance on specifically identified US persons, unless expressly approved by the Secretary of Defense, consistent with US law and regulations,” the instruction stated.On the other hand, “Collected imagery may incidentally include US persons or private property without consent.”“Collecting information on specific targets...

Looky here, no drone sites in Illinois! Actually, the direct Google map link has a curious list of mainly college campuses and police departments. Apparatchiks. Check it out. Keep in mind, these are the authorized sites. Kate, at Small Dead Animals, kills with the juxtaposition of it all.

Is there a drone in your neighbourhood? Rise of spy planes exposed after FAA is forced to reveal 63 launch sites across U.S. Unmanned spy planes are being launched from locations in 20 states and owners include the military and universities. There are at least 63 active drone sites around the U.S, federal authorities have been forced to reveal following a landmark Freedom of Information lawsuit. The unmanned planes – some of which may have been designed to kill terror suspects – are being launched from locations in 20 states. Most of the active drones are deployed from military installations,...