Posted on 07/30/2013 7:53:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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, in cases related to “kidnappings, search and rescue operations, drug interdictions, and fugitive investigations.”
Extant Supreme Court rulings suggest that such surveillance does not qualify as a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, Kelly added, and so does not require a warrant.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
We’re the government.
We do as we please.
Using technology to spy into people’s homes is no different than entering their home. This is a battle our conservative leaders need to fight with all they have. It will win people over instantly.
According to the U.S. Constitution they would need a warrant. Our Founders fought and won a war against a tyrant who used such methods. No general warrants shall be issued!
The way I see it is that I don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy while walking down the street.
Taking a leak in my yard shouldn’t get me arrested for indecent exposure when all that can see me is government.
It was less than a decade ago when we were told that these would never be used over American soil and such thoughts were the stuff of conspiracy theorists.
Today the same people tell us that they’ll do as they please with them.
“Using technology to spy into people’s homes is no different than entering their home”
They can use binoculars to scan my windows (with shades drawn, if needed), but don’t smash in my front door with a ram followed by a swat team.
There IS a whole lot of difference there!
Other than a 90 degree (or thereabouts) change in azimuth of observation, there is not much difference between a police car cruising down the street in front of your house and a drone flying over it.
Unless you are sunbathing nude in your fenced back yard. (Not really a good idea. Some teenager with a quad-copter will have the video on YouTube before your sunburns starts to hurt!)
;-)
...for helicopters too?
Oddly enough there are things that are completely legal in private but illegal in public.
What happens when there is no private?
No such thing as a 4th Amendment
If you are investigating (surveilling) people, you need warrants.
“I am perpetual I keep the country clean.”
Citizen, this is a check for your 4th amendment license...
“Extant” rulings “suggest” ???!!!!
And this is supposed to be the basis for a wanton violation of our liberty?
Methinks it’s time for the FBI director to chat with Mike Kelly, Trey Gowdy and Darrell Issa. These gentlemen, I’m sure, will make it abundantly clear to the FBI that, suggestive “extant rulings” aside, there is no freakin’ way they can conduct domestic surveillance operations without a proper search warrant.
Only your Mother gets away with, “Because I said so.”
You think you’ve private lives
Think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape
I’m watching all the time
I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean
I’m electric, electric spy
I’m protective electric eye
Always in focus
You can’t feel my stare
I zoom into you
You don’t know I’m there
I take a pride in probing
All your secret moves
My tearless retina
Takes pictures that can prove
OK. By this reasoning, some group of private citizens should be able to put up a fleet of drones to monitor our treasonous politicians and bureaucrats 24/7/365, and we should expect no complaints.
Those against the Patriot Act were labeled as such as well.
I live in LA (though hopefully not much longer), and we have police helicopters whopping about at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes they even help in interfering with ongoing criminal activity. They should have a warrant for this?
Drones would theoretically spread out the distance as to how such other police assets could be utilized...in addressing crime, that is. There’s the catch, one guesses. But would I like the LAPD to stop using helicopters? I don’t think so.
Fighting crime in progress is one thing, but surveilling citizens is quite another.
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