EYES IN THE SKY
FEDS CONFIRM: MILITARY DRONES ARE WATCHING
YOU
Records from lawsuit help create map of aerial
coverage
It’s
confirmed: The drones are overhead.
Records
newly released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation reveal the federal
government has approved dozens of licenses for unmanned aerial surveillance
drones all across the United States.
“These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA),” the EFF reports,
“come from state and local law enforcement agencies, universities and – for the
first time – three branches of the U.S. military: the Air Force, Marine Corps
and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).”
Some
of the records show drones used for purposes as sensible as helping the U.S.
Forest Service fight forest fires.
Others
purposes, such as performing aerial observation of houses when serving warrants
or covert surveillance of drug sales, however, have prompted the EFF to
question privacy issues.
“Perhaps
the scariest is the technology carried by a Reaper drone the Air Force is
flying near Lincoln, Nev., and in areas of California and Utah,” EFF reports.
“This drone uses ‘Gorgon Stare’ technology, which Wikipedia defines as ‘a
spherical array of nine cameras attached to an aerial drone … capable of
capturing motion imagery of an entire city.’ … This technology takes
surveillance to a whole new level.”
The use of military drones further raised flags in a New York Times report earlier
this year, when reporter Mark Mazzetti joined a group of observers watching
drone use at Holloman Air Force Base in remote New Mexico and discovered the
military was practicing for foreign missions by spying on American vehicles.
“A
white S.U.V. traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross
hairs [of the drone's view] and was tracked as it headed south along the desert
road,” Mazzetti wrote. “When the S.U.V. drove out of the picture, the drone
began following another car.
“‘Wait,
you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?’ a reporter asked,”
according to Mazzetti. “One Air Force officer responded that this was only a
training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.”
The
EFF clarified that while the U.S. military doesn’t need an FAA license to fly
drones over its own military bases (these are considered “restricted
airspace”), it does need a license to fly in the national airspace, which is
almost everywhere else in the U.S.
“And,
as we’ve learned from these records,” EFF reports, “the Air Force and Marine
Corps regularly fly both large and small drones in the national airspace all
around the country.”
In
fact, compiling the various approved applications for military, educational and
law enforcement use enabled EFF to create a map of drone locations in the
records they’ve received so far:
Drone usage revealed thus far by EFF's FOIA request
For example, Montgomery County, Texas, sought
approval to use the thermal imaging abilities of a ShadowHawk drone to support
SWAT and narcotics operations by providing “real time area surveillance of the
target during high risk operations.”
Yet
some applicants sought FAA approval for multiple drone uses, a potential
problem EFF worries could lead to “mission creep.”
“For example, the University of Colorado (which the FAA
said has received over 200 drone licenses) requested a license in 2008, not
just to study meteorological conditions but also to aid ‘in the study of ad hoc
wireless networks with [the drone] acting as communication relays,’” EFF
reports. “And Otter Tail County, Minnesota, wanted
to use its drone, not only for ‘engineering and mapping’ but also ‘as requested
for law enforcement needs such as search warrant and search and rescue.’”
The sheriff’s department of Queen Anne County, Md., stepped up its
drug battles by partnering with the Department of Justice, Department of
Homeland Security and Navy to apply for permission to use a WASP II drone for a
variety of purposes.
“The
WASP II will be used for surveillance missions,” the FAA records state, “for
example, search[ing] farm fields for marijuana (the operator would be stationed
on the farm and would use the WASP to see the crop growth from the air),
conducting search and rescue in remote areas (QA’s County has a state park.
Searching the river and coves can be difficult because of the high grasses. An
aerial view would be of significant help), surveillance of people of interest
(watching open drug market transactions before initiating an arrest), providing
aerial observation of houses when serving warrants.”
Records
show applicants had to provide precise details of the areas they wanted to
watch with drones, such as the map Queen Anne County developed below:
Map that accompanied Queen Anne
County's application with drone area circled
The
EFF asserts, however, that despite obtaining several thousand pages of
information on drone use in America, one glaring hole in the records is
evidence the FAA had “any concerns about drone flights’ impact on privacy or
civil liberties.”
“The
FAA recently announced it wants to slow down drone integration into U.S. skies
due to privacy concerns,” EFF said. “We are hopeful this indicates the agency
is finally changing its views.”
Yet
EFF claims more than half of the information it sought in its FOIA request a
year and a half ago has yet to be released, not only leaving the map above
significantly incomplete, but also raising questions about what is being
withheld.
“Before
the public can properly assess privacy issues raised by drone flights, it must
have access to the FAA’s records as a whole,” the EFF said.
