FBI Redacts Letter About Drone Usage That Was Already Published In Full By Sen. Rand Paul

from the redaction-by-random-number-generator dept

The government's overclassification problem has turned its redaction efforts into a farce. When not deploying questionable exceptions to avoid returning responsive documents to FOIA requests, government agencies are cranking out amateurishly redacted pages that leave info exposed in one response and covered up in the next. No wonder they fear the "mosaic" approach to FOIA requests. If they'd just come up with some meaningful redaction guidelines, they could avoid this. Instead, things like the following bit of stupidity happen.

When outgoing director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee last July that the FBI was in the “initial stages” of developing guidelines for its drone program, a handful of privacy hawks in Congress perked up and requested more details. The FBI released correspondence with three members of Congress—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)—in its latest bundle. Paul had already posted in full the FBI’s answers to questions about the scope and purpose of domestic UAV surveillance, but FBI FOIA officers still saw fit to sanitize them.

Here are the two versions of the same document, with the legislator's clean copy up top and the needlessly redacted version sent to Muckrock below it.




The FBI can't even keep track of what it's already sent out in unredacted form, making a mockery of its own paranoiac "but for criminals/terrorism" tendencies. What makes this even more ridiculous is that the inverse happened just a couple of weeks ago, when Tom Coburn called out the DHS for producing drone documents to Congress that were more heavily redacted than the ones it supplied in response to an EFF FOIA request (which were also rather heavily redacted).

For 2010 alone, my staff has tallied at least 20 instances in which the publicly-released documents appear to contain legible passages which are redacted entirely or in large part from the documents DHS provided the Committee. In other words, DHS appears to have chosen to withhold information from Congress which the DOJ -- and, we must assume, DHS -- has determined was appropriate to share with the American public.

Why these agencies even bother redacting anything at this point is inexplicable. There's obviously no rationale behind what gets released and what gets withheld. It's apparently an arbitrary decision made by each individual employee tasked with handling responses to outside queries. The stated concerns about "security" are obviously a sham. The public already has the information they're choosing to redact, which instantly nullifies any justifications given for the redactions.

If the redactions are essentially meaningless, than every redaction should be challenged. We can't see what's behind the black ink and whiteout, so we're expected to assume the info is "sensitive." But it obviously isn't if it can be revealed elsewhere without the security of the nation collapsing. The truth appears to be that no one in charge of redacting documents has any real idea what the fuck they're doing. That calls into question many of the efforts being made in the name of national security, something made even more depressing when you consider the exponential growth of that area of the government over the last 12 years.

Who watches the watchers? Well, we do. And what we're seeing is a bumbling display of ineptitude, propelled by an outsized sense of paranoia -- a bureaucratic farce where the right hand is completely unaware the left hand even exists, much less has any earthly idea what it's up to.

Filed Under: drones, fbi, foia, rand paul, redaction, robert mueller

Administration Officials Perform Some Very Public Handwringing Over Extrajudicial Drone Killing

from the the-eternal-martyrdom-of-the-executive-branch dept

The administration has sort of painted itself into a corner with its new rules on drone strikes. It's apparently seeking to take out a US citizen who has joined al-Qaeda and is "actively plotting" against the US. Multiple issues have arisen, thanks to Obama's better-late-than-never drone guidelines, which were issued last year to appease the many countries perturbed by the US government's increasing reliance on drones to take out suspected terrorists.

The CIA drones watching him cannot strike because he's a U.S. citizen and the Justice Department must build a case against him, a task it hasn't completed

Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And President Barack Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.

Oddly, the DOJ hasn't completed its case against the targeted American, despite officials (anonymous ones) claiming the man is a "facilitator" who has been "directly responsible" for attacks on Americans overseas. Flimsier cases have floated entire prosecutions (including many, many of the FBI's homegrown terrorists). It must be the potential stripping of due process (no matter how meaningless that process has been in practice) holding the US back.

It may not even need a case. It may just need to offer sufficient justification for carrying out a death sentence without due process. That's the sort of thing Rep. Mike Rogers seems to think the US should be doing anyway. His unwavering belief that the US is a country constantly besieged by attackers leaves no room for constitutional nuances like due process. This, along with "transparency" is referred to by Rogers as "red tape."

Even as the "case" is being built, there are other concerns. As we just covered recently, the NSA aids in tracking down strike targets, but it's doing so using (no big deal, it's just) metadata, some of which is less than precise. Those who think they are targets are swapping SIM cards around as quickly as possible to thwart geolocation tracking, which ultimately means the target being killed may not be the person the NSA thinks he/she is.

But moving beyond Rogers' histrionics and the NSA's haystacks, these statements by anonymous government officials don't look like much more than further appeasement. Rules were put in place to make other countries happier and this very public hand wringing looks for all the world like the administration stage-whispering "See how very complicated this is, and how restrained we're being in response." Admittedly, stagecraft is a large part of politics, but this particular incident is notable for its overacting.

The government has killed four Americans with drone strikes since 2009, so this open-air discussion has less to do with concerns about following proper steps than it does with letting unhappy foreign nations know how seriously we're suddenly taking our targeted killing responsibilities. The limitations on drone strikes were a long time coming, and it has taken a sustained uproar over several years to get them implemented. The last time the administration spent any time considering the implications of its hands-off approach to extrajudicial killing was towards the end of Obama's first term in 2012, when there was the momentary concern that The Bad Guys (the other party) might have the same unfettered access and authority.

As much as the unnamed American might be deserving of punishment for his attacks on Americans, the administration should stick to its self-imposed rules and follow the processes it implemented. And the least it could do is follow the rules without carrying on in public, trying to conjure up some sort of sympathy for the difficult decisions it faces.

Filed Under: barack obama, cia, doj, drones, targeting, us citizens, white house officials

New Whistleblower Reveals NSA Picking Drone Targets Based On Bad Data: 'Death By Unreliable Metadata'

from the but-it's-just-metadata dept

Late last night, the new publication from Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill launched. It's called The Intercept, and I imagine that it's going to be a must-follow for a variety of reasons. Its first major article digs deep into the NSA's role in killing people with drones (often innocent people) based on questionable metadata. Remember how NSA defenders kept insisting that "it's just metadata" as if that was no big deal? Well, what about when that metadata is being used to kill people?

Just last week, we wrote about Rep. Mike Rogers complaining about new "red tape" that was making it more difficult to indiscriminately kill people with drones. That "red tape" is actually just a new set of guidelines designed to try to prevent more killing of innocent people with drones. This new report highlights how the US government's infatuation with drones, combined with the NSA's obsessive collection of metadata, means that drones are frequently used to kill people based on very little evidence that the people being killed are actually terrorist threats.

One noteworthy point about this article: it relies on two new sources, one named, one kept secret, backed up by Snowden documents. That is, it appears that at least one other source (in this case, a recent member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting task force -- the group that's in charge of figuring out who to capture and kill) has come forward to Greenwald and others, calling foul on what the US government is doing. This person was privy to how targets are selected, and it's pretty scary how little info they're going on. The fact that the NSA was heavily involved in picking targets was revealed a while back, but this person explains how much those choosing targets rely on bad metadata from the NSA to kill people -- often revealed later to be totally innocent.

In one tactic, the NSA “geolocates” the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist’s mobile phone, enabling the CIA and U.S. military to conduct night raids and drone strikes to kill or capture the individual in possession of the device.

The former JSOC drone operator is adamant that the technology has been responsible for taking out terrorists and networks of people facilitating improvised explosive device attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But he also states that innocent people have “absolutely” been killed as a result of the NSA’s increasing reliance on the surveillance tactic.

One problem, he explains, is that targets are increasingly aware of the NSA’s reliance on geolocating, and have moved to thwart the tactic. Some have as many as 16 different SIM cards associated with their identity within the High Value Target system. Others, unaware that their mobile phone is being targeted, lend their phone, with the SIM card in it, to friends, children, spouses and family members.

Some top Taliban leaders, knowing of the NSA’s targeting method, have purposely and randomly distributed SIM cards among their units in order to elude their trackers. “They would do things like go to meetings, take all their SIM cards out, put them in a bag, mix them up, and everybody gets a different SIM card when they leave,” the former drone operator says. “That’s how they confuse us.”

The guy also points out that the metadata is often somewhat questionable in itself:

What’s more, he adds, the NSA often locates drone targets by analyzing the activity of a SIM card, rather than the actual content of the calls. Based on his experience, he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata.

“People get hung up that there’s a targeted list of people,” he says. “It’s really like we’re targeting a cell phone. We’re not going after people – we’re going after their phones, in the hopes that the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy.”

You would think that someone like Rep. Rogers would be happy that we were trying to improve our targeting and to stop killing innocent people, but apparently making sure the people we target are actually guilty is just too much "red tape." But it hasn't stopped these killings. The source in the article notes that the "overwhelming majority" of the strikes they're doing these days are based almost entirely on the NSA's signals intelligence.

The report also reveals that the NSA has a program in which the drone itself has what's basically its own phone cell attached to the drone, in order to better target a particular phone (note: not person, but phone) when dropping a bomb. The report also reveals another program, this one from the CIA, called SHENANIGANS (really), that maps out WiFi networks from the sky and tries to suck up any data it can. When this program was used in Yemen, the mission was called (again, no joke) VICTORYDANCE.

There's a lot more in the article, which is well worth reading. It's good to see more sources who are uncomfortable with what the NSA, CIA and others are doing getting in touch with Greenwald and others. It's also worth noting that this guy claims he tried to raise these issues through the "proper channels" and was rebuffed.

Filed Under: cia, drones, glenn greenwald, jsoc, metadata, nsa, targeting, the intercept

Rep. Mike Rogers Angry That 'Red Tape' Is Preventing More Drone Bombings Of Innocent People

from the how-is-this-man-in-power? dept

It appears that Rep. Mike Rogers -- beyond his crazy conspiracy theories that the US should prosecute journalists and that Ed Snowden must be a Russian spy -- is also so supportive of his buddies in the intelligence community that he's upset that they have to actually be careful to try to not indiscriminately kill innocent civilians with drones. As you may recall, last year, President Obama put in place some (fairly weak) guidelines for how drones could be used -- guidelines that the intelligence community has been resisting, because they had "acquired a taste" for killing people with drones. Prior to that, there were basically no rules at all, and they were used in very questionable circumstances.

All of this has apparently infuriated Rogers, who is insisting that by having some basic guidelines on how drones are used means that we're all going to die. It's a typical insane war-mongerer's cry: if you don't give me and my friends total power, then you will be less safe. And Rogers plays the stereotypical role exactly:

“The President’s May 2013 policy changes for U.S. targeted strikes are an utter and complete failure and they leave Americans’ lives at risk,” Rogers said at the outset of a hearing on global threats to U.S. security.

“Individuals who would have previously been removed from the battlefield by U.S. counterterrorism operations for attacking or plotting against U.S. interests remain free because of self-imposed red tape. While we are busy pondering more ‘transparency,’ our intelligence professionals are left paralyzed because of totally incoherent policy guidance,” the Michigan Republican added.

Rogers also complained about President Obama's speeches on the matter, in which he dared to suggest that the US should only use drones when there was "near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set." According to Rogers, that position -- of trying to not kill innocent civilians -- is just "political expediency."

“That is not leadership,” Rogers declared. “We are in a fight, and our policy should be dictated by what best protects America, and not what is politically expedient.”

Of course, even with the new policies in place, there's been plenty of coverage of the fact that a US drone strike took out a wedding party in Yemen -- so apparently the "red tape" didn't stop that sort of indiscriminate killing of innocent people.

Frankly, it's kind of scary that someone in power -- especially the guy who's supposed to be in charge of oversight for the intelligence community -- appears to be spitting mad that the people he's supposed to keep in line have to actually justify extrajudicial killing of people via drones.

Of course, this is the same guy who claims that if you don't know your privacy is being violated, then it isn't being violated -- so by extension, I guess we can assume that if you don't know you were killed indiscriminately by a drone, it doesn't count. Right?

Filed Under: barack obama, cia, drone policies, drones, mike rogers, red tape, war monger

Homeland Security Redacts Drone Info It Already Released Publicly In Report To Congress

from the oops dept

We've noted multiple times in the past that the process by which the federal government redacts documents it's declassifying and/or releasing publicly is quite arbitrary, and when the same document is released multiple times, the redactions can be totally different. However, the latest screw up along those lines is quite incredible. Last summer, Homeland Security's Customs and Border Patrol sent EFF a bunch of records in response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit concerning CBP's use of drones (CBP later "found" additional records it had neglected to pass along).

Those documents were certainly interesting, but perhaps more interesting (and troubling) is that last fall, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) in Congress had asked DHS for similar information, including "all mission logs related to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's (CBP) drone program from 2010 to 2013." DHS eventually handed over that information, including many of the same documents it released to the EFF, which were shared publicly. Except... the documents it gave to Congress had many more redactions than the ones they released to EFF.

Senator Tom Coburn's staff noticed this, and thought it was, well, rather odd, that DHS seems to think that the public can handle the information, while the relevant oversight committee in Congress cannot. Coburn has now sent a letter asking about the differences:

DHS insisted these documents were so sensitive they could not be produced without explicit promises they would be handled with utmost care, and reviewed only by Committee staff. The Department further requested the Committee promise not to release any document without receiving permission from DHS, and to return or destroy all documents when they had been reviewed. The Committee declined to oblige this virtually unprecedented request.

The documents DHS produced are extensively redacted. DHS claims it redacted information relating to activities by other agencies. The release of that information to Congress, it stated, is "under review," presumably with the other agencies.

My staff has reviewed the logs DHS produced for calendar year 2010. From this limited review, it appears that DHS has redacted information in the documents it provided to the Committee that is not redacted in the same documents DOJ released publicly.

For 2010 alone, my staff has tallied at least 20 instances in which the publicly-released documents appear to contain legible passages which are redacted entirely or in large part from the documents DHS provided the Committee. In other words, DHS appears to have chosen to withhold information from Congress which the DOJ -- and, we must assume, DHS -- has determined was appropriate to share with the American public. I have attached examples to this letter for your review.

Also of concern is the apparent lack of coordination between DHS and outside agencies, particularly the Department of Justice. DHS stated to the Committee that the passages it redacted were "pending review" with an outside agency. However, a comparison of the redacted passages with the publicly-released documents reveals that several of those passages relate to support for DOJ components, including the FBI. If the DOJ compels public release of documents detailing activities on behalf of its own component, and the documents are subsequently released to the public, it is not clear why DHS would later withhold the same information from Congress in order to consult with DOJ.

Oh, also, Coburn's staff noticed that some of the documents included don't appear to have been given to EFF at all, raising a separate question: that even among the newly found documents that DHS is still withholding pertinent information.

Of secondary concern but still significant, my staff noted several instances in which information that was provided to Congress does not seem to appear, even in redacted form, in the public documents released to the public interest group, suggesting that information may have been withheld in full from the organization without explanation or accounting.

Not surprisingly, Coburn is... not pleased with DHS over this.

The Department's conduct in this matter has impacted the Committee's ability to conduct its Constitutional responsibilities to oversee DHS operations. It has delayed access to relevant documents, and what it has provided falls short of what it is required to share with anyone, let alone in response to a Congressional request.

For over a year, this Committee has pressed the Department for more information regarding its unmanned aerial vehicle operations. These improperly redacted documents raise even more questions. If these vehicles are being operated in accordance with U.S. laws and in support of the Department's statutory mission, the lawfulness and efficacy of their operations should be easily demonstrable. This exercise may be said to demonstrate many things, but it does not demonstrate efficiency or transparency. Congress and the American people have a right to expect more from a Department which asks to be trusted with powerful tools and great authorities.

After all this, Coburn orders DHS to hand over "a full, unredacted set of the documents" as soon as possible.

Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dhs, drones, homeland security, redactions, tom coburn
Companies: eff

The Corruption Of Power: President Obama Trusts Himself Not To Abuse NSA Info

from the it's-always-the-other-guy dept

We've pointed out in the past that President Obama's views on the surveillance state shifted completely from when he was Senator to when he was President. As Senator, he supported a bunch of reforms that are very much like the ones his panel have suggested -- and which he's about to ignore. The NY Times has a long article talking about President Obama's path from an NSA critic to a supporter, and this is the key line, delivered by a nameless "former aide:"

...he trusts himself to use these powers more than he did the Bush administration.

This is not the first time we've seen this attitude of "I'm trustworthy, so it's okay" from President Obama. Remember, back during the last election, President Obama instructed his staff to come up with explicit rules concerning the use of killer drones -- rules that the military under Obama did not have -- because he was worried how a President like Romney might use the program. Of course, once it became clear that Obama would win re-election, those plans to create rules were put on the shelf.

This is the corruption of power. It's a belief that we don't need explicit rules and protections because "I'm trustworthy and I won't abuse this stuff." But just about everyone thinks of themselves as trustworthy -- and then an extreme situation comes up... and they abuse that trust just a little bit, because they can, and, hey, they're trustworthy. And then they abuse it some more. And some more. Or, the next guy abuses it. And the next guy abuses it some more, because there's a precedent set. If you're really trustworthy on issues like this, then you would have an even stronger support for the rules, because you know you'll never abuse them. It's actually only if you're in power and you're not trustworthy that you fear such rules.

The Times coverage also suggests, as President Obama himself has, that the other big difference is that once he was in power, he "better understood the threats," as well as how these programs protected us. But that position is undermined by much of the rest of the article, which suggests that the reality is that, once in power, President Obama just didn't care any more:

Feeling little pressure to curb the security agencies, Mr. Obama largely left them alone until Mr. Snowden began disclosing secret programs last year. Mr. Obama was angry at the revelations, privately excoriating Mr. Snowden as a self-important narcissist who had not thought through the consequences of his actions.

He was surprised at the uproar that ensued, advisers said, particularly that so many Americans did not trust him, much less trust the oversight provided by the intelligence court and Congress. As more secrets spilled out, though, aides said even Mr. Obama was chagrined. They said he was exercised to learn that the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was being tapped.

This fits with earlier claims we've heard about how President Obama keeps finding out about what the NSA is doing from the Snowden leaks, and then having to go ask the NSA what's really going on. The idea that the President didn't know that the NSA was tracking the phone of the leader of one of our largest allies suggests a complete disinterest and hands off approach to the surveillance state -- which is another recipe for allowing widespread abuses.

Similarly, as we were among the first to point out, the FISC ruling that noted the NSA had abused section 215 of the PATRIOT Act for years, came just weeks after President Obama took power. He claims that as he studied the programs, he found that they were important and vital and weren't being abused. Yet, just weeks after he became President the court in charge of oversight found exactly the opposite. You'd think that if he were actually concerned about the surveillance state, he would have taken an interest. But he didn't:

But when Mr. Obama was briefed, the case did not stir consternation. The president’s team instructed the Justice Department to fix the problem, but “this was not a central concern and he was very quick in knowing how to deal with it,” said a former administration official.

Because even if the program wasn't in line, it's okay, because, hey, the Preisdent is a "trustworthy guy." And that's exactly how you end up with an abused and overreaching surveillance state. I'm sure that the President believes he is a trustworthy guy. And there's plenty of truth to that old line that "we judge ourselves by our intentions, and others by their actions." He may have the best of intentions, but when you're in charge of the most powerful government in the world, being a "trustworthy guy" doesn't cut it. The corruption of power is too clear and too easy. There needs to be real and significant controls, and not just because you think you won't abuse the system -- or because the guys before or after you might. There need to be real and serious controls because the natural direction of a surveillance state is to abuse civil liberties, whether intended or not.

The president's statements when he was a Senator may have just been political posturing. But now he's President and all he's done has shown that he doesn't understand how a true leader handles such situations. Instead, he's succumbed to the corruption of power.

Filed Under: barack obama, corruption, drones, nsa, power, surveillance

Sen. Feinstein Comes Face To Face With A 'Drone,' Fails To Learn Anything From The Experience

from the 'the-drone,-laden-with-its-payload-of-irony...' dept

Tireless NSA defender Dianne Feinstein apparently had a scary run-in with surveillance technology. Oddly, it bothered her.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein says she once found a drone peeking into the window of her home — the kind of cautionary tale she wants lawmakers to consider as they look at allowing commercial drone use.

The California Democrat offered few details about the incident when speaking about it Wednesday afternoon, during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on drone policy at which she appeared as a special witness. But she used the episode to implore lawmakers to “proceed with caution.”

To be fair, the "drone" (explanation on the scare quotes in a moment) was hovering "inches from her face," right outside her window. To be even more fair, Feinstein likes her surveillance bulk and untargeted, not hovering outside her house. She's pushed for CBP drones to be used only within three miles of the border in California, so it can be said she's no friend of drone surveillance.

Feinstein didn't elaborate on the event during her statement, withholding details on when (recently/several months ago) and where (DC/California) it happened. If she had elaborated, it probably would have undercut the "scariness" of the drone invasion.

The Wire talked to Feinstein spokesman Brian Weiss, who offered some helpful background details.

The Wire spoke by phone with Feinstein's spokesman Brian Weiss, who confirmed that the incident happened at the senator's house in San Francisco several months ago. At about the time, it seems, that Code Pink showed up to protest Feinstein's support for the NSA.

On June 15, the anti-war group held a protest focused on Feinstein, which included activists in disguises and, yes, two remote-controlled helicopters, which might creatively be described as drones.

Here's some video documentation:


Yes, Feinstein's privacy was "invaded" by a tiny pink helicopter roughly the size of a crow that carried no camera. As for her claim that she "startled" the drone causing it to spin around and crash? Well, without a camera, it's pretty hard to "startle" the operator.

For a staunch defender of US surveillance programs to become perturbed at the new face of surveillance technology (even if this particular one didn't have a face, so to speak, or at least couldn't "see") is a bit rich. Sure, Feinstein is working hard to craft regulatory legislation to govern drone usage, but she seems to be more concerned with commercial drone use than government drone use. She has stepped up to keep the CBP from flying theirs all over California, but her scary story of flying eyes was delivered in support of legislation governing commercial drone use. So, even in this case, Feinstein remains more a government surveillance lapdog than a privacy defender. This issue just happens to intersect at a junction privacy activists have been known to frequent.

Too many eyes in the skies -- ones that can fly for hours and provide the sort of long-term surveillance piloted vehicles can't -- is a problem for everyone. This time, it happened to Dianne Feinstein. Unfortunately, the experience failed to impart any understanding as to why the public might be perturbed by the NSA's unguided, untargeted and mostly un-overseen bulk collections programs. Surveillance is surveillance, whether its outside your window or hoovered up from overseas cables, phone records and dozens of other programs operating in complete darkness.

The camera right outside your window is a subjective issue. The many eyes with the access and capabilities to peer into the lives of millions of people seems rather abstract compared to a one-on-one confrontation. But the dangers posed by both are equally real.

Filed Under: code pink, commercial drones, dianne feinstein, drones, privacy, protests, surveillance

CBP 'Discovers' An Additional 200 Drone Flights It Didn't Originally Include In Its FOIA Response

from the it's-amazing-what-a-little-legal-battle-can-do-for-responsiveness dept

The EFF is still uncovering more usage of CBP (Customs and Border Protection) drones by other agencies and far away from what anyone would consider to be the "border." The CBP apparently "forgot" to list several other flights on the tally sheet forced out of its hands by the EFF's FOIA lawsuit.

Customs & Border Protection recently “discovered” additional daily flight logs that show the agency has flown its drones on behalf of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies on 200 more occasions more than previously released records indicated.

Last July we reported, based on daily flight log records CBP made available to us in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, that CBP logged an eight-fold increase in the drone surveillance it conducts for other agencies. These agencies included a diverse group of local, state, and federal law enforcement—ranging from the FBI, ICE, the US Marshals, and the Coast Guard to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the North Dakota Army National Guard, and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The new data brings the number of flights up from 500 to 700 over a two-year period and adds several new names to the list of patrons of the CBP's drone lending library. Unfortunately, lawsuit or not, the CBP still refuses to release the names of some of the law enforcement agencies which have borrowed its drones, claiming (of course) that doing so would "jeopardize ongoing investigations." In some cases, this may be true, but as the EFF points out, there are others where naming names wouldn't do much to narrow down when and where the drones were used.

[A]s we pointed out in our summary judgment brief, disclosing that CBP was working with, for example, the Pima County, Ariz. Sheriff’s Department would not be specific enough to affect any particular criminal operation. It would hardly be surprising that CBP was working with Pima County because it shares a border with Mexico. It is also—at 9,200 square miles—one of the larger counties in Arizona and has one of the highest crime rates of any county in the country—a rate of 4,983 crimes per 100,000 people. Given the large geographic size of and crime rate in this county and others like it, it is hard to imagine that releasing information about which county sheriff’s department CBP is working with would enable suspected criminals in the area to link CBP’s drone surveillance to their particular criminal activity.

Not only is the usage more widespread than previously indicated by the CBP's first response, but the use of sophisticated technology meant for war zones has been deployed along our borders as well as potentially far inland. The EFF notes that the VADER surveillance system, which was developed for use in the war in Afghanistan and can detect the presence of people from 25,000 feet in the air, has been in use by the CBP since 2011 and has been used by 30 other agencies since that point.

Equally as troubling, considering the growing number of agencies using the CBP's drones, is the fact that data and info gathered is likely being held onto indefinitely.

CBP states in its PIA [Privacy Impact Assessment] that it stores data unassociated with a particular investigation for no more than 30 days, but much, if not most of this data will be associated with an investigation and may therefore be stored indefinitely—even if it includes footage of property, vehicles and people unassociated with the investigation.

As we've covered before, many law enforcement agencies are deploying drones and other surveillance technology well ahead of crafting usage guidelines and privacy considerations. Borrowing a drone indicates the agency likely doesn't already have one -- which also indicates it doesn't have anything in place to govern its use or disposal of unneeded or incidental data. Anything deemed potentially relevant will be kept and agencies -- especially those without rules on the books about drone usage -- are under no self-imposed obligation to rid themselves of incidental data.

The EFF has released an updated compilation of CBP drone flights based on the CBP's "discoveries" with the new information helpfully highlighted, including the addition of a mysterious entity designated only as "Local PD Officer." The CBP's inability to include all "responsive" info in its first release (back in July of last year) means this new data dump probably isn't complete either. Refusing to release names of the law enforcement agencies taking advantage of the CBP's seemingly indiscriminate loaning program does nothing to prevent future abuse by providing cover for agencies without surveillance guidelines or controls in place.

Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dhs, drones, foia, law enforcement

CIA Still Trying To Block Release Of Senate's $40 Million 'Devastating' Report About CIA's Torture Program

from the it's-going-to-come-out-eventually dept

Back in October, we wrote about how the Senate Intelligence committee was sitting on an apparently devastating report about the CIA's torture program. The report apparently cost an astounding $40 million to put together (I still have trouble understanding how this is even possible...), but the CIA was fighting against ever having it released, arguing that it was inaccurate and painted them in an unfairly bad light. The report is so devastating that even Senator Dianne Feinstein, long seen as the intelligence community's leading apologist, has been at the forefront of arguing for its release.

Foreign Policy magazine is now reporting that, even as the CIA continues to fight against it, some sort of deal has been reached to release at least part of the report.

On Thursday night, Feinstein said the CIA and the Obama administration have agreed that portions of her committee's exhaustive, 6,000-page report should be shared with the public. News of the agreement follows an intense struggle between the CIA and lawmakers that will likely shape how history views one of the most controversial periods in the post-9/11 era, when the CIA used tactics that President Obama and others have condemned as torture in an attempt to elicit information about terrorism.

At a hearing concerning the nomination of Caroline Krass to become the next general counsel for the CIA, Senator Mark Udall demanded that the document be made public, and threatened to block the nomination until the document was released. Senator Feinstein also quizzed Krass about getting access to related documents, concerning the CIA's legal rationale for its torture program and drone strikes -- only to have Krass refuse to commit to providing those documents. According to the Reuters report Krass told the committee she "did not believe members of the Senate panel had the right to see" those documents.

While so much of the focus concerning the intelligence community has been on the NSA these past few months, there is a growing amount of evidence that the CIA is also completely out of control, and views itself as being beyond basic Congressional oversight. It is a reminder that reforms for fixing the intelligence community cannot and should not focus merely on correcting this program or that program, but on a true and comprehensive overhaul of the entire system.

And it should start with releasing this 6,300 page report that American taxpayers paid $40 million to produce.

Filed Under: caroline kass, cia, dianne feinstein, drones, mark udall, torture

Suitcase-Sized Drones Extend And Deepen OpenStreetMap's Coverage

from the up,-up,-and-away dept

An increasing number of online services use location information. This places suppliers like Google, with its Google Maps, in a strong position, since creating such geodata for entire countries -- or the world -- is something that can only be undertaken by large, well-funded companies. At least, that was true in the past, but increasingly the free, crowd-sourced alternative, OpenStreetMap, is gaining both contributors and commercial users:

Created by Steve Coast in the UK in 2004, it was inspired by the success of Wikipedia and preponderance of proprietary map data in the UK and elsewhere. Since then, it has grown to over 1 million registered users, who can collect data using GPS devices, aerial photography, and other free sources. These crowdsourced data are then made available under the Open Database License. The site is supported by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, a non-profit organization registered in England.

Rather than the map itself, the data generated by the OpenStreetMap project are considered its primary output. These data are then available for use in both traditional applications, like their usage by Craigslist, Geocaching, MapQuest Open, JMP statistical software, and Foursquare to replace Google Maps, and more unusual roles, like replacing default data included with GPS receivers. These data have been favorably compared with proprietary datasources, though data quality varies worldwide.

As the Wikipedia article quoted above goes on to note, many of the earliest contributors to OpenStreetMap were cyclists, who were keen to chart cycle-routes and navigable trails. Charting remote areas that don't have navigable trails is much harder, which is one reason why the data quality around the world is variable. Low-cost drones seem to have great potential in this area, as this post on MapBox explains:

Last weekend we captured 100 acres of aerial imagery at 4cm [1.6"] resolution. It took less than an hour to fly, and it was easy to publish the imagery on the web using TileMill and then trace in OpenStreetMap. Autonomous flying platforms like Sensefly's eBee paired up with a nimble software stack are changing aerial mapping. Drones like the eBee can cheaply and accurately photograph medium-sized areas, and then the imagery can be made immediately available to everyone.

eBee is a drone specifically designed for aerial photography, with the added benefit that it fits in a suitcase and can be launched by hand. It's easy to imagine even smaller, cheaper and more accurate models appearing in the future, which will allow OpenStreetMap to broaden and refine its coverage yet further. Combined with its zero price, that is likely to make OpenStreetMap's data even more attractive both to existing services and to startups looking to launch new ones based around location.

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Filed Under: drones, maps, openness
Companies: openstreetmap