Sen. Chuck Grassley, chief overseer of the surveillance state
This is
what passes for oversight these days by Congress over the surveillance state.
WASHINGTON (AP)—The FBI assured Congress in an unusual, confidential briefing that its plane surveillance program is a by-the-books operation short on high-definition cameras—with some planes equipped with binoculars—and said only five times in five years has it tracked cellphones from the sky.
The FBI would not openly answer some questions about its planes, which routinely orbit major U.S. cities and rural areas. Although the FBI has described the program as unclassified and not secret, it declined to disclose during an unclassified portion of a Capitol Hill briefing any details about how many planes it flies or how much the program costs. In a 2009 budget document, the FBI said it had 115 planes in its fleet.
The briefing Wednesday to Senate staff was the first effort in recent years—if ever—to impose oversight for the FBI's 30-year aerial surveillance program that gives support to specific, ongoing investigations into counterterrorism, espionage and criminal cases and ground surveillance operations. While it withheld some details, it offered assurances that the planes are not intended to perform mass surveillance or bulk intelligence collection. However, there is still no formal oversight regimen for the program.
So, while this program is not classified, the FBI refused to talk about it publicly. The program is not secret, but they would only talk about in a classified briefing, which means those attending cannot talk about what the FBI told them, which is totally not a classified, secret thing. Which the Senate, presumably Intelligence Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) agreed to. That's oversight.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-R) and Dean Heller (R-NV) introduced legislation on Wednesday to require that the FBI obtain warrants for these surveillance flights, which they currently are not required to have. So yes, it's more warrantless surveillance, including of cellphones (rarely, they say). Wyden, in introducing the legislation, said "[t]echnology has made it possible to conduct round-the-clock aerial surveillance. The law needs to keep up." That's an ongoing theme of Wyden's and one that will have to be addressed eventually, probably by the Supreme Court.