FBI: We Use Drones to Monitor Targets in the US

On Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the agency was already using drones to monitor specific targets inside the United States. “Our footprint is very small,” Mueller said. “We have very few and have limited use.” Mueller said that the FBI was only in the initial stages of developing privacy guidelines – an uncomforting assertion as the United States undergoes heavy debate over the nature of privacy invasions from the National Security Agency.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has been staunchly in favor of NSA snooping, said that drones were extremely problematic in her view. Mueller responded, “It is very narrowly focused on particularized needs in particularized cases, and that is the principle of privacy limitations we have.”