By Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 13th, 2013
The corporate press has gotten a lot of mileage out of its argument that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has been fighting a lonely battle in Congress with his recent multi-hour filibuster, in which the Kentucky lawmaker demanded to know whether the Obama Administration might use a drone flying in domestic airspace to kill U.S. citizens without trial.
But that’s not quite the whole story. Last week, Congress also insisted that the Pentagon explain how it deals with the scores of surveillance data gathered by its domestic drones – technically referred to as ‘unmanned aerial vehicles operating in domestic airspace’.
One provision in the U.S. House’s recently-approved 2013 continuing appropriations conference bill stated:
“The conferees are aware of concerns that have been raised regarding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and their sensors in domestic airspace. The conferees understand that the Air Force has policies and procedures in place governing the disposition of UAV collections that may inadvertently capture matters of concern to law enforcement agencies. These policies and procedures are designed to ensure constitutional protections and proper separation between the military and law enforcement.
“However, it is unclear if other Services and Defense agencies have similar policies and procedures in place, or if these policies and procedures need to be revised or standardized.
“Therefore, the conferees direct the Secretary of Defense to report to the congressional defense committees on the policies and procedures in place across the Services and Defense agencies governing the use of such collections and to identify any additional steps that need to be taken to ensure that such policies and procedures are adequate and consistent across the Department of Defense.
“This report shall be submitted not later than 90 days after the enactment of this Act.”
Last week, Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) also introduced a bill “to protect individual privacy against unwarranted governmental intrusion through the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles commonly called drones.”
So in fact a number of Congresspeople are working to wrest answers from an administration that appears to love power and secrecy as much as its predecessor. The corporate media just isn’t talking about it much.
