States Step Up Fight Against Drones

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States Step Up Fight Against Drones
AP
Lawmakers in at least 11 states are proposing various restrictions on the use of drones over their skies amid concerns the unmanned aerial vehicles could be exploited by local authorities to spy on Americans.

Concerns mounted after the Federal Aviation Administration began establishing safety standards for civilian drones, which are becoming increasingly affordable and small in size.

Some police agencies have said the drones could be used for surveillance of suspects, search and rescue operations, and gathering details on damage caused by natural disasters.

Virginia lawmakers on Tuesday approved a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by police and government agencies.

Proponents of the legislation say the unfettered use of drones could infringe on Virginians' privacy rights. The legislation was supported by the ACLU, the Tea Party Federation and agriculture groups, while several law enforcement organizations opposed the moratorium.

"Our founders had no conception of things that would fly over them at night and peer into their backyards and send signals back to a home base," said Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico and sponsor of the Senate bill.

In an attempt to address police concerns, legislators carved out exceptions for the use of drones in emergencies, or to search for missing children or seniors.

The General Assembly action came a day after the Charlottesville City Council passed a resolution imposing a two-year moratorium on the use of drones within city limits and urging the General Assembly to pass regulations.

The Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group behind the city's effort, said Charlottesville is the first city in the country to limit the use of drones by police.

In Montana, a libertarian-minded state that doesn't even let police use remote cameras to issue traffic tickets, Democrats and Republicans are banding together to back multiple proposals restricting drone use. They say drones, most often associated with overseas wars, aren't welcome in Big Sky Country.

"I do not think our citizens would want cameras to fly overhead and collect data on our lives," Republican state Sen. Matthew Rosendale told a legislative panel on Tuesday.

Rosendale is sponsoring a measure that would only let law enforcement use drones with a search warrant, and would make it illegal for private citizens to spy on neighbors with drones.

The full Montana Senate endorsed a somewhat broader measure Tuesday that bans information collected by drones from being used in court. It also would bar local and state government ownership of drones equipped with weapons, such as stunning devices.

The ACLU said the states won't be able to stop federal agencies or border agents from using drones. But the Montana ban would not allow local police to use criminal information collected by federal drones that may be handed over in cooperative investigations.

The drones could be wrongly used to hover over someone's property and gather information, opponents said.

"The use of drones across the country has become a great threat to our personal privacy," said ACLU of Montana policy director Niki Zupanic. "The door is wide open for intrusions into our personal private space."

Other state legislatures looking at the issue include California, Oregon, Texas, Nebraska, Missouri, North Dakota, Florida, Virginia, Maine and Oklahoma.

In Texas, State Rep. Lance Gooden, a Republican, introduced 'The Texas Privacy Act,' a bill that would ban the use of drones over private property, according to MyFoxAustin.com.

Gooden said the legislation is necessary because of the growing privacy concerns over the aircraft, which he says are getting smaller and cheaper, according to the report.

"The drones that are coming out today, they're very small. They're cheaper. In four to five years everyone can have these," Gooden told MyFoxAustin.com.

A Missouri House committee looked at a bill Tuesday that would outlaw the use of unmanned aircraft to conduct surveillance on individuals or property, providing an exclusion for police working with a search warrant. It drew support from agricultural groups and civil liberties advocates.

"It's important for us to prevent Missouri from sliding into a police-type state," said Republican Rep. Casey Guernsey of Bethany.

A North Dakota lawmaker introduced a similar bill in January following the 2011 arrest of a Lakota farmer during a 16-hour standoff with police. A drone was used to help a SWAT team apprehend Rodney Brossart.

Its use was upheld by state courts, but the sponsor of the North Dakota bill, Rep. Rick Becker of Bismarck, said safeguards should be put into place to make sure the practice isn't abused.

Last year, Seattle police received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to train people to operate drones for use in investigations, search-and-rescue operations and natural disasters. Residents and the ACLU called on city officials to tightly regulate the information that can be collected by drones, which are not in use yet.

In Alameda County, Calif., the sheriff's office faced backlash late last year after announcing plans to use drones to help find fugitives and assist with search and rescue operations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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White House, Justice officials defend drone program after release of memo
Published February 05, 2013
FoxNews.com

The White House and Justice Department on Tuesday adamantly defended the administration's authority to use unmanned drones to kill terror operatives -- even if those operatives are U.S. citizens -- following the release of a controversial memo on the program.

President Obama's advisers are also trying to tamp down concerns about the targeted killings ahead of the confirmation hearing Thursday for CIA director nominee John Brennan -- the counterterrorism adviser and drone-program supporter who has come under criticism from Democrats.

Pressed repeatedly about the complicated constitutional and legal questions raised by the targeted killing of Americans, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the president takes those issues "very seriously."

But he noted that Al Qaeda is in a "state of war against us," and defended what he described as "targeted strikes against specific Al Qaeda terrorists."

"We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and to save American lives," Carney said. "These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise."

Carney would not describe the legal criteria for ordering those drone strikes.

A Justice Department official, though, told Fox News there are at least three conditions that have to be met in order for a strike to be ordered -- there has to be an "imminent" threat, the target has to have engaged in terrorist activities, and the target has to be unable to be captured.

Separately, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the government is "confident that we're doing so in a way that is consistent with federal and international law."

Under Obama, the U.S. drone program has ramped up dramatically since the George W. Bush administration. It has become one of the most important tools in the administration's counterterrorism campaign -- particularly in Pakistan, but also in the expanding fronts of the war against Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Scrutiny of the program follows a 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed two Americans -- Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. It marked the first time an American citizen was targeted for death by a U.S. president and killed in a drone strike.

On Monday, a bipartisan group of 11 senators wrote a letter to Obama asking for "any and all legal opinions" that describe the basis for the authority to "deliberately kill American citizens."

The questions come in advance of Brennan's confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee. Several of the authors of the drone letter sit on that committee. Obama's nominee for Defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, also had his confirmation hearing last week. The letter Monday made a blunt threat suggesting that withholding information on drones could imperil those nominations.

"The executive branch's cooperation on this matter will help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate's consideration of nominees for national security positions," the senators wrote.

As the letter was released, a Justice Department document surfaced in news reports describing the administration's drone-attack authority.

As first reported Monday night by NBC News, the memo says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior Al Qaeda leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans -- even if there is no intelligence pointing to an active plot against America.

The 16-page document says that delaying action against individuals continually planning to kill Americans would create an unacceptably high risk. It adds that the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its associated forces demands a broader concept of when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat.

It's unclear whether that will satisfy lawmakers' concerns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said in a statement Tuesday that the document was already provided to the committee last year.

"The committee continues to seek the actual legal opinions by the Department of Justice that provide details not outlined in this particular white paper," she said. Feinstein was not among the senators who signed the letter to Obama Monday.

While Awlaki was considered a powerful terror operative for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, he was never charged. In their letter Monday, the senators said they believe there are "circumstances" where a U.S. president can use "lethal force" against Americans who "choose to take up arms" against their country, "just as President Lincoln had the authority to direct Union troops to fire upon Confederate forces during the Civil War."

But they said "it is vitally important" for Congress and the public to understand how the administration interprets the limits on that power. They complained that the administration has ignored prior requests for legal opinions from the Justice Department.

Brennan, a vocal supporter of the drone program and other controversial counterterrorism tools dating back to the George W. Bush administration, is facing a level of criticism from Democrats that no other Obama nominee has encountered. Eight Democrats and three Republicans penned the letter to Obama Monday. One of them, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has previously pressed Brennan on the drone issue.

Another, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said last week he was "deeply disappointed" coming out of a meeting with Brennan. He claimed the White House counterterrorism adviser was "unprepared" to discuss a recent report on the CIA detention and interrogation program.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
   
Jan. 31, 2013: President Obama's choice for new CIA director, John Brennan, walks to a meeting on Capitol Hill.
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