{"id":43712,"date":"2013-06-20T13:37:56","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T12:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/fbi-director-acknowledges-use-of-surveillance-drones-in-the-us-2\/43712\/"},"modified":"2013-06-20T13:37:56","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T12:37:56","slug":"fbi-director-acknowledges-use-of-surveillance-drones-in-the-us-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/fbi-director-acknowledges-use-of-surveillance-drones-in-the-us-2\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI director acknowledges use of Surveillance Drones in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged in Congressional testimony on Wednesday that his agency has used aerial drones for surveillance purposes within the United States. The revelation came in the midst of more efforts to justify the Obama administration\u2019s unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs under the banner of the \u201cwar on terror.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Though the government has previously admitted to using drones along the US-Mexico border and in isolated instances, Mueller\u2019s admission was the first time the FBI publicly acknowledged that it uses remotely piloted aircraft. The disclosure may well have been made in order to pre-empt whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has threatened to make public further details about the government\u2019s widespread surveillance programs.<\/p>\n

During Mueller\u2019s testimony, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley asked, \u201cDoes the FBI own or currently use drones and if so for what purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and for surveillance,\u201d Mueller replied<\/p>\n

\u201c[Drones are] very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident when you need the capability,\u201d Mueller claimed in an attempt to downplay the significance of the revelation. Mueller gave no indication as to what these \u201cparticular incident(s)\u201d were.<\/p>\n

In the course of his testimony, Mueller repeated claims made by the Obama administration and intelligence officials over the past several days aimed at defending the unconstitutional and secret spying programs revealed by Snowden.<\/p>\n

Obama himself, speaking in Germany yesterday, repeated talking points delivered by NSA Director Keith Alexander earlier this week. \u201cThis is not a situation in which we are rifling through the ordinary emails of German citizens or American citizens or French citizens or anybody else,\u201d Obama claimed. \u201cThis is not a situation where we simply go into the internet and start searching any way that we want. This is a circumscribed, narrow system, directed at us being able to protect our people and all of it is done with the oversight of the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are simply lies. What Obama calls a \u201ccircumscribed, narrow system\u201d involves the collection of phone records of hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the world, along with a system that sucks up billions of Internet communications on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s statements have been directly contradicted by Snowden, as well as fellow NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake, William Binney, and J. Kirk Wiebe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no probable cause,\u201d Drake told the USA Today<\/em> in an interview published last weekend, referring to justifications given by the government to access the content of communications. \u201cThere is no indication of any kind of counterterrorism investigation or operation. It\u2019s simply: \u2018give us the data.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In an effort to justify the programs, Obama and the political establishment as a whole have brought out the standard \u201cwar on terror\u201d arguments used for every war and violation of democratic rights over the past decade. On Wednesday, Obama repeated claims that the surveillance programs have prevented over fifty \u201cpotential terrorist events\u201d since September 11.<\/p>\n

The counter-offensive of the Obama administration is aimed both at undermining widespread opposition to the spying programs, as well as creating the rational for the arrest, prosecution or assassination of Snowden for \u201caiding the enemy\u201d by leaking information to the American people.<\/p>\n

For the US government, the Constitution and Bill of Rights\u2013including the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures\u2013are treated as suggestions, useful perhaps under some circumstances, but which can be violated whenever it is deemed necessary by the state. Speaking yesterday in Germany, Obama claimed that \u201clives have been saved\u201d and that the administration has \u201cstruck the appropriate balance\u201d between security and privacy.<\/p>\n

The rights guaranteed in the Constitution are not, however, suggestions. The \u201cstate of exception\u201d and \u201cbalancing\u201d arguments of government officials amount to declaration that the Constitution itself is invalid.<\/p>\n

Even if one were to accept that the spying programs had \u201cthwarted 50 attacks,\u201d this would not justify the violation of democratic rights. However, all discussion on how best to strike the \u201cappropriate balance\u201d between \u201csecurity\u201d and \u201cliberty\u201d is predicated on a basic lie: that the \u201cwar on terror\u201d places the American and international public under the constant threat of attack, and that this threat must be countered by setting the foundations of a police state. Such arguments are the hallmark of every authoritarian regime, from Nazi Germany to Pinochet\u2019s Chile.<\/p>\n

In fact, the various supposed plots cited by Alexander, Obama and others are described in the vaguest possible terms\u2013post facto justifications for a policy implemented for entirely different reasons.<\/p>\n

Moreover, many of the alleged terrorist plots over the past decade\u2013both thwarted and otherwise\u2013had involved individuals who were under close surveillance by the state prior to carrying out attempted attacks. Serious questions remain as to the connections between the security apparatus and the likes of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 9\/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, and suspected Danish newspaper plotter David Headley.<\/p>\n

It must be noted as well that the right-wing Islamic groups that that have committed terrorist attacks are the product of decades of US imperialist campaigns in the Middle East and Central Asia. More often than not, the American military has utilized the services of such organizations for their own purposes\u2013as was the case in Afghanistan in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Claims that the US government is \u201cfighting terrorism\u201d are all the more absurd considering the Obama administration\u2019s recent decision to arm the Syrian opposition, which is spearheaded by Al-Qaida affiliated groups.<\/p>\n

The testimony this week, along with Obama\u2019s remarks in Berlin, are part of an intensifying campaign by the entire political establishment and the media, aimed at defending what is an unprecedented assault on the democratic rights of the population of the United States and the entire world.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on: Global Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged in Congressional testimony on Wednesday that his agency has used aerial drones for surveillance purposes within the United States. The revelation came in the midst of more efforts to justify the Obama administration\u2019s unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs under the banner of the \u201cwar on terror.\u201d Though the government has previously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}