In the News

Earlier this year, news reports revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been conducting aerial surveillance missions over many U.S. cities. The reports suggested that some of the aircraft were equipped with devices, such as StingRays and high resolution cameras, which can capture massive amounts of data including images, emails, texts, calls and geolocation.

While technology is clearly a helpful tool in defending our country from criminals and acts of terror, we must ensure innocent Americans’ privacy rights are protected.

Current technology laws are woefully out-of-date. Thirty years ago, lawmakers did not anticipate the complexities of the Internet-age. And that’s why Congress needs to provide clarity today on the legal framework for aerial surveillance.

After seeing recent reports, I wrote to FBI Director James Comey, requesting a briefing from the FBI to determine if Americans’ constitutional rights were being violated by the Bureau’s use of aerial surveillance over major cities, including Seattle.

As requested, the FBI provided a briefing on the topic in July. And I was pleased to learn that it is no longer FBI policy to deploy StingRay technologies without a court-issued warrant.

However, serious questions remain about whether current legal standards and safeguards are adequately protecting ordinary Americans’ privacy and civil liberties when these aircraft are used around the country. The FBI’s aerial resources today are not the same as what was available to the Wright Brothers, as Director Comey suggested in a recent Judiciary Committee hearing. At that hearing, Director Comey told me he does not believe warrants are necessary for the kind of surveillance the FBI performed over cities like Baltimore and Ferguson last year. But the FBI has acknowledged that their aircraft do fly with high-resolution cameras which are able to capture images not visible to the human eye at these altitudes. This sort of mission has new, significant privacy and Fourth Amendment implications that Congress must address.

To bring transparency and accountability to programs such as this, I recently introduced the Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act, the House companion to a bill introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.). Congress must act to clarify the legal structure used to set up these operations and conduct aerial surveillance.

The Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act would require federal agencies, such as the FBI, to obtain a warrant to conduct aerial surveillance within the United States. It would prohibit the government from identifying law-abiding Americans who show up incidentally in surveillance, and it would prohibit unlawfully collected information to be used in court. My bill also includes commonsense exceptions for terrorist threats, border security, surveying public lands and scanning disaster relief areas.

As a member of Congress and the House Judiciary Committee, I will continue working to update our laws to protect Americans’ privacy. Just because technological advances have made it easier for the federal government to collect information doesn’t mean that our privacy rights can or should be violated on the ground or in the air. Congress has an obligation to clear the legal fog by passing my bill to require the federal government to obtain a warrant if it wants to conduct aerial surveillance. It’s the right thing to do.