FBI Flies Secret Surveillance Planes Over U.S. Cities Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan, Eric Tucker /​AP

The federal agency said the aircrafts are used for specific, ongoing investigations

(WASHINGTON) — The FBI is oper­at­ing a small air force with scores of low-fly­ing planes across the coun­try car­ry­ing video and, at times, cell­phone sur­veil­lance tech­nol­o­gy — all hid­den behind fic­ti­tious com­pa­nies that are fronts for the gov­ern­ment, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes’ sur­veil­lance equip­ment is gen­er­al­ly used with­out a judge’s approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for spe­cif­ic, ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions. In a recent 30-day peri­od, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the coun­try, an AP review found.

Aerial sur­veil­lance rep­re­sents a chang­ing fron­tier for law enforce­ment, pro­vid­ing what the gov­ern­ment main­tains is an impor­tant tool in crim­i­nal, ter­ror­ism or intel­li­gence probes. But the pro­gram rais­es ques­tions about whether there should be updat­ed poli­cies pro­tect­ing civ­il lib­er­ties as new tech­nolo­gies pose intru­sive oppor­tu­ni­ties for gov­ern­ment spying.

U.S. law enforce­ment offi­cials con­firmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the air­craft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake com­pa­nies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Even basic aspects of the pro­gram are with­held from the pub­lic in cen­sored ver­sions of offi­cial reports from the Justice Department’s inspec­tor general.

The FBI’s avi­a­tion pro­gram is not secret,” spokesman Christopher Allen said in a state­ment. “Specific air­craft and their capa­bil­i­ties are pro­tect­ed for oper­a­tional secu­ri­ty pur­pos­es.” Allen added that the FBI’s planes “are not equipped, designed or used for bulk col­lec­tion activ­i­ties or mass surveillance.”

But the planes can cap­ture video of unre­lat­ed crim­i­nal activ­i­ty on the ground that could be hand­ed over for prosecutions.

Some of the air­craft can also be equipped with tech­nol­o­gy that can iden­ti­fy thou­sands of peo­ple below through the cell­phones they car­ry, even if they’re not mak­ing a call or in pub­lic. Officials said that prac­tice, which mim­ics cell tow­ers and gets phones to reveal basic sub­scriber infor­ma­tion, is rare.

In this photo taken May 26, 2015, a small plane flies near Manassas Regional Airport in Manassas, Va. The plane is among a fleet of surveillance aircraft by the FBI, which are primarily used to target suspects under federal investigation. Such planes are capable of taking video of the ground, and some _ in rare occasions _ can sweep up certain identifying cellphone data. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
In this pho­to tak­en May 26, 2015, a small plane flies near Manassas Regional Airport in Manassas, Va. The plane is among a fleet of sur­veil­lance air­craft by the FBI, which are pri­mar­i­ly used to tar­get sus­pects under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion. Such planes are capa­ble of tak­ing video of the ground, and some _ in rare occa­sions _ can sweep up cer­tain iden­ti­fy­ing cell­phone data. (AP Photo/​Andrew Harnik)

Details con­firmed by the FBI track close­ly with pub­lished reports since at least 2003 that a gov­ern­ment sur­veil­lance pro­gram might be behind sus­pi­cious-look­ing planes slow­ly cir­cling neigh­bor­hoods. The AP traced at least 50 air­craft back to the FBI, and iden­ti­fied more than 100 flights since late April orbit­ing both major cities and rur­al areas.

One of the planes, pho­tographed in flight last week by the AP in north­ern Virginia, bris­tled with unusu­al anten­nas under its fuse­lage and a cam­era on its left side. A fed­er­al bud­get doc­u­ment from 2010 men­tioned at least 115 planes, includ­ing 90 Cessna air­craft, in the FBI’s sur­veil­lance fleet.

The FBI also occa­sion­al­ly helps local police with aer­i­al sup­port, such as dur­ing the recent dis­tur­bance in Baltimore that fol­lowed the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who sus­tained griev­ous injuries while in police cus­tody. Those types of requests are reviewed by senior FBI officials.

The sur­veil­lance flights com­ply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman said. Those rules, which are heav­i­ly redact­ed in pub­licly avail­able doc­u­ments, lim­it the types of equip­ment the agency can use, as well as the jus­ti­fi­ca­tions and dura­tion of the surveillance.

Details about the flights come as the Justice Department seeks to nav­i­gate pri­va­cy con­cerns aris­ing from aer­i­al sur­veil­lance by unmanned air­crafts, or drones. President Barack Obama has said he wel­comes a debate on gov­ern­ment sur­veil­lance, and has called for more trans­paren­cy about spy­ing in the wake of dis­clo­sures about clas­si­fied programs.

These are not your grand­par­ents’ sur­veil­lance air­craft,” said Jay Stanley, a senior pol­i­cy ana­lyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, call­ing the flights sig­nif­i­cant “if the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is main­tain­ing a fleet of air­craft whose pur­pose is to cir­cle over American cities, espe­cial­ly with the tech­nol­o­gy we know can be attached to those aircraft.”

During the past few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI’s fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus the District of Columbia, most with Cessna 182T Skylane air­craft. These includ­ed parts of Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and Southern California.

Evolving tech­nol­o­gy can record high­er-qual­i­ty video from long dis­tances, even at night, and can cap­ture cer­tain iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion from cell­phones using a device known as a “cell-site sim­u­la­tor” — or Stingray, to use one of the product’s brand names. These can trick pin­point­ed cell­phones into reveal­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers of sub­scribers, includ­ing those not sus­pect­ed of a crime.

Officials say cell­phone sur­veil­lance is rare, although the AP found in recent weeks FBI flights orbit­ing large, enclosed build­ings for extend­ed peri­ods where aer­i­al pho­tog­ra­phy would be less effec­tive than elec­tron­ic sig­nals col­lec­tion. Those includ­ed above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

After The Washington Post revealed flights by two planes cir­cling over Baltimore in ear­ly May, the AP began ana­lyz­ing detailed flight data and air­craft-own­er­ship reg­is­tra­tions that shared sim­i­lar address­es and flight pat­terns. That review found some FBI mis­sions cir­cled above at least 40,000 res­i­dents dur­ing a sin­gle flight over Anaheim, California, in late May, accord­ing to Census data and records pro­vid­ed by the web­site FlightRadar24​.com.

Most flight pat­terns occurred in counter-clock­wise orbits up to sev­er­al miles wide and rough­ly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newslet­ter from the com­pa­ny FLIR Systems Inc., which makes cam­era tech­nol­o­gy such as seen on the planes, described fly­ing slow­ly in left-hand­ed patterns.

Aircraft sur­veil­lance has become an indis­pens­able intel­li­gence col­lec­tion and inves­tiga­tive tech­nique which serves as a force mul­ti­pli­er to the ground teams,” the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1 mil­lion for the program.

Recently, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and web­sites have cit­ed com­pa­nies traced to post office box­es in Virginia, includ­ing one shared with the Justice Department. The AP ana­lyzed sim­i­lar data since ear­ly May, while also draw­ing upon air­craft reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments, busi­ness records and inter­views with U.S. offi­cials to under­stand the scope of the operations.

The FBI asked the AP not to dis­close the names of the fake com­pa­nies it uncov­ered, say­ing that would sad­dle tax­pay­ers with the expense of cre­at­ing new cov­er com­pa­nies to shield the government’s involve­ment, and could endan­ger the planes and integri­ty of the sur­veil­lance mis­sions. The AP declined the FBI’s request because the com­pa­nies’ names — as well as com­mon address­es linked to the Justice Department — are list­ed on pub­lic doc­u­ments and in gov­ern­ment databases.

At least 13 front com­pa­nies that AP iden­ti­fied being active­ly used by the FBI are reg­is­tered to post office box­es in Bristow, Virginia, which is near a region­al air­port used for pri­vate and char­ter flights. Only one of them appears in state busi­ness records.

Included on most air­craft reg­is­tra­tions is a mys­te­ri­ous name, Robert Lindley. He is list­ed as chief exec­u­tive and has at least three dis­tinct sig­na­tures among the com­pa­nies. Two doc­u­ments include a sig­na­ture for Robert Taylor, which is strik­ing­ly sim­i­lar to one of Lindley’s three hand­writ­ing patterns.

The FBI would not say whether Lindley is a U.S. gov­ern­ment employ­ee. The AP unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried to reach Lindley at phone num­bers reg­is­tered to peo­ple of the same name in the Washington area since Monday.

Law enforce­ment offi­cials said Justice Department lawyers approved the deci­sion to cre­ate fic­ti­tious com­pa­nies to pro­tect the flights’ oper­a­tional secu­ri­ty and that the Federal Aviation Administration was aware of the prac­tice. One of the Lindley-head­ed com­pa­nies shares a post office box open­ly used by the Justice Department.

Such elu­sive prac­tices have endured for decades. A 1990 report by the then-General Accounting Office not­ed that, in July 1988, the FBI had moved its “head­quar­ters-oper­at­ed” air­craft into a com­pa­ny that wasn’t pub­licly linked to the bureau.

The FBI does not gen­er­al­ly obtain war­rants to record video from its planes of peo­ple mov­ing out­side in the open, but it also said that under a new pol­i­cy it has recent­ly begun obtain­ing court orders to use cell-site sim­u­la­tors. The Obama admin­is­tra­tion had until recent­ly been direct­ing local author­i­ties through secret agree­ments not to reveal their own use of the devices, even encour­ag­ing pros­e­cu­tors to drop cas­es rather than dis­close the technology’s use in open court.

A Justice Department memo last month also express­ly barred its com­po­nent law enforce­ment agen­cies from using unmanned drones “sole­ly for the pur­pose of mon­i­tor­ing activ­i­ties pro­tect­ed by the First Amendment” and said they are to be used only in con­nec­tion with autho­rized inves­ti­ga­tions and activ­i­ties. A depart­ment spokes­woman said the pol­i­cy applied only to unmanned air­craft sys­tems rather than pilot­ed airplanes.

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Associated Press writ­ers Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Joan Lowy and Ted Bridis in Washington; Randall Chase in Wilmington, Delaware; and news researchers Monika Mathur in Washington and Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed