Rand Paul has recently proposed Senate Bill (S-3287) that is supposed to “protect Americans from drone surveillance.” It is titled the “Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act,” and is to require the government to get a warrant before using aerial drones to surveil U.S. citizens.
According to an article in The Hill: “Like other tools used to collect information in law enforcement, in order to use drones a warrant needs to be issued,” Paul said Tuesday. “Americans going about their everyday lives should not be treated like criminals or terrorists and have their rights infringed upon by military tactics.”
There are several areas of concern in this bill, a bill that reeks of political grandstanding. It does not legitimately protect the citizen from the state surveillance apparatus, and only addresses one particular form of unwarranted spying. I thought the Fourth Amendment was already in place to take care of not only these matters, but all unwarranted state spying activity.
While the government’s future plans for drones are scarier than imaginable, that is only one of many spying techniques used by the federal government today. Due to the horrible U.S. PATRIOT Act, the National Security Administration, (NSA) the Department of Homeland Security, (DHS) and the rest of government, virtually everything in this country is tracked, monitored, captured, and data-based. Our phone conversations, our emails, our social site activity, our Internet searches, etc. are all looked at without warrant.
In Paul’s bill, a warrant would be required for drone use except for all patrolling of national borders, when drones are needed to prevent “imminent danger to life,” or when there are risks of a terrorist attack. Think about this for a moment, and you should understand how broad this language really is, and how it can be abused.
Apparently Rand Paul is attempting to partially, very partially, restrict some drone use to protect the privacy of Americans, while allowing all the other warrantless attacks on our privacy to continue. Is he doing this because drone use has angered a lot of people, and is now in the news, or is he posturing to gain a favorable position with certain groups? Is his attempt genuine, or is it strictly political? Why is this bill needed when the Fourth Amendment to the constitution is already in place?
If his attempts are genuine, then he is ignorant of the real problems that exist, and if not, then this is just another political maneuver. Either way, it is a worthless effort, and deserves little praise!