And the envelope, please... the FAA finally released the names of the government agencies which have applied for and received authorization to fly drones in the US. Previously, the FAA had kept this information secret, and the agency only released it in response to EFF’s lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act.
Unfortunately, the list did not include what types of drones were authorized to fly in U.S. airspace, what they were being used for, and what type of information they were collecting. The list may be incomplete as well. The FAA has promised to release more information soon, and EFF will publish that information as soon as it becomes available.
Meanwhile, concerning the secrecy surrounding the CIA’s drone program, ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer and Nathan Freed Wessler wrote an op-ed for the New York Times last week explaining how the CIA was abusing a doctrine in FOIA known as the “Glomar Response” which allows the government, in some situations, to refuse to confirm or deny a document or program exists. In the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit over the CIA’s drone program, the government has, so far, refused to acknowledge that the program exists.
The Justice Department has repeatedly asked for more time to respond to the lawsuit, despite the judge writing a few weeks ago, “If government officials can give speeches about this matter without creating security problems, any involved agencies can.”
- KBOO