House orders Pentagon to disclose domestic drone use.

House orders Pentagon to disclose domestic drone use.(CNet).The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to require the Defense Department to disclose whether military drones are being operated domestically to conduct surveillance on American citizens.
  A requirement buried in a lengthy appropriations bill calls on newly confirmed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to disclose to Congress what "policies and procedures" are in place "governing the use" of military drones or other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) domestically. The report is due no later than 90 days after the bill is signed into law.
The vote on the bill, which was overwhelmingly supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats, comes as concerns about domestic use of drones have spiked. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, launched the first filibuster in three years yesterday to call attention to the Obama administration's drone policy, and CNET reported last weekend that Homeland Security required that its UAVs be capable of "signals interception" and "direction finding" of cell phones in use on the ground.
"I think the drone issue has crystalized many of the public anxieties and frustrations surrounding the decade-old war on terror, including many concerns that have nothing to do with drones," says Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
"The executive branch has been stingy with information, and that has created a vacuum that is now being filled with reactions of all kinds."
The House's language stops short of requiring Hagel to disclose whether he or his predecessor have taken the step of approving the targeting of any U.S. citizens for surveillance.
Last year, the U.S. Air Force adopted a drone policy (PDF) that says its unmanned aircraft "will not conduct nonconsensual surveillance on specifically identified U.S. persons, unless expressly approved by the Secretary of Defense."
It also says, however, that "collected imagery may incidentally include U.S. persons or private property without consent."
Concern about domestic use of drones is growing, with federal legislation introduced last month that would restrict arming drones, in parallel with similar efforts from state and local lawmakers.
The Federal Aviation Administration recently said that it will "address privacy-related data collection" by drones, and Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican, on Tuesday introduced a bill, H.R. 972, that would require police to obtain warrants before sending drones on domestic surveillance missions. Sen Rand Paul received his response today, when Attorney General Eric Holder responded in a terse letter (PDF) saying that the president does not have the authority to "use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil."Read the full story here.