For some time, reports have surfaced about mysterious small aircraft flying in oddly precise circular patterns over US cities. Matt McKinney and John Reinan writing for the StarTribune, for example, cite aviation enthusiast John Zimmerman who used an aviation app on his smartphone to track a small Cessna 182T Skylane circling Minneapolis, the Mall of America, and the Southdale Center shopping mall after dark and before dawn.
“Bearing the call sign N361DB, the plane is one of three Cessna 182T Skylanes registered to LCB Leasing of Bristow, VA, according to [US Federal Aviation Administration] FAA records,” report McKinney and Reinan. “The Virginia secretary of state has no record of an LCB Leasing. Virtually no other information could be learned about the company.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that similar flights have occurred in Baltimore, Boston, California, and Chicago and has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with various federal agencies for more information.
Flying Stingray devices
Jay Stanley, an ACLU senior policy analyst, opines that these flights are wide-area surveillance efforts using advanced technology including gigapixel cameras that can surveil entire cities and “Dirtboxes” (best thought of as flying Stingray devices) capable of collecting information from tens of thousands of mobile phones in a single pass.
Zimmerman told the Strib reporters that he had heard from his network that “a plane registered to NG Research — also located in Bristow — that circled Baltimore for hours after recent violent protests there was in fact an [US Federal Bureau of Investigation] FBI plane that’s part of a widespread but little known surveillance program, according to a report by the Washington Post.” Craig Timberg’s report for the Washington Post was primarily sourced to a curious citizen. “Planes armed with the latest surveillance systems can monitor larger areas than police helicopters and stay overhead longer, raising novel civil liberties issues that have so far gotten little scrutiny from courts,” wrote Timberg.
Zimmerman researched FAA records associated with the planes’ tail numbers and found them to be modified with equipment to muffle excess noise and external attachments that could hold imagery equipment.
Implausible deniability
McKinney and Reinan reported that the Twin Cities FBI office refused to comment on the flights and declined to say if the plane belonged to the FBI. Even though the FBI had previously acknowledged being behind the Baltimore flights and that they “were not there to monitor lawfully protected first amendment activity, and any FBI aviation support to a local law enforcement agency must receive high-level approvals.”
Sam Renegade writing for Medium reports that 100 small airplanes and helicopters — registered to corporations that do not exist — are making similar mysterious, circular flights over cites across the US including Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, and Seattle.
About this time last year, Patrick Ronan writing for the Quincy Patriot Ledger cited the proverbial unnamed “source with knowledge of the case” to report that similar flights around Quincy, MA during the spring of 2013 were surveilling Khairullozhon Matanov in relation to the Boston Marathon bombing. At the time, the FAA would say only that “it’s not a drone” and “it’s an authorized flight, and we are aware of it.”
In the Quincy case, the story surfaced because an aviation enthusiast contacted his city council representative about mysterious flights over the area.
As it turns out, Bristow, VA is something of a origination hotspot for these mysterious flights. McKinney and Reinan report that 65 planes are registered there, almost all of them Cessna 182s registered to companies with two- or three-letter acronym names.
FBI confirmation: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain
On 2 June, Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan, and Eric Tucker writing for the Associated Press confirmed the FBI is behind these flights, that are “part of a civilian air force operated by the FBI and obscured behind fictitious companies:”
“For decades, the planes have provided support to FBI surveillance operations on the ground. But now the aircraft are equipped with high-tech cameras, and in rare circumstances, technology capable of tracking thousands of cellphones, raising questions about how these surveillance flights affect Americans’ privacy.
…
“The FBI says the planes are not equipped or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance. The surveillance equipment is used for ongoing investigations, the FBI says, generally without a judge’s approval.
“The FBI 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.
“‘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.’
“The front companies are used to protect the safety of the pilots, the agency said. That setup also shields the identity of the aircraft so that suspects on the ground don’t know they’re being followed.”
Imagine that: Yet another secret spook operation, operating domestically without judicial oversight, order, or warrant behind fictitious front operations. You can’t make this stuff up. The AP managed to confirm Jay Stanley’s suspicion of flying Stingray devices and super-high-resolution cameras and the FBI still denies it’s not a secret program and is not “equipped or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance.”
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…
Oh, and by the way: The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the US Marshals Service have their own fleets of secret, warrantless surveillance planes.
Finally, for shits and giggles, from the AP report:
“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.”
The fascinating backstory
Of course, news of yet another governmental incursion into the citizenry’s civil liberties should be the most important aspect of this story. And don’t get me wrong, it is. But I’m an old, and tired, and what piqued my interest was the backstory — how the story emerged, how it was put together and made whole by a combination of corporate, mainstream media outlets and curious individuals with little more than an interest.
No one has told this backstory better than Bob Collins writing for Minnesota Public Radio. Collins is an aviation enthusiast in addition to being an on-air radio guy and pretty good journalist/story-teller; a professional with an interest. Take the time to read the comments. Really.