Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to further protect American's privacy, while providing clear guidance for Federal law enforcement for information collection using the newest technologies. I am sure my colleagues recall recent reports, from just a few weeks ago, detailing the FBI's use of secret planes to spy on people in dozens of cities without a warrant. These reports troubled both my colleagues and me, and left unclear exactly when the government thinks it is okay to surveil people from the air. As I have stressed many times before, the American public deserves to know the laws that the government relies on to surveil people, and the limits of those laws. And that's what this bill sets out to do.

Now, drafting legislation in an area where technology is advancing rapidly and so many policy issues intersect, is a very difficult task. But I am confident that the Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act of 2015 reflects feedback from several stakeholders, experts and civil liberties groups, and provides the government the tools it needs to keep us safe without sacrificing our civil liberties.

This bill would generally prohibit federal aerial surveillance without a warrant, but with several exceptions. It would allow the government to aerially surveil to protect people from disasters, terrorist attacks, entry of illegal substances at national borders, and other emergency situations. In addition, it would allow for government agencies to survey wildlife and conduct research by use of aerial vehicles, in order to ensure that habitats are preserved and environmental risks are assessed properly.

This bill also would prohibit the government from identifying people that happen to appear in aerial surveillance, unless it has probable cause to believe those people have committed specific crimes. All information gathered in violation of the bill would be barred admission as evidence in any court of law, and the bill would also prohibit private operators of aerial vehicles from being proxies for unlawful government surveillance.

I want to stress that we cannot stand to wait much longer to pass sensible limits on a type of surveillance whose technical capabilities are advancing rapidly. With the proliferation of drones in US airspace, and the numbers expected to increase by the thousands in the following few years, there is a real concern that the law has not been keeping up with technical advancements. And drones are not the only concern--use of planes and helicopters equipped with modern surveillance equipment make the technological landscape an incredibly dynamic one. That's why this bill today would remain technology neutral and apply to both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles.

To my fellow colleagues, I strongly believe that this bill strikes the proper balance between allowing for aerial surveillance and protecting individual privacy. I am glad to have received help and feedback from the Center for Democracy and Technology, SOAR Oregon--a leading voice in Oregon's UAV industry, the Small UAV Coalition, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and other experts. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill and offering their feedback. At this time, I would like to ask that this statement be entered into the Record.

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