Low-flying planes have been sighted fying above American cities since April of this year. The FBI was linked to the 50 aircrafts seen all over 11 states. There has been a reported 100 flights that has been sighted in a 30 day period. Apparently the aircraft fly-bys is part of an FBI's civilian air force operation.
The planes are equipped with high-tech video cameras, with the latest technology that even if the aircraft is thousands of feet above the ground it can still identify and have mobile phone users under surveillance.
The surveillance has aroused certain sectors to complain that it may affect the much clebrated privacy rights of Americans.
Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said,"It's important that federal law enforcement personnel have the tools they need to find and catch criminals." Charles also added, "But whenever an operation may also monitor the activities of Americans who are not the intended target, we must make darn sure that safeguards are in place to protect the civil liberties of innocent Americans."
FBI said the operation is for a close observation of suspected individuals and not intended for a larger number of people.
The aircrafts actually hide behind fake company names and have been providing support to FBIsurveillance operations for decades.
According The Associated Press reports, there were at least 13 fake companies used, the FBI confirmed that thses were the fake companies used: FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services.
The FBI said in order to protect the safety of the pilots, they used fictitious companies.
In a statement of spokesman Christopher Allen: "The FBI's aviation program is not secret," "Specific aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes."
According to a 2011 Justice Department inspector general, besides the FBI, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) also have the same kind of operations using planes and registered to fake companies.
Occasionally FBI will give aerial support to the local police. The two departments have had a lot of instances that the help from both ends have beeen extended.
