Who needs Alex Jones to feed your paranoid fantasies about the authoritarian panopticon when you have the FBI to do it for you? The Associated Press has identified at least 50 small planes used by the FBI to spy on Americans in “both major cities and rural areas.” The planes are equipped with sophisticated technology that can identify people through the cell phones they carry. And they aren’t the only government organization who uses these tools:
The Drug Enforcement Administration has its own planes, also registered to fake companies, according to a 2011 Justice Department inspector general report. At the time, the DEA had 92 aircraft in its fleet. And since 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service has operated an aerial surveillance program with its own fleet equipped with technology that can capture data from thousands of cellphones, the Wall Street Journal reported last year.