Under a FOIA request, a Pentagon inspector general made public a report admitting to the use of drones to spy on U.S. citizens.The missions were non-military in nature, meaning they were used for domestic spying purposes. Naturally, the Pentagon is claiming it broke no laws in the deployment of said drones and contends that the flights were rare.

The idea of US military drones flying over the heads of US citizens and monitoring them is ominous, which explains why the Pentagon has kept it secret — despite the contention of breaking no laws.While the report on domestic drone use was completed in March of 2015, it was only quietly released last week.

According to USA Today’s report:

Shortly before the inspector general report was completed a year ago, the Pentagon issued a new policy governing the use of spy drones. It requires the defense secretary to approve all domestic spy drone operations. It says that unless permitted by law and approved by the secretary, drones “may not conduct surveillance on U.S. persons.” It also bans the use of armed drones over the United States for anything other training and testing.

The units who have been operating the drones stated to the inspector general they want to fly more missions domestically. “Multiple units told us that as forces using the UAS capabilities continue to draw down overseas, opportunities for UAS realistic training and use have decreased,”
However, drone usage overseas has not been reduced, and, in fact, their use has skyrocketed under the current administration. Just last year, the Pentagon announced that they had plans to sharply expand the number of U.S. drone flights over the next four years, giving military commanders access to more intelligence and greater firepower to keep up with a sprouting number of global hot spots.

Now, all the military has to do to fly weaponized drones over US citizens is say they are training.
The use of military gear on US citizens has sharply increased over the last decade as police departments have become heavily militarized with weapons once used on the battlefield. Now, instead of giving these weapons to police departments, the military seems to be conducting their own missions against US citizens.

Via TheRunDown Live