Spy drones used in U.S., but rarely, FBI chief says

WASHINGTON – FBI Director Robert Mueller testified Wednesday that the controversial National Security Agency surveillance program “has been a contributing factor” for tracking terrorist plots, and he admitted for the first time that the bureau had used surveillance drones inside the U.S.

The FBI uses drones “in a very, very minimal way and very seldom,” said Mueller, adding that “we have very few.”

Mueller’s comments were the first time an FBI official publicly acknowledged that the bureau used remotely piloted aircraft, though the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have both tested drones for use in investigations.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, asked Mueller to detail what protections the FBI had put in place to limit how video and other information collected by drones was used by federal investigators.

“I will have to go back and check in terms of what we keep in terms of the images and the like. But it is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized needs, and that is the principal privacy limitations we have,” Mueller said.

In what is probably his last appearance before Congress before he leaves office, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the NSA’s use of telephone logs and Internet records was especially crucial in learning which home-grown suspects or foreign immigrants are in contact with al-Qaida or other terrorist networks overseas.

“You never know which dot is going to be the key,” he said. “But you want as many dots as you can. And if you close down a program like this, there will be … fewer dots to connect.”