rigorousintuition.ca

FourthBase wrote:Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line
by FourthBase » 11 May 2013 03:36
viewtopic.php?p=502749#p502749

justdrew wrote:

FourthBase wrote:

justdrew wrote:

FourthBase wrote:(I love Cryptogon, and I was pleased to see the Patriot Ledger link to the mysterious Quincy plane/drone at the top of Cryptogon, but hey, "HPLovecraft666", whoever you are, lurker or alias of some regular: At least give a general credit to the RI board in general, next time, okay? Thanks!)

small planes fly in circles all the time (well from time to time) - it's probably someone working on getting their pilots license. Also, they provide no reason whatsoever to believe it's the same plane for 6-10 hours, likely it's different ones or different flights of the same plane. but congratulations to the wingnut paranoid right, they've launched another floater in to the info-toilet.

Private-Plane Owners Can’t Keep Flight Plan Secret, FAA Says

Are you joking? You have got to be joking. Please tell me you're joking.
This was a local news story, dude. Saw it on news. Looked it up. Posted link.
Then someone tips off Cryptogon. Now it's a right-wing disinfo dookie? LOL.
These people in Quincy know what a small plane is. They're not stupid.
They know when something is weird and out-of-the-ordinary.

it was a story because a rumor campaign started around trainee pilots getting their hours in. Then they campaigned to pester the local station until they did a story about it. All of a sudden people start looking up and noticing what's been there all along. A common thing man. A textbook Influencing Operation.

http://flighttraining.aopa.org/magazine/2010/April/tech_turns.html

You are so, so, so purely speculating. Ridiculously so.
The common people of Quincy are noticing weird plane-type shit.
All of the officials -- ALL OF THEM -- say "NTSHMA", and...
You're linking to some 2010 random crap, i.e. NTSHMA.

Quit it. Think better.

justdrew wrote:Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line
by justdrew » 11 May 2013 03:43
viewtopic.php?p=502750#p502750

you're acting like a kitten and the operators have a laser pointer.

Can't you see how easy it is to gin this up? The link shows you that this is a part of normal flight training. Most likely form a nearby smaller airport. The flight plans are no doubt available. In the news story there's not mention one of looking for flight plans. It is not the officials job to hunt down every non-event story and hold hands while they walk who knows how many people stirred up by this rumor through a complete understanding of the world around them.

I have witnessed exactly the same circle flying here in PDX in the late 90s. If I went and stared at the sky for awhile I could probably see the same thing again. They're relatively low and slow and won't be visible unless you have the right vantage in the right parts of the city.

---

ok, not a trainee, looking down the comments, from yesterday we find:

yoyolandre | 1 day ago

it never amazes me to see how vocal some people can be. From my personal experience, it's unfortunately people unencumbered by the weight of knowledge or thoughtfulness who are the most vocal.

so here are a few *FACTS*...
1) One of the aircrafts circling was, as Mike Gund said, a Cessna 182T, Tail # N906TM. it is *NOT* a drone. There were, however, more than 1 plane. How do I know the tail # ? I took a picture of it Thursday evening....
2) it has what looks like a camera attachment behind the left main gear, which suggests that this aircraft was doing some sort of surveillance of the area. it could be a variety of things, but an educated guess would point to visual and / or IR surveillance of the area for unusual activity. for example, pot-growing operations generate a lot of heat. these were cool days, so a large heat signature would be easily picked up.
3) when contacted for information, the mayor's office was forthcoming in that they weren't fully aware of what was going on, BUT they were meeting with the FAA yesterday to see what was going on. The call was returned stating the plane was performing some sort of surveillance for a federal law enforcement department and no further information was available.
4) the surveillance could have been done with better cooperation from local authorities by informing the mayor's office and local police of the activities ahead of time, which would have allowed for a better message delivered to constituents.
5) People saw something, said something and got an answer. it may not be an answer we like, but it's an answer.
6) The Democrats, the marathon bombers, whitey and the UN have nothing to do with this.

I'm actually rather satisfied with the answer we got and laud the mayor's office for taking action when constituents reached out to ask questions. and no, I didn't even vote for Koch.

so for now, I'll enjoy the rainy weather and the return of the normal hum of the city outside my windows.

Quincy, MA, Drone Plane UFO Identified
3 days ago - By Harold Daniel to UFO News

There have been various news reports and interest regarding an unidentified aircraft flying circles above Quincy, Massachusetts, for hours at a time. It has been identified, although the purpose of the flight remains unknown. And it's not a drone, or a UFO.

As reported and shown on Boston.com, it has been photographed and the tail number has been identified.

The tail number, N906TM, which can be seen in one photo, is registered to a company called RKT Productions. The only information that could be found on the company is a post office box in Bristow, Va.

Comments by readers lead to the identity of the likely true owner of the plane.

"k-man" explains:

"RKT Productions' address is a maildrop in Bristow, VA. So I searched all other planes registered in Bristow (FAA Registry)... Notice there's a bunch of Cessna C182s with sequential serial numbers registered to what sounds like dummy corporations, including one registered to "Northwest Aircraft Leasing Corp." Searching that leads to: Mystery Planes Getting Around (Wired.com) Looks like there's surveillance going on, and the FBI-related companies behind them moved from Newark, DE to Bristow, VA. Now you know."

"cryptospec1" provides a link to a tweet from August 13, announcing the arrival of the plane:

FBI Cessna Skyhawk N906TM inbound to Norwood Memorial Airport.

The Wired article was written in 2006, so this type of surveillance by the FBI is nothing new.

I'm providing this information here because I noticed a lot of web traffic looking for information about the aircraft in Quincy.



https://www.sightingsreport.com/blog_po ... identified

FBI behind mysterious surveillance aircraft over US cities
Jun 2, 3:27 AM (ET)
By JACK GILLUM, EILEEN SULLIVAN and ERIC TUCKER

(AP) In this photo taken May 26, 2015, a small plane flies near Manassas Regional Airport...
Full Image


WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

Aerial surveillance represents a changing frontier for law enforcement, providing what the government maintains is an important tool in criminal, terrorism or intelligence probes. But the program raises questions about whether there should be updated policies protecting civil liberties as new technologies pose intrusive opportunities for government spying.

U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Even basic aspects of the program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department's inspector general.

(AP) In this photo taken May 26, 2015, a small plane flies near Manassas Regional Airport...
Full Image

"The FBI's aviation program is not secret," spokesman Christopher Allen said in a statement. "Specific aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes." Allen added that the FBI's planes "are not equipped, designed or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance."

But the planes can capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the ground that could be handed over for prosecutions.

Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they're not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is rare.

Details confirmed by the FBI track closely with published reports since at least 2003 that a government surveillance program might be behind suspicious-looking planes slowly circling neighborhoods. The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights since late April orbiting both major cities and rural areas.

One of the planes, photographed in flight last week by the AP in northern Virginia, bristled with unusual antennas under its fuselage and a camera on its left side. A federal budget document from 2010 mentioned at least 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft, in the FBI's surveillance fleet.


(AP) Graphic shows three distinct flight paths over major U.S. cities conducted by the...
Full Image

The FBI also occasionally helps local police with aerial support, such as during the recent disturbance in Baltimore that followed the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who sustained grievous injuries while in police custody. Those types of requests are reviewed by senior FBI officials.

The surveillance flights comply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman said. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of the surveillance.

Details about the flights come as the Justice Department seeks to navigate privacy concerns arising from aerial surveillance by unmanned aircrafts, or drones. President Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance, and has called for more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified programs.

"These are not your grandparents' surveillance aircraft," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, calling the flights significant "if the federal government is maintaining a fleet of aircraft whose purpose is to circle over American cities, especially with the technology we know can be attached to those aircraft."

During the past few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI's fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus the District of Columbia, most with Cessna 182T Skylane aircraft. These included parts of Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and Southern California.

Evolving technology can record higher-quality video from long distances, even at night, and can capture certain identifying information from cellphones using a device known as a "cell-site simulator" — or Stingray, to use one of the product's brand names. These can trick pinpointed cellphones into revealing identification numbers of subscribers, including those not suspected of a crime.

Officials say cellphone surveillance is rare, although the AP found in recent weeks FBI flights orbiting large, enclosed buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signals collection. Those included above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

After The Washington Post revealed flights by two planes circling over Baltimore in early May, the AP began analyzing detailed flight data and aircraft-ownership registrations that shared similar addresses and flight patterns. That review found some FBI missions circled above at least 40,000 residents during a single flight over Anaheim, California, in late May, according to Census data and records provided by the website FlightRadar24.com.

Most flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide and roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newsletter from the company FLIR Systems Inc., which makes camera technology such as seen on the planes, described flying slowly in left-handed patterns.

"Aircraft surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground teams," the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1 million for the program.

Recently, independent journalists and websites have cited companies traced to post office boxes in Virginia, including one shared with the Justice Department. The AP analyzed similar data since early May, while also drawing upon aircraft registration documents, business records and interviews with U.S. officials to understand the scope of the operations.

The FBI asked the AP not to disclose the names of the fake companies it uncovered, saying that would saddle taxpayers with the expense of creating new cover companies to shield the government's involvement, and could endanger the planes and integrity of the surveillance missions. The AP declined the FBI's request because the companies' names — as well as common addresses linked to the Justice Department — are listed on public documents and in government databases.

At least 13 front companies that AP identified being actively used by the FBI are registered to post office boxes in Bristow, Virginia, which is near a regional airport used for private and charter flights. Only one of them appears in state business records.

Included on most aircraft registrations is a mysterious name, Robert Lindley. He is listed as chief executive and has at least three distinct signatures among the companies. Two documents include a signature for Robert Taylor, which is strikingly similar to one of Lindley's three handwriting patterns.

The FBI would not say whether Lindley is a U.S. government employee. The AP unsuccessfully tried to reach Lindley at phone numbers registered to people of the same name in the Washington area since Monday.

Law enforcement officials said Justice Department lawyers approved the decision to create fictitious companies to protect the flights' operational security and that the Federal Aviation Administration was aware of the practice. One of the Lindley-headed companies shares a post office box openly used by the Justice Department.

Such elusive practices have endured for decades. A 1990 report by the then-General Accounting Office noted that, in July 1988, the FBI had moved its "headquarters-operated" aircraft into a company that wasn't publicly linked to the bureau.

The FBI does not generally obtain warrants to record video from its planes of people moving outside in the open, but it also said that under a new policy it has recently begun obtaining court orders to use cell-site simulators. The Obama administration had until recently been directing local authorities through secret agreements not to reveal their own use of the devices, even encouraging prosecutors to drop cases rather than disclose the technology's use in open court.

A Justice Department memo last month also expressly barred its component law enforcement agencies from using unmanned drones "solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment" and said they are to be used only in connection with authorized investigations and activities. A department spokeswoman said the policy applied only to unmanned aircraft systems rather than piloted airplanes.

---

Associated Press writers Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Joan Lowy and Ted Bridis in Washington; Randall Chase in Wilmington, Delaware; and news researchers Monika Mathur in Washington and Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

---

View documents: http://apne.ws/1HEyP0t

---

Follow on Twitter: Jack Gillum at https://twitter.com/jackgillum, Eileen Sullivan at https://twitter.com/esullivanap and Eric Tucker at https://twitter.com/etuckerap

http://apnews.myway.com/article/2015060 ... f0d2a.html

AP Exclusive: FBI behind mysterious fleet of aircraft conducting surveillance over US cities

WASHINGTON — Scores of low-flying planes circling American cities are part of a civilian air force operated by the FBI and obscured behind fictitious companies, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights in 11 states over a 30-day period since late April, orbiting both major cities and rural areas. At least 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft, were mentioned in a federal budget document from 2009.

For decades, the planes have provided support to FBI surveillance operations on the ground. But now the aircraft are equipped with high-tech cameras, and in rare circumstances, technology capable of tracking thousands of cellphones, raising questions about how these surveillance flights affect Americans' privacy.

"It's important that federal law enforcement personnel have the tools they need to find and catch criminals," said Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "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."

The FBI says the planes are not equipped or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance. The surveillance equipment is used for ongoing investigations, the FBI says, generally without a judge's approval.

The FBI confirmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services.

"The FBI's aviation program is not secret," spokesman Christopher Allen said in a statement. "Specific aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes."

The front companies are used to protect the safety of the pilots, the agency said. That setup also shields the identity of the aircraft so that suspects on the ground don't know they're being followed.

The FBI is not the only federal law enforcement agency to take such measures.

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.

In the FBI's case, one of its fake companies shares a post office box with the Justice Department, creating a link between the companies and the FBI through publicly available Federal Aviation Administration records.

Basic aspects of the FBI's program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department's inspector general, and the FBI also has been careful not to reveal its surveillance flights in court documents. The agency will not say how many planes are currently in its fleet.

The planes are equipped with technology that can capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the ground that could be handed over to prosecutions. One of the planes, photographed in flight last week by the AP in northern Virginia, bristled with unusual antennas under its fuselage and a camera on its left side.

Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they're not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is used in only limited situations.

"These are not your grandparents' surveillance aircraft," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union. Stanley said the flights are significant "if the federal government is maintaining a fleet of aircraft whose purpose is to circle over American cities, especially with the technology we know can be attached to those aircraft."

The Justice Department recently published a privacy policy for its agencies' use of drones and unmanned aircraft systems. But that policy does not apply to piloted aircraft. An FBI spokesman said the FBI's flights comply with agency rules.

Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of the surveillance.

Evolving technology can record higher-quality video from long distances, even at night, and can capture certain identifying information from cellphones using a device known as a "cell-site simulator" — or Stingray, to use one of the product's brand names. These can trick pinpointed cellphones into revealing identification numbers of subscribers, including those not suspected of a crime.

The FBI has recently begun obtaining court orders to use this technology. Previously, the Obama administration had been directing local authorities through secret agreements not to reveal their own use of the devices, even encouraging prosecutors to drop cases rather than disclose the technology's use in open court.

Officials say cellphone surveillance from FBI aircraft was rarely used.

Details confirmed by the FBI about its air force track closely with published reports since at least 2003 that a government surveillance program might be behind suspicious-looking planes slowly circling neighborhoods.

One such plane was spotted during the recent disturbance in Baltimore that followed the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who sustained grievous injuries while in police custody. In that instance, the FBI was helping local police with aerial support, which it occasionally does when asked. Those types of requests are reviewed by senior FBI officials.

During the past few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI's fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus the District of Columbia, most with Cessna 182T Skylane aircraft. These included parts of Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle and Southern California.

Some flights orbited large, enclosed buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signals collection. Those included above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

David Gomez, a former FBI agent who oversaw parts of the aviation surveillance program over the course of his career, said the FBI surveillance aircraft are used to assist surveillance on the ground. For example, if a plane is following a suspect in a vehicle, an FBI ground surveillance team can lag behind so as not to blow their cover, Gomez said.

After The Washington Post revealed flights by two planes circling over Baltimore in early May, the AP began analyzing detailed flight data and aircraft-ownership registrations that shared similar addresses and flight patterns. That review found that some FBI missions circled above at least 40,000 residents during a single flight over Anaheim, California, in late May, according to Census data and records provided by the website FlightRadar24.com.

Most flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide and roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newsletter from the company FLIR Systems Inc., which makes camera technology such as seen on the planes, described flying slowly in left-handed patterns.

Gomez said the aircraft circle to the left because the pilot sits on the left side. He said different flight formations are used depending on circumstances on the ground, such as whether a suspect is on the move.

The FBI asked the AP not to disclose the names of the fake companies it uncovered, saying that would saddle taxpayers with the expense of creating new cover companies to shield the government's involvement, and could endanger the planes and integrity of the surveillance missions. The AP declined the FBI's request because the companies' names — as well as common addresses linked to the Justice Department — are listed on public documents and in government databases.

Recently, independent journalists and websites have cited companies traced to post office boxes in Virginia, including one shared with the Justice Department.

Included on most aircraft registrations is a mysterious name, Robert Lindley. He is listed as chief executive and has at least three distinct signatures among the companies. Two documents include a signature for Robert Taylor, which is strikingly similar to one of Lindley's three handwriting patterns.

The FBI would not say whether Lindley is a U.S. government employee. The AP unsuccessfully tried to reach Lindley at phone numbers registered to people of the same name in the Washington area.

Law enforcement officials said Justice Department lawyers approved the decision to create fictitious companies and that the Federal Aviation Administration was aware of the practice. The FBI has been doing this since at least the late 1980s, according to a 1990 report by the then-General Accounting Office.

Secret Aerial FBI Program Uncovered By 23-Year-Old Journalist (VIDEO)
June 2, 2015 5:24 PM

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The FBI has admitted to flying secret surveillance flights over American cities in recent weeks.

And records show that includes the Twin Cities.

Screen grabs from the flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com show a small Cessna circled the Mall of America, Southdale Center in Edina, and downtown Minneapolis less than two weeks ago.

(credit:FlightRadar24.com)

The story was first reported by Sam Richards who put out information under the twitter handle @MinneapoliSam. The 23-year-old independent journalist first published the story of the FBI surveillance program on the website Medium on May 26.

His story featured screen grabs from FlightRadar24.com showing the circular routes the low-flying planes took over not just Minneapolis, but cities including New York, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix and Dallas.

Richards said his investigation began when his friend noticed the low-flying suspicious flight and showed him the screen grab.

“It showed pictures of the plane doing loops around different parts of Minneapolis so we started looking at the tail number,” he said.

The plane was registered to a fake company, but Richards was able to track it to a fleet registered to the Department of Justice in Virginia.

After his article was posted, a local aviation buff sent him pictures he took of what he believed was the surveillance plane. An antennae appears to be attached to the plane’s bottom.

(credit: @msp2anywhere)

The FBI is now acknowledging that they are the ones gathering the surveillance and that everything being gathered is for ongoing investigations. Richards isn’t so sure about that, and he is working on a follow-up story.

“I have been getting a lot of email and messages on Twitter and elsewhere from people who are interested,” he said.

The FBI isn’t saying which investigations this plane’s surveillance is linked to or what kind of data it’s collecting.

The agency admits the planes can be equipped to identify thousands of people on the ground through their cell phones, even if they’re indoors.

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/06/0 ... ournalist/