Senator Rand Paul introduces bill limiting warrantless drone surveillance

The bill is called "Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act" or in acronymese PFUSA. The bill would limit the ability of the government to use drones for surveillance without warrants.

However there are wide exceptions to the requirement.Warrants would not be required for border surveillance. That is understandable but the bill would also allow an exception in case of suspected terrorism. What the government considers terrorism as we know can cover a lot of ground. Finally the bill only applies to the use of drones in the U.S. so it would have absolutely no bearing on the expanding drone use globally by the U.S. It does not even deal with targeting U.S. citizens outside the U.S.

As this article points out Rand's effort may be too little too late. The military already has within the U.S. 64 drone bases. There are numerous other drones operated by state and local police. The bill probably has no chance of passing either. However at least Rand Paul is calling public attention to the issue.