Senator Rand Paul Press Release:

FBI Issues Response to Sen. Paul’s Correspondence on Drones

Jul 29, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sen. Rand Paul today received further correspondence from the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding his concern over the use of FBI surveillance drones on U.S. soil.

"The FBI today responded to my questions on domestic use of surveillance drones by saying that they don't necessarily need a warrant to deploy this technology. I disagree with this interpretation. However, given the fact that they did respond to my concerns over drone use on U.S. soil, I have decided to release my hold on the pending FBI director nominee," Sen. Paul said.

Text of the FBI response letter from today can be found HERE.

BACKGROUND

Sen. Paul initiated correspondence on June 20, with a letter to Director Robert Mueller that included questions regarding the FBI's governance policy on using drones on American soil.

After receiving no response from Director Mueller for weeks, on July 9, Sen. Paul sent a second letter to Director Mueller requesting immediate action to address his questions.

Last week, the office of Congressional affairs at the FBI recently sent two responses, one classified and one unclassified, to answer Sen. Paul's concerns. The content of the classified letter cannot be disclosed publicly, but a copy of the unclassified response can be foundHERE.

The answers included in both letters were not sufficient to answering all of Sen. Paul's questions, prompting him to send the following correspondence to the FBI on July 25.

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