There are many sides to this.  I am very leery, in fact with some aspects that have made it out in public, outright disdainful of U.S. agencies utterly regarding the people of the United States to essentially be enemies and regarded as such in terms of taking way too many liberties in spying.

However, in regards to drones, the determination of right versus wrong isn't so clearcut.  Pull back a bit from the question of "is it right or wrong for agencies in the United States to use unmanned drones to spy?" to more basic questions such as "who owns the air above private property?"

One might be tempted to declare that private land owners should own the air above their property, but such a basic declaration would utterly destroy all air travel, as air travel can only happen on the premise that the property owned by private property owners does not extend very far in the sky ... there are really no paths for aircraft to follow between cities in the U.S. that would not take those aircraft directly over private property.  All of those aircraft have windows, and cameras and binoculars are not forbidden for passengers on aircraft, which leads to the reality:  there is nothing at all to stop anyone from spying on anyone from the air in the U.S.

It is well understood that it is not only the authority of law enforcement, but indeed their duty to peer into suspicious activity regardless of whether the activity occurs on public or private property; in the olden days, it was policemen on foot or horseback looking out for crooks and criminals while patrolling.  Even early on, it was realized law enforcement authorities must be allowed some "reasonable" level of authority to enter private property without express permission nor even a warrant on the grounds of "reasonable suspicion."  "Reasonable"-ness is, of course, a vague descriptor ... if you were to define a restrictive standard for what is reasonable, what would it be?

In my home state where I currently reside, Washington state, there are some terrible wildfires burning out of control in the drier portion of the state east of the Cascade mountains.  "Drone" aircraft are being used to help monitor the extent of the fires, which direction they are burning toward and how fast they are spreading which has triggered a number of debates.  The smoke and dynamic nature of the fires means flights even by seasoned professional pilots trained to deal with emergencies can experience a conflux of circumstances that make flying around ongoing hazards, such as these wildfires, much more hazardous than normal flight.  Is the government use of "drone" aircraft not just or reasonable?

What of the case of using drones to try and suss out terrorists or other armed and dangerous fugitives on the loose, such as Christopher Dorner (the former LAPD cop turned homicidal maniac who murdered the daughter and her fiance of an LAPD police captain whom had represented Dorner in a disciplinary case hearing [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner ])?

I'm certainly not going to argue that any and all use of drone aircraft is justified, nor that U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies have not overstepped their bounds, but I find it very frustrating when someone pursues a course of action based on a gross oversimplification without considering the arguments they are making in a broader context and taking even basic steps to ensure their arguments are logical, reasonable and sound.

The OP related to the FOIA's involved to see the PIAs (it appears there are 2).

The Justice Dep't. has a mechanism to refuse...but they didn't even relate to that.

The 'Answer' was essentially redaction of the documents.

What does that mean? To me that means that FOIA has been negated in an unacceptable way, regardless of whether they were being used in a reasonable manner or not.

I'm not debating that point, since there's no evidence now, one way or another (well, there is, but who knows where). I think there are probably reasonable uses just as there are unreasonable uses, just as there are reasonable and unreasonable uses of tracking devices placed on targeted vehicles.

Well, the only thing that confuses me is why, if you're not doing anything illegal or immoral, etc., would you even worry about this? If you are doing something illegal or immoral, etc., then you don't deserve any privacy in my opinion, and I sure hope you get caught by the very measures identified here.

The "If you're not doing anything wrong, what's the big deal?" argument seems a smidgen tired.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

http://www.wired.com/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/

so if the goverment is doing nothing illegal or immoral here, why do they think they have something to hide? 

or what about cameras in your living room? you have nothing to hide after all.

If you run for congress and the incumbents campaign mysteriously ends up with your entire life history in personal calls, emails, video chats, purchasing habit, etc(questionable or not) and leaks it on the internet, you'd think differently.

No one has nothing in their life that others would view critically.  Put someone under a microscope, and you're bound to find something to shut them up with even if they've been squeaky clean.  Campaigns end over nude photo's basically every time they come up.  If the FBI takes a shot of a candidate having sex with their spouse in a normally private, but aerially visible location, the leak could be politically catastrophic, as well as a severe personal violation.  What position you're in could be a 10 point swing in the polls overnight.

You don't have to be doing something wrong to be humiliated in public for disagreeing with those in power.  The current administration is already persecuting political opponents.  Gibson Guitars was hit for millions in legal costs and fines incurred by a raid from the US fucking Fish and Wildlife Service, all over a law broken in other countries, that those other countries said doesn't exist.  Our government is dangerous.

Desiring privacy should not mean, de facto, that you must have something nefarious 'to hide'.  But that's exactly what it means to National Sports Authority. 

As has been stated by others, all of us actually do have something to hide.  Anything that might seem to be unflattering in any way we would prefer to keep hidden from society at large.  This presents a problem when someone (using which 'tools') must decide what is and what isn't just 'unflattering' behavior or circumstance.

Each day the reality of what still constitutes privacy 'shrinks' (in my opinion).  Through the widespread adoption of various media worldwide by which everyone/everything can be watched it is my opinion that 'privacy' has simple become another way to describe 'choosing lack of scrutiny' and the real debate shouldn't just be centered around by whom and what means we subject ourselves to that scrutiny but also the end result.  In other words, laws should not be focused on 'protecting privacy' but rather on protecting/enhancing the 'due process' of how information obtained through scrutiny is and can be used.

I hope some of that made sense.....

The NSA, FBI, CIA and other government agencies exist for a purpose. I am terribly sorry that most Americans don't understand that purpose.  The safety and security of this country and its people are far more important than anything being discussed here. Just my opinion. Having served this country for 22 years makes you understand things like this a little better.

How information (gleaned from us lowly citizens in whatever manner) can/is allowed to be used should be of concern to us all,  such actions have a nasty tendency to create precedent after which any change in 'policy' becomes immeasurably more difficult.

It's the failing of people working in a position of artificial peril to lose grasp of the realities of the problems we face.

9/11 was a month of driving, we wont take away someone's license and throw their ass in jail for getting caught driving drunk, but we'll spy on every facet of the peoples lives just in case some towel head blows themselves up and fails horribly at killing as many people as they could have just driving a car through a crowd of people.

Terrorists have never been a significant threat to safety.  Bathtubs, wall outlets, swimming pools, there are a great many things vastly more dangerous to the population than terrorists.  Excusing an abusive, power hungry government filled with corrupt agencies that routinely violate the Constitution, just for a little safety from Islamic terrorists that have, collectively over their entire history, killed far less people in the US than automobile accidents do each year, is a mark of insanity.

I'm all for killing off radical islamists wherever we can find them, but my interest ends where infringing on my rights over something far less likely than being struck by lightning.  A surveillance riddled police state is far more dangerous to the population than the terrorists are.

I'm down with that.

Not much you can do with a cowardly populace that would eagerly give up liberty for freedumb.

Stardock's Admins have an issue with the phrase 'towel heads', just as we have an issue with the terms 'wet backs' and 'niggers'.

None of these is acceptable on these forums.

Their use violates our T.O.S. found here ... https://www.wincustomize.com/terms-of-service 

Relevent section 3a.

The suggestion that the deaths from 9/11 is comparable to a month's driving incompetence on the roads is patently absurd in every way other than the statistc itself.

Most [not all] road fatalities are 'accidents' [of varying culpability due to stupidity or incompetence] wheras 9/11 was a criminal act [terrorism] which, if perpetrated by a sovereign country or state would instead have been regarded as an Act of War, with actual consequences [think Pearl Harbour].

Even singling out 'radical islamists' is about as narrow-sighted/myopic and discriminatory as one can get.  ALL 'radical' factions/entities are dangerous, from animal rights activists to white supremacists.  Cleverly the same Constitution everyone feels is threatened by 'Government agencies' PROTECTS radical extremists [provided of course they are Americans too].  

Most traffic fatalities are the result of criminally negligent driving, and I find any ready dismissal of deaths due to negligence or margininalizing them as less than deaths from a single act to be patently absurd.  And I would find it laughable, if it were not so tragic, that so many forget that the founding fathers were the 'extremists' of their day, lighting an armed and bloody rebellion.

Deaths from traffic and lack of universal access to health care greatly outnumber terrorist deaths, and we could do a lot more for the same amount of dollars to reduce the death tolls from either than in retribution for a terrorist act (and thus far, we only seem to be inciting more and more people around the globe to hate us and one day act out on the hatred we are bringing on ourselves).  Anyone whining about social safety nets or domestic infrastructure spending as 'too much' needs to take a look at even just the dollar cost of the unholy 'war on terror,' and not just training troops or building bombs -- more than 50,000 troops have been injured, and many of those will require specialized care for decades.  Imagine if we spent just a fraction of the amount of dollars we spend warmongering on improving traffic safety or universal health care at home ... imagine how many lives would be saved.

I'm really not crazy on this culture that seems to prefer to wage war while flipping the bird at the notion of taking care of our people and saving actual lives.