The United States Department of Justice appears to be operating a fleet of at least 100 small aircraft and helicopters over cities nationwide. The aircraft have been registered to corporations that do not exist, and the purpose of the aerial operations is not known at this time. The flight patterns of the aircraft indicate they are most likely conducting surveillance, much like the controversial aircraft caught flying circles over the city of Baltimore which has seen many protests recently. See examples from this investigation of similar flight patterns over New York City, Dallas, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Chicago, Seattle, and again, Baltimore.
Registering the aircraft to fake companies, such as ‘FVX Research,’ ‘KQM Aviation,’ and ‘OBR Leasing’ allows the government to hide behind plausible deniability. Initially upon investigating the links between these “companies” and the Department of Justice seemed obvious. A search of aircraft registration in Bristow, Virginia for example shows many three-letter acronym companies and a couple aircraft registered explicitly to the Department of Justice. Then, searching the web for any traces that ‘FVX Research’ was a legitimate company proved fruitless. It was only a matter of time before someone put two and two together.
Given the number of flights conducted by this fleet of aircraft within the last week and month, it is clear this is a large, widespread operation. Take what Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union describes as their nightmare scenario; “I wrote recently about ARGUS, the high-flying drone technology capable of capturing super-high-definition video of a 15-square mile area and automatically tracking all moving vehicles and people within that area. I pointed out that this makes possible our nightmare scenario for drones: wide-area mass surveillance and location tracking of entire cities and towns.”
