FBI Director: Planes Not Spying on Dearborn

» Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

The government isn’t spying on Dearborn residents as a whole, FBI Director James Comey said Thursday at a congressional hearing.

Comey was asked about spy planes that flew over Dearborn last summer, setting the community with a large Arab-American community on edge. But Comey emphasized earlier statements made by the FBI that the agency wasn’t targeting ethnic or religious groups, but uses the planes to target specific criminals, spies and terrorists.

Earlier on this Topic

• FBI Concentrating Surveillance Flights Over Dearborn
• FBI: Spy Planes Not Targeting Religious or Ethnic Groups

“We do not use planes for mass surveillance,” said Comey, who was testifying at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing about the the FBI. He addressed several questions during the hearing, which lasted several hours, according to a Detroit Free Press report.

“Many citizens feel reason to distrust the FBI because of their religious or ethnic background,” Conyers said when asking about the planes.

The flyovers weren’t limited to the Detroit area. The Associated Press reported in June that FBI was using dummy companies to secretly operate “a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cell phone surveillance technology.”

Comey disputed the AP report about the size of the FBI fleet.

“We have a small number of airplanes,” he said Thursday. “I wish we had more.”

A transcript of the congressional hearing can be found on C-SPAN.

» Photo of FBI Director James Comey via YouTube