#58 Here’s How You Can Track the FBI Spy Planes

The report revealed that the companies that sell “spy planes” become a part of the public record and the FBI uses this data to track the buyers. To cover its operations, the FBI has created front companies for that. But, here is the place where FBI left a loophole in its “FBI Spy Planes” show off.

A technologist in Los Angeles, John Wiseman, figured out a way to track these FBI spy planes. When you need to fly planes in the U.S., you fill out certain forms. Just because these companies are in the public domain, their record is public and they could be tracked on radar.

If you are persuaded to know, you can track these FBI Spy Planes easily. Wiseman used these public records to know about the routes of flights, their real-time location by using a customized radio receiver that does this magic by picking up the overhead transmissions by aircrafts. The Associated Press reported that Wiseman has posted his findings in a blog post.

He writes: “N404KR was a plane that I saw a lot over Los Angeles. I didn’t have position info for it, but the fact that I saw it in the air for hours at a time was unusual. Most planes are going from point A to B, and are only overhead and in range for a few minutes.” Later he came to know that this plane belonged to FBI after going through various media reports. On further tracking down, he found that the plane was registered with few fake looking companies.

He wrote on Hacker News about the FBI Spy Planes: “I decided to check my database for planes that have squawked 4414/4415 or used one of the suspicious callsigns: I found 8 aircraft in the past 2 months, several of which exhibit suspicious behavior.”

If you want to track FBI Spy Planes, Brian Abelson working at a public data analysis tool Enigma has created this easy way to access those public records of the planes. By using the information of FBI’s front companies, he has made a database of 84 spy planes currently being used by the FBI.

You can also look for the paths by entering the planes’ registration number on sites like FlightRadar24 and FlightAware.

An FBI spokesperson said that “the FBI’s aviation program is not secret.” However, it’s still unclear that if the agency obtains warrants for such flights of FBI Spy Planes.

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