One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

[barracuda]

This year's model.

[seemslikeadream]

America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time
A ground-breaking investigation examines the most secret aspect of America's shadowy drone wars and maps out a world of hidden bases dotting the globe.
October 16, 2011 |

They increasingly dot the planet. There’s a facility outside Las Vegas where “pilots” work in climate-controlled trailers, another at a dusty camp in Africa formerly used by the French Foreign Legion, a third at a big air base in Afghanistan where Air Force personnel sit in front of multiple computer screens, and a fourth that almost no one talks about at an air base in the United Arab Emirates.

And that leaves at least 56 more such facilities to mention in an expanding American empire of unmanned drone bases being set up worldwide. Despite frequent news reports on the drone assassination campaign launched in support of America’s ever-widening undeclared wars and a spate of stories on drone bases in Africa and the Middle East, most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably anonymous -- until now.

Run by the military, the Central Intelligence Agency, and their proxies, these bases -- some little more than desolate airstrips, others sophisticated command and control centers filled with computer screens and high-tech electronic equipment -- are the backbone of a new American robotic way of war. They are also the latest development in a long-evolving saga of American power projection abroad -- in this case, remote-controlled strikes anywhere on the planet with a minimal foreign “footprint” and little accountability.

Using military documents, press accounts and other open source information, an in-depth analysis by AlterNet has identified at least 60 bases integral to U.S. military and CIA drone operations. There may, however, be more, since a cloak of secrecy about drone warfare leaves the full size and scope of these bases distinctly in the shadows.

A Galaxy of Bases

Over the last decade, the American use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has expanded exponentially as has media coverage of their use. On September 21st, the Wall Street Journal reported that the military has deployed missile-armed MQ-9 Reaper drones on the “island nation of Seychelles to intensify attacks on al Qaeda affiliates, particularly in Somalia.” A day earlier, a Washington Post piece also mentioned the same base on the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago, as well as one in the African nation of Djibouti, another under construction in Ethiopia, and a secret CIA airstrip being built for drones in an unnamed Middle Eastern country (suspected of being Saudi Arabia).

Post journalists Greg Miller and Craig Whitlock reported that the “Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen.” Within days, the Post also reported that a drone from the new CIA base in that unidentified Middle Eastern country had carried out the assassination of radical al-Qaeda preacher and American citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen.

With the killing of al-Aulaqi, the Obama Administration has expanded its armed drone campaign to no fewer than six countries, though the CIA, which killed al-Aulaqi, refuses to officially acknowledge its drone assassination program. The Air Force is less coy about its drone operations, yet there are many aspects of those, too, that remain in the shadows. Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel John Haynes recently told AlterNet that, “for operational security reasons, we do not discuss worldwide operating locations of Remotely Piloted Aircraft, to include numbers of locations around the world.”

Still, those 60 military and CIA bases around the world, directly connected to the drone program, tell us a lot about America’s war-making future. From command and control and piloting to maintenance and arming, these facilities perform key functions that allow drone campaigns to continued expanding as they have for more than a decade. Other bases are already under construction or in the planning stages. When presented with our list of Air Force sites within America’s galaxy of drone bases, Lieutenant Colonel Haynes responded, “I have nothing further to add to what I’ve already said.”

Even in the face of government secrecy, however, much can be discovered . Here, then, for the record is a AlterNet accounting of America’s drone bases in the United States and around the world.

The Near Abroad

News reports have frequently focused on Creech Air Force Base outside Las Vegas as ground zero in America’s military drone campaign. Sitting in darkened, air conditioned rooms, 7,500 miles from Afghanistan, drone pilots dressed in flight suits remotely control MQ-9 Reapers and their progenitors, the less heavily-armed MQ-1 Predators. Beside them, sensor operators manipulate the TV camera, infrared camera, and other high-tech sensors on board. Their faces lit up by digital displays showing video feeds from the battle zone, by squeezing a trigger on a joystick one of these Air Force “pilots” can loose a Hellfire missile on a person half a world away.

While Creech gets the lion’s share of attention -- it even has its own drones on site -- numerous other bases on U.S. soil have played critical roles in America’s drone wars. The same video-game-style warfare is carried out by U.S and British pilots not far away at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base, the home of the Air Force’s 2nd Special Operations Squadron (SOS). According to a factsheet provided to AlterNet by the Air Force, the 2nd SOS and its drone operators are scheduled to be relocated to the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida in the coming months.

Reapers or Predators are also being flown from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, March Air Reserve Base in California, Springfield Air National Guard Base in Ohio, Cannon Air Force Base and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Ellington Airport in Houston, Texas, the Air National Guard base in Fargo, North Dakota, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, and Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. Recently, it was announced that Reapers, flown by Hancock’s pilots, would begin taking off on training missions from the Army’s Fort Drum, also in New York State. While at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, according to a report by the New York Times earlier this year, teams of camouflage-clad Air Force analysts sit in a secret intelligence and surveillance installation monitoring cell phone intercepts, high altitude photographs, and most notably, multiple screens of streaming live video from drones in Afghanistan -- what they call “Death TV” -- while instant-messaging and talking to commanders on the ground in order to supply them with real-time intelligence on enemy troop movements.

CIA drone operators also reportedly pilot their aircraft from the Agency’s nearby Langley, Virginia headquarters. It was from here that analysts apparently watched footage of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, for example, thanks to video sent back by the RQ-170 Sentinel, an advanced drone nicknamed the “Beast of Kandahar.” According to Air Force documents, the Sentinel is flown from both Creech Air Force Base and Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

Predators, Reapers, and Sentinels are just part of the story. At Beale Air Force Base in California, Air Force personnel pilot the RQ-4 Global Hawk, an unmanned drone used for long-range, high-altitude surveillance missions, some of them originating from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam (a staging ground for drone flights over Asia). Other Global Hawks are stationed at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, while the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio manages the Global Hawk as well as the Predator and Reaper programs for the Air Force.

Other bases have been intimately involved in training drone operators, including Randolph Air Force Base in Texas and New Mexico’s Kirtland Air Force Base, as is the Army’s Fort Huachuca in Arizona which is home to, according to a report by National Defense magazine, “the world’s largest UAV training center.” There, hundreds of employees of defense giant General Dynamics train military personnel to fly smaller tactical drones like the Hunter and Shadow. The physical testing of drones goes on at adjoining Libby Army Airfield and “two UAV runways located approximately four miles west of Libby,” according to Global Security, an on-line clearinghouse for military information.

Additionally, small drone training for the Army is carried out at Fort Benning in Georgia while at Fort Rucker, Alabama -- “the home of Army aviation” -- the Unmanned Aircraft Systems program coordinates doctrine, strategy, and concepts pertaining to UAVs. Recently, Fort Benning also saw the early testing of true robotic drones – which fly without human guidance or a hand on any joystick. This is considered, wrote the Washington Post, the next step toward a future in which drones will “hunt, identify, and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.”

The Army has also carried out UAV training exercises at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and, earlier this year, the Navy launched its X-47B, a next-generation semi-autonomous stealth drone, on its first flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California. That flying robot -- designed to operate from the decks of aircraft carriers -- has since been sent on to Maryland’s Naval Air Station Patuxent River for further testing. At nearby Webster Field, the Navy worked out kinks in its Fire Scout pilotless helicopter, which has also been tested at Fort Rucker, Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, and Florida’s Mayport Naval Station and Jacksonville Naval Air Station. The latter base was also where the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial system was developed and is now, along with Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington State, based.

Foreign Jewels in the Crown

The Navy is actively looking for a suitable site in the Western Pacific for a BAMS base, and is currently in talks with several Persian Gulf states for one in that region, as well. It already has Global Hawks perched at its base in Sigonella, Italy.

The Air Force is now negotiating with Turkey to relocate some of the Predator drones still operating in Iraq to the giant air base at Incirlik next year. Many different UAVs have been based in Iraq since the American invasion of that country, including small tactical models like Raven-B’s that troops launched by hand from Kirkuk Regional Air Base, Shadow UAVs that flew from Forward Operating Base Normandy in Baqubah Province, Predators operating out of Balad Airbase, miniature Desert Hawk drones launched from Tallil Air Base, and Scan Eagles based at Al Asad Air Base.

Elsewhere in the Greater Middle East, according to Aviation Week, the military is launching Global Hawks from Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, piloted by personnel stationed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, to track “shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Arabian Sea.” There are unconfirmed reports that the CIA may be operating drones from that country as well. In the past, at least, other UAVs have apparently been flown from Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base and Al Jaber Air Base, as well as Seeb Air Base in Oman.

At Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the Air Force runs an air operations command and control facility, critical to the drone wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The new secret CIA base on the Arabian peninsula, used to assassinate Anwar al-Aulaqi, may or may not be an airstrip in Saudi Arabia whose existence a senior U.S. military official recently confirmed to FOX News. In the past, the CIA has also operated UAVs out of Tuzel, Uzbekistan.

In neighboring Afghanistan, drones fly from many bases including Jalalabad Air Base, Kandahar Air Field, the air base at Bagram, Camp Leatherneck, Camp Dwyer, Combat Outpost Payne, Forward Operating Base (FOB) Edinburgh and FOB Delaram II, to name a few. Afghan bases are, however, more than just locations where drones take off and land.

It is a common misperception that U.S.-based operators are the only ones who “fly” America’s armed drones. In fact, in and around America’s war zones, UAVs begin and end their flights under the control of local “pilots.” Take Afghanistan’s massive Bagram Air Base. After performing preflight checks alongside a technician who focuses on the drone’s sensors, a local airman sits in front of a Dell computer tower and multiple monitors, two keyboards, a joystick, a throttle, a rollerball, a mouse, and various switches and oversees the plane’s takeoff before handing it over to a stateside counterpart with a similar electronics set-up. After the mission is complete, the controls are transferred back to the local operators for the landing. Additionally, crews in Afghanistan perform general maintenance and repairs on the drones.

In the wake of a devastating suicide attack by an al-Qaeda double agent that killed CIA officers and contractors at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Khost in 2009, it came to light that the facility was heavily involved in target selection for drone strikes across the border in Pakistan. The drones themselves, as the Washington Post noted at the time, were “flown from separate bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Both the Air Force and CIA have conducted operations in Pakistani air space, with some missions originating in Afghanistan and others from inside Pakistan. In 2006, images of what appear to be Predator drones stationed at Shamsi Air Base in Pakistan's Balochistan province were found on Google Earth and later published. In 2009, the New York Times reported that operatives from Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, had taken over the task of arming Predator drones at the CIA’s “hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Following the May Navy SEAL raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, that country’s leaders reportedly ordered the United States to leave Shamsi. The Obama administration evidently refused and word leaked out, according to the Washington Post, that the base was actually owned and sublet to the U.S. by the United Arab Emirates, which had built the airfield “as an arrival point for falconry and other hunting expeditions in Pakistan.”

The U.S. and Pakistani governments have since claimed that Shamsi is no longer being used for drone strikes. True or not, the U.S. evidently also uses other drone bases in Pakistan, including possibly PAF Base Shahbaz, located near the city of Jacocobad, and another base located near Ghazi.

The New Scramble for Africa

Recently, the headline story, when it comes to the expansion of the empire of drone bases, has been Africa. For the last decade, the U.S. military has been operating out of Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign Legion base in the tiny African nation of Djibouti. Not long after the attacks of September 11, 2001, it became a base for Predator drones and has since been used to conduct missions over neighboring Somalia.

For some time, rumors have also been circulating about a secret American base in Ethiopia. Recently, a U.S. official revealed to the Washington Post that discussions about a drone base there had been underway for up to four years, “but that plan was delayed because ‘the Ethiopians were not all that jazzed.’” Now construction is evidently underway, if not complete.

Then, of course, there is that drone base on the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. A small fleet of Navy and Air Force drones began operating openly there in 2009 to track pirates in the region’s waters. Classified diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks, however, reveal that those drones have also secretly been used to carry out missions in Somalia. “Based in a hangar located about a quarter-mile from the main passenger terminal at the airport,” the Post reports, the base consists of three or four “Reapers and about 100 U.S. military personnel and contractors, according to the cables.”

The U.S. has also recently sent four smaller tactical drones to the African nations of Uganda and Burundi for use by those countries’ own militaries.

New and Old Empires

Even if the Pentagon budget were to begin to shrink in the coming years, expansion of America’s empire of drone bases is a sure thing in the years to come. Drones are now the bedrock of Washington’s future military planning and -- with counterinsurgency out of favor -- the preferred way of carrying out wars abroad.

During the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, as the U.S. was building up its drone fleets, the country launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and carried out limited strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, using drones in at least four of those countries. In less than three years under President Obama, the U.S. has launched drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. It maintains that it has carte blanche to kill suspected enemies in any nation (or at least any nation in the global south).

According to a report by the Congressional Budget office published earlier this year, “the Department of Defense (DoD) plans to purchase about 730 new medium-sized and large unmanned aircraft systems” over the next decade. In practical terms, this means more drones like the Reaper.

Military officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Reaper “can fly 1,150 miles from base, conduct missions and return home… the time a drone can stay aloft depends on how heavily armed it is.” According to a drone operator training document obtained by AlterNet, at maximum payload, meaning with 3,750 pounds worth of Hellfire missiles and GBU-12 or GBU-30 bombs on board, the Reaper can remain aloft for 16 to 20 hours. Even a glance at a world map tells you that, if the U.S. is to carry out ever more drone strikes across the developing world, it will need more bases for its future UAVs. As an unnamed senior military official pointed out to a Washington Post reporter, speaking of all those new drone bases clustered around the Somali and Yemeni war zones, “If you look at it geographically, it makes sense -- you get out a ruler and draw the distances [drones] can fly and where they take off from.”

Earlier this year, an analysis by TomDispatch.com determined that there are more than 1,000 U.S. military bases scattered across the globe -- a shadowy base-world that provides plenty of existing sites that can, and no doubt will, host drones. But facilities selected for a pre-drone world may not always prove optimal locations for America’s current and future undeclared wars and assassination campaigns. So further expansion in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is likely.

What are the Air Force’s plans in this regard? Lieutenant Colonel John Haynes was typically circumspect. “We are constantly evaluating potential operating locations based on evolving mission needs,” he said. If the last decade is any indication, those “needs” will only continue to grow.

[Saurian Tail]

US Army to fly 'kamikaze' drones
Oct 17 07:23 PM US/Eastern

A miniature "kamikaze" drone designed to quietly hover in the sky before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target will soon be part of the US Army's arsenal, officials say.

Dubbed the "Switchblade," the robotic aircraft represents the latest attempt by the United States to refine how it takes out suspected militants.

Weighing less than two kilos, the drone is small enough to fit into a soldier's backpack and is launched from a tube, with wings quickly folding out as it soars into the air, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.

Powered by a small electric motor, the Switchblade transmits video in real time from overhead, allowing a soldier to identify an enemy, the company said in a press release last month.

"Upon confirming the target using the live video feed, the operator then sends a command to the air vehicle to arm it and lock its trajectory onto the target," it said.

The drone then flies into the "target," detonating a small explosive.

The California-based firm also said the drone can be called off at the last moment, even after a kill mission has been ordered. That feature provides troops with "a level of control not available in other weapon systems," it said.

The United States currently uses larger Predator and Reaper drones to hunt down suspected militants in Pakistan and elsewhere.

The robotic planes fire powerful Hellfire missiles and drop heavy bombs that can cause civilian casualties and extensive damage, which has fueled popular anger with the United States in Pakistan.

In the war in Afghanistan, US and coalition troops fighting the the Taliban can call in artillery fire or air strikes from fighter jets and attack helicopters. But the heavy firepower has been blamed by Afghan leaders for claiming the lives of innocent civilians and strained US relations with Kabul.

The Switchblade, however, is touted as a way to avoid killing bystanders.

"Flying quietly at high speed the Switchblade delivers its onboard explosive payload with precision while minimizing collateral damage," the company said.

The US Army in June approved a $4.9 million contract for AeroVironment to supply the new drones as soon as possible. Officials have not said how many Switchblade drones were ordered or when the robotic weapons would make into the hands of US forces.

Human rights groups have raised concerns that the use of drones by the CIA has allowed the conduct of a secret assassination campaign abroad without public scrutiny and little oversight by lawmakers in Congress.

[crikkett]

Human rights groups have raised concerns that the use of drones by the CIA has allowed the conduct of a secret assassination campaign abroad without public scrutiny and little oversight by lawmakers in Congress.

Not to mention how easy it's made drug smuggling.

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.military.com/news/article/co ... trike.html

Confusion Blamed in Friendly Fire Drone Strike
October 15, 2011
Houston Chronicle|by Lindsay Wise

Missteps and miscommunication in the heat of battle led to the friendly-fire deaths of a Houston-based Marine reservist and Navy corpsman killed by a drone in Afghanistan earlier this year, according to a Pentagon report.

Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, of Arlington, and Navy corpsman Benjamin Rast, 23, of Niles, Mich., were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. Predator drone in southern Afghanistan on April 6. Both men served in 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, a Houston-based reserve unit also known as The Lone Star Battalion.

The Predator crew targeted Smith and Rast after mistaking their heat signatures on the drone's sensors for those of enemy forces, according to the 381-page redacted report obtained by the Houston Chronicle on Friday.

The report blames a "lack of comprehensive situational awareness by all parties in the process, initiated by the on-scene commander's inability to interpret and communicate accurate friendly positions."

But the investigation absolved all coalition personnel involved in the strike of culpable negligence or dereliction of duties.

"The position of the enemy firing at coalition forces was never commonly established," the report states. "The units in direct contact were confident in the location of the enemy and were certain, based on that observation, they would not be targeted. Those involved in the strike process were mistakenly but equally convinced that they were observing and targeting enemy personnel. None realized their error until seconds before the delivery of the fires."

First Predator losses

Smith and Rast are the first U.S. service members confirmed to have been killed by a Predator drone.

The report recommended a review of Predator procedures and communication capabilities, and suggested that key elements of the incident should be used to supplement training.

"The investigation determined the event was an accident and that all people involved were attempting to execute their combat duties appropriately," said U.S. Forces Afghanistan in a statement.

"The Navy and the Marine Corps lost two of America's finest on April 6, 2011," the statement said. "We are mindful of the great sacrifices that these men, and many other service members just like them, have made for this nation."

Smith and Rast were members of 1/23's Alpha Company. Upon arriving in Afghanistan in March, their platoon was attached to 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, an active-duty Marine unit based out of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

About 7:20 a.m. April 6, Smith and Rast's platoon left Patrol Base Alcatraz in Helmand province to secure a section of road. The plan was for the Marines to ride north in armored vehicles until they reached a prearranged spot, at which point some of the Marines would get out and inspect the route on foot while the rest of the platoon kept watch from their vehicles on the road.

Drone spots activity

The Marines came under enemy fire at 8:20 a.m. The platoon commander, who was with the vehicles, didn't realize that the Marines on foot had split into two groups, one of which was about 200 yards off the road to protect the patrol's flank. Their position was either reported incorrectly to the platoon commander or never received.

A few minutes later, a Predator crew diverted a drone overhead to scan for the enemy. The drone's sensors picked up three heat signatures and flashes of gunfire.

Both the Predator pilot and a Marine responsible for coordinating air attacks from a nearby base thought the shots were being directed at friendly forces, but Air Force analysts monitoring the drone's live video feed from Indiana thought the shot had been fired to the west, away from friendly forces.

The Air Force assessment was never communicated to the Marine air attack coordinator, platoon commander or Predator pilot.

The heat signatures were, in fact, Smith, Rast and another Marine from their platoon.

The Hellfire missile struck at 8:51 a.m. Smith died instantly. Rast suffered a mortal head wound.

"Indications and warning of this pending error were available but unrecognized by the ground force commander, higher headquarters command centers and the Predator crew," the report stated. "... Absent this clarity, no unit or person involved in the strike process could have confidently intervened to prevent a tragedy like this."

Military investigators recommended disciplinary counseling for the platoon commander for failing to properly maintain control of his unit. Two sergeants also were recommended for counseling for failure to communicate the situation on the ground adequately.

Military officials spent more than three hours briefing the Smith family on the investigation this week in Fort Worth. The family viewed photographs from the drone but declined to view any video.

Father supportive

Smith's father, Jerry Smith, said the images he saw from the drone's sensors were not clear.

"It was one-inch long blobs," he said. "That's all you can see on their scope."

He said he doesn't want anyone punished, especially not any of the men from his son's platoon.

"It was a weird set of bizarre circumstances that anybody could've gotten caught on," the elder Smith suggested. "There's less than any ill will. There's nothing but heart, love for these guys. I look at these guys as my kids now."

The situation appears to be a tragic case of miscommunication, rather than a failure of technology, said Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at Brookings Institution.

"At the end of the day it seems a lot of the issues would be the same whether you were talking about a manned aircraft on the scene or an unmanned aircraft that was operating remotely," Singer said. "It sounds like essentially a fog of war situation."

Regardless, drones are here to stay, he said.

"We haven't stopped using the system and we won't stop using the system because of this incident."

[elfismiles]

New Police Drone Near Houston Could Carry Weapons
http://www.click2houston.com/news/29619788/detail.html

CONROE, Texas -- A Houston area law enforcement agency is prepared to launch an unmanned drone that could someday carry weapons, Local 2 Investigates reported Friday.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Conroe paid $300,000 in federal homeland security grant money and Friday it received the ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter made by Vanguard Defense Industries of Spring.

A laptop computer is used to control the 50-pound unmanned chopper, and a game-like console is used to aim and zoom a powerful camera and infrared heat-seeking device mounted on the front.

"To be in on the ground floor of this is pretty exciting for us here in Montgomery County," Sheriff Tommy Gage said.

He said the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) could be used in hunting criminals who are running from police or assessing a scene where SWAT team officers are facing an active shooter.

Gage said it will also be deployed for criminal investigations such as drug shipments.

"We're not going to use it to be invading somebody's privacy. It'll be used for situations we have with criminals," Gage said.

It could have been used to help firefighters in the recent tri-county wildfires, he said, and it also could be handy in future scenarios like a recent search for a missing college student in The Woodlands.

In 2007, Local 2 Investigates uncovered a secret Houston Police Department test of a different kind of drone, fueling a nationwide debate over civil liberties and privacy.

A constitutional law professor and other civil liberties watchdogs told Local 2 Investigates that questions about police searches without warrants would crop up, as well as police spying into back yards or other private areas.

HPD fueled that 2007 controversy even further by suggesting that drones could be used for writing speeding tickets.

The backlash prompted Mayor Annise Parker to scrap HPD's plans for using drones when she took office.

Gage said he is aware of those concerns.

"No matter what we do in law enforcement, somebody's going to question it, but we're going to do the right thing, and I can assure you of that," he said.

He said two deputies are finishing their training and should be ready to fly police missions within the next month.

Tapped to operate the Montgomery County Sheriff's helicopter UAV are Sgt. Melvin Franklin, a licensed pilot, and Lt. Damon Hall, who heads the department's crime lab and crime scene unit. The sheriff said Hall's SWAT team background will assist the department in using the new tool on hostage standoffs or active shooter events.

The ShadowHawk chopper was displayed on a small conference room table as it was unveiled Friday. It displayed a sheriff's logo and flashing blue lights on the side. On the front of the chopper, a grapefruit sized back unit houses the camera and Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) sensor that can detect heat from a gun or a suspect's body.

Deputies said they can quickly switch between day and night vision on the camera, which is zoomed and moved from side to side by a game-like console inside a police command vehicle on the ground.

The display shows up on a small TV-like box, while the actual flight controls are handled from a laptop computer.

Michael Buscher, chief executive officer of manufacturer Vanguard Defense Industries, said this is the first local law enforcement agency to buy one of his units.

He said they are designed to carry weapons for local law enforcement.

"The aircraft has the capability to have a number of different systems on board. Mostly, for law enforcement, we focus on what we call less lethal systems," he said, including Tazers that can send a jolt to a criminal on the ground or a gun that fires bean bags known as a "stun baton."

"You have a stun baton where you can actually engage somebody at altitude with the aircraft. A stun baton would essentially disable a suspect," he said.

Gage said he has no immediate plans to outfit his drone with weapons, and he also ruled out using the chopper for catching speeders.

"We're not going to use it for that," he said.

Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel said, "I'm tickled to death" about using the drone, pointing out that in his years of police work he could imagine countless incidents having ended more quickly and easily.

"It's so simple in its design and the objectives, you just wonder why anyone would choose not to have it," said McDaniel.

At the same time Houston police were testing a different drone, the Miami-Dade Metro Police department was also taking test flights of a helicopter UAV, and the Federal Aviation Administration said that department is now using its drone for local police work.

The San Diego Police Department also made local headlines in 2008 for beginning its own flights with a fixed-wing UAV.

But Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman in Washington, said very few local police departments actually have the required certificate of authorization (COA) to fly police missions nationwide.

He said Montgomery County is the first COA by a local police department in all of Texas.

In September 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a 73-page report that raised issues about police drones endangering airspace for small planes or even commercial airliners.

The report's author, Gerald Dillingham, told Local 2 Investigates that 65 percent of the crashes of military drones on the battlefield were caused by mechanical failures.

He said a police UAV could lose its link to the ground controllers if wind knocks the aircraft out of range or the radio frequencies are disrupted.

"If you lose that communication link as the result of that turbulence or for any other reason, then you have an aircraft that is not in control and can in fact crash into something on the ground or another aircraft," said Dillingham.

Pilots of small planes expressed those concerns in the original 2007 Local 2 Investigates reporting on police drones, and the FAA reported then that police departments across the country were lining up to apply for their own drones.

At Montgomery County, Franklin said an onboard GPS system is designed to keep the UAV on target and connected with the ground controllers. He said coordinates are plotted in advance and a command is given for the UAV to fly directly to that spot, adjusting to turbulence and other factors. He said he and the other controller can alter "waypoints" quickly on the laptop to move the chopper to areas that had not previously been mapped out. He said the aircraft moves at a speed of 30 knots, which he said makes it unsuitable for police pursuits.

Small aircraft pilots have expressed concerns that drones cannot practice the "see and avoid" rule that keeps aircraft from colliding in mid-air. Since the camera may be aimed somewhere else, pilots said police controllers may not be able to see and avoid other aircraft in the area during a sudden police emergency.

Gage said he would take every concern into account as his UAV is deployed.

The only routine law enforcement flights inside the United States over the past four years have been the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their border flights over Texas and Arizona have included one crash, where the drone lost its link to the ground controller.

[StarmanSkye]

Elfismiles posted:


"In a couple years your local sheriff dept. will have a Reaper Drone and you STILL won't see the connection between your wars and lost liberty."

Right-the-Hell-oN!


50 years of incremental fascism, its not like it just suddenly 'happened'.

And many people faithfully tune-in to be delusionally-mesmerized by talking-head mass-media Whores, they STILL loyally make excuses for and justify the outrageous actions of our unelected Corporate-owned-and-controlled Political stooges and the Security-Intelligence/Police State.

[Bruce Dazzling]

The human toll of the U.S. drone campaign
Wednesday, Nov 2, 2011 9:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Glenn Greenwald

The principal reason so little attention is paid to the constant victims of American violence in the Muslim world is because the U.S. Government refuses to disclose anything about these attacks and media outlets virtually never report on those victims (MSNBC demoted and then fired its then-rising-star Ashleigh Banfield when she returned from Iraq and pointed out that fact in an April, 2003 speech denouncing the “one-sided” coverage of American wars: meaning, the invisibility in U.S. media of America’s civilian victims). It’s easy to cheer for a leader who regularly extinguishes the lives of innocent men, women, teeangers and young children when you can remain blissfully free of hearing about the victims. It’s even easier when the victims all have Muslim-ish names and live in the parts of the Muslim world we’ve been taught to view as a cauldron of sub-human demons. That’s why it’s periodically worth highlighting the actual impact of those drones and the actual people they kill, as the BBC did today:

When tribal elders from the remote Pakistani region of North Waziristan travelled to Islamabad last week to protest against CIA drone strikes, a teenager called Tariq Khan was among them.

A BBC team caught him on camera, sitting near the front of a tribal assembly, or jirga, listening carefully.

Four days later he was dead – killed by one of the drones he was protesting against.

His family told us two missiles hit the 16-year-old on Monday near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. His 12-year-old cousin Wahid was killed alongside him. . . .

After the missile strike on Monday, Pakistani officials said four suspected militants had been killed.

If the strike actually killed two young boys – as appears to be the case – it’s unlikely anyone will ever be held to account. . . .

Many senior commanders from the Taliban and al-Qaeda are among the dead. But campaigners claim there have been hundreds of civilian victims, whose stories are seldom told.
A shy teenage boy called Saadullah is one of them. He survived a drone strike that killed three of his relatives, but he lost both legs, one eye and his hope for the future.

“I wanted to be a doctor,” he told me, “but I can’t walk to school anymore. When I see others going, I wish I could join them.”

Like Tariq, Saadullah travelled to Islamabad for last week’s jirga. Seated alongside him was Haji Zardullah, a white-bearded man who said he lost four nephews in a separate attack.

“None of these were harmful people,” he said. “Two were still in school and one was in college.”

The article quotes the international human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith arguing that because Pakistan is not a war zone, these killings are “murder.” That’s an argument that — in the extremely unlikely event it were ever heard in America’s establishment media organs — would be treated with mockery and contempt. Everyone knows that the American President cannot commit “murder”; that’s only for common criminals and Muslim dictators (whom the West starts to dislike). But however one wants to define these acts, the fact is that we have spent a full decade bringing violence to multiple countries in that region and — in all sorts of ways — ending the lives of countless innocent people. Outside of Iraq, that process over the last two years has acclerated in both frequency and geographic scope. And it has left in its wake a horde of dead-16-year-old Tariq Khans and half-blinded, double-amputee teenage Saadullahs about whom we hear almost nothing. But the people in that part of the world hear a lot about it, and that explains much about the vast discrepancy in perceptions between the two regions.

The New York Times and others love to complain that Pakistanis and “the Arab Street” are propagandized: crucial facts kept from them in order to distract attention from what their leaders are doing. It may be true that they are, but they are most certainly not alone in that.[/quote]

[elfismiles]

Polish protesters send up ‘Robokopter’ drone to spy on police
Defense Tech / November 18, 2011

The video below showing a civilian operated drone chopper filming riots in Warsaw, Poland last Friday is a great example of the democratization of what was until very recently, military-grade tech. This is a straight up ISR drone that’s flying high above the streets of a major city taking camera footage that was once the exclusive domain of high-priced news choppers and government helos.

Read full article here:
http://defensetech.org/2011/11/16/video ... rom-above/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/17/w ... on-police/


Watch these videos of Robokopter in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dce0XV4kwTM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vOor1xmVDs

[JackRiddler]

.

The inevitable getting closer. . .

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-d ... rint.story

latimes.com/business/la-fi-drones-for-profit-20111127,0,6584711.story

latimes.com

Idea of civilians using drone aircraft may soon fly with FAA


The Qube fits in the trunk of a car and is controlled remotely by a tablet computer. (Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times / October 20, 2011)

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to propose new rules for the use of small drones in January, a first step toward clearing the way for police departments, farmers and others to employ the technology.

By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times

November 27, 2011Advertisement


Drone aircraft, best known for their role in hunting and destroying terrorist hide-outs in Afghanistan, may soon be coming to the skies near you.

Police agencies want drones for air support to spot runaway criminals. Utility companies believe they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers think drones could aid in spraying their crops with pesticides.

"It's going to happen," said Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Assn. "Now it's about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace."

That's the job of the Federal Aviation Administration, which plans to propose new rules for the use of small drones in January, a first step toward integrating robotic aircraft into the nation's skyways.

The agency has issued 266 active testing permits for civilian drone applications but hasn't permitted drones in national airspace on a wide scale out of concern that the pilotless craft don't have an adequate "detect, sense and avoid" technology to prevent midair collisions.

Other concerns include privacy — imagine a camera-equipped drone buzzing above your backyard pool party — and the creative ways in which criminals and terrorists might use the machines.

"By definition, small drones are easy to conceal and fly without getting a lot of attention," said John Villasenor, a UCLA professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation. "Bad guys know this."

The aerospace industry insists these concerns can be addressed. It also believes that the good guys — the nation's law enforcement agencies — are probably the biggest commercial market for domestic drones, at least initially.

Police departments in Texas, Florida and Minnesota have expressed interest in the technology's potential to spot runaway criminals on rooftops or to track them at night by using the robotic aircraft's heat-seeking cameras.

"Most Americans still see drone aircraft in the realm of science fiction," said Peter W. Singer, author of "Wired for War," a book about robotic warfare. "But the technology is here. And it isn't going away. It will increasingly play a role in our lives. The real question is: How do we deal with it?"

Drone maker AeroVironment Inc. of Monrovia, the nation's biggest supplier of small drones to the military, has developed its first small helicopter drone that's designed specifically for law enforcement. If FAA restrictions are eased, the company plans to shop it among the estimated 18,000 state and local police departments across the United States.

In the foothills north of Simi Valley, amid acres of scrubland, AeroVironment engineers have been secretly testing a miniature remote-controlled helicopter named Qube. Buzzing like an angry hornet, the tiny drone with four whirling rotors swoops back and forth about 200 feet above the ground scouring the landscape and capturing crystal-clear video of what lies below.

The new drone weighs 51/2 pounds, fits in the trunk of a car and is controlled remotely by a tablet computer. AeroVironment unveiled Qube last month at the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago.

"This is a tool that many law enforcement agencies never imagined they could have," said Steven Gitlin, a company executive.

Plenty of police departments fly expensive helicopters for high-speed chases, spotting suspects and finding missing people. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said it recently bought 12 new helicopters at a cost of $1.7 million each.

Gitlin said a small Qube, by comparison, would cost "slightly more than the price of a police cruiser," or about $40,000.

Sheriff's Department Cmdr. Bob Osborne said that there's "no doubt" that the department is interested in using drones. "It's just that the FAA hasn't come up with workable rules that we can harness it. If those roadblocks were down, we'd want to use it."

Drones' low-cost appeal has other industries interested as well.

Farmers in Japan already use small drones to automatically spray their crops with pesticides, and more recently safety inspectors used them at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Archaeologists in Russia are using small drones and their infrared cameras to construct a 3-D model of ancient burial mounds. Officials in Tampa Bay, Fla., want to use them for security surveillance at next year's Republican National Convention.

But the FAA says there are technical issues to be addressed before they're introduced in civil airspace. Among them is how to respond if a communication link is lost with a drone — such as when it falls out of the sky, takes a nose dive into a backyard pool or crashes through someone's roof.

Frederick W. Smith, founder of FedEx Corp., the largest owner of commercial cargo jets, suggested using a fleet of package-laden drones led by a traditionally piloted plane that could keep an eye on the robotic aircraft.

"Think of it like a train where you have a locomotive and you put two or three or four or 10 cars — depending on what demand is — and the drones basically fly the exact same flight profile in formation," Smith said at a Wired magazine conference last year. "It's very efficient."

Drones could also be useful to real estate agents to showcase sprawling properties. Oil and gas companies want to utilize them to keep an eye on their pipelines. Even organizations delivering humanitarian assistance want to use drones.

Matternet, a Silicon Valley start-up, has proposed a network of drones to deliver food and medicine in isolated regions around the world that are now inaccessible because they have no roads.

But if the use of drones is so widespread in the future, it raises concern that they could fall into the wrong hands and be weaponized.

Oh for fuck's sake. The police department already qualifies as the wrong hands.

Small drones are not designed to carry weapons or explosive materials, and the extra weight makes the drones difficult to control, said Gretchen West, executive vice president of the Assn. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a robotic technology trade group.

"Also, because the technology on these systems are state of the art," West said, they are controlled by "rules that govern the larger systems, which prohibit the systems and technology from falling into the wrong hands."

Still, there are vast privacy concerns to be confronted by government officials, such as what kinds of surveillance should be allowed and who should be permitted to use these drones.

"It's important that the FAA is scrutinizing the safety of the technology, but they should also make sure Americans' privacy is maintained," said Catherine Crump, an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney. "Having cheap, portable, flying surveillance machines may have a tremendous benefit for law enforcement, but will it respect Americans' privacy?"

Other countries appear to have safely harnessed the technology. Brazil uses drones to scour the Amazon rain forest for drug trafficking. Researchers in Costa Rica are sending drones into clouds of volcanic ash to help predict future eruptions. Argentina, South Korea, and Turkey buy small drone helicopters for overhead views of their land and for crop dusting from Guided Systems Technologies Inc.

For now, the Stockbridge, Ga., company deals primarily with foreign countries, which don't have restrictive rules against drones, because it can't sell the aircraft at home.

That all might change, said West of the Assn. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. The U.S. commercial market for drones has "untapped" potential, she said. The association estimates that 23,000 jobs could be added over the next 15 years if national airspace is opened to commercial drones.

"Industry is ready," she said. "We're all waiting to see what the FAA will do."

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Oh, yes! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

.

[Bruce Dazzling]

NPR’s domestic drone commercial
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2011
Glenn Greenwald

Excitement over America’s use of drones in multiple Muslim countries is, predictably, causing those weapons to be imported onto U.S. soil. Federal law enforcement agencies and local police forces are buying more and more of them and putting them to increasingly diverse domestic uses, as well as patrolling the border, and even private corporations are now considering how to use them. One U.S. drone manufacturer advertises its product as ideal for “urban monitoring.” Orlando’s police department originally requested two drones to use for security at next year’s GOP convention, only to change their minds for budgetary reasons. One new type of drone already in use by the U.S. military in Afghanistan — the Gorgon Stare, named after the “mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them” — is “able to scan an area the size of a small town” and “the most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity”; boasted one U.S. General: “Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we’re looking at, and we can see everything.”

As of the 2010 year-end report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), there were already “more than 270 active authorizations for the use of dozens of kinds of drones” (35% held by the Pentagon, 5% by Homeland Security and others by the FBI). Employing them for domestic police actions is following the model quickly being implemented in surveillance-happy Britain, where drones are used for “the ­’routine’ monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.”

Even leaving aside the issue of weaponization (police officials now openly talk about equipping drones with “nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun”), the use of drones for domestic surveillance raises all sorts of extremely serious privacy concerns and other issues of potential abuse. Their ability to hover in the air undetected for long periods of time along with their comparatively cheap cost enables a type of broad, sustained societal surveillance that is now impractical, while equipping them with infra-red or heat-seeking detectors and high-powered cameras can provide extremely invasive imagery. The holes eaten into the Fourth Amendment’s search and seizure protections by the Drug War and the War on Terror means there are few Constitutional limits on how this technology can be used, and there are no real statutory or regulatory restrictions limiting their use. In sum, the potential for abuse is vast, the escalation in surveillance they ensure is substantial, and the effect they have on the culture of personal privacy — having the state employ hovering, high-tech, stealth video cameras that invade homes and other private spaces — is simply creepy.

But listeners of NPR would know about virtually none of that. On its All Things Considered program yesterday, NPR broadcast a five-minute report (audio below) from Brian Naylor that purported to be a news story on the domestic use of drones but was, in fact, much more akin to a commercial for the drone industry. Naylor began by describing a video on the website of a drone manufacturer, AeroVironment, which names its drone “the Qube”; the video, gushed Naylor, shows police officers chasing a criminal who hides, only for the police to pull a drone out of their trunk, launch it airborne, receive images of where the criminal is hiding on their iPad, and then find and arrest the suspect, who was armed and dangerous. NPR listeners then heard from that corporation’s Vice President touting how much the Qube will help “public safety professionals like law enforcement, search and rescue, and first responders.”

Naylor then told NPR listeners that drones “have been a success with the military” — though he didn’t mention things like this, this or this — and then moved on to talk to an official in a Sheriff’s office in Colorado who uses the Dragonfly X6; in Naylor’s words, that police official explained how the drone product has “been especially useful in search operations.” The Sheriff official then hailed the drone’s low cost, light weight, and fantastic safety record. Next up in NPR’s report was — seriously — an official with the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, which Naylor called “an industry trade group.” That’s the organization that represents the drone manufacturing industry, and NPR decided that this, too, was an important source for its story examining the domestic use of drones. That official touted all the fantastic private-sector uses for drones, including “Utility companies – so oil and gas – using a UAS to do surveillance over a pipeline; electrical companies that want to do surveillance over some of their electrical wires; the agriculture market. So, you can use UAS for crop testing. You could use UAS for tracking livestock. ”

With about 20 seconds left in the report, it came time to tack on a brief, cursory note about privacy and abuse issues. Said Naylor: “All that flying around of unmanned aircraft has some people a little wary.” A “privacy advocate” was put on the air for about ten seconds to note that “drones can easily be equipped with facial recognition cameras, infrared cameras, or open WiFi sniffers” and could also be used by “paparazzi, your homeowners’ association, your neighbor.” Naylor then noted that the FAA is working now on safety regulations, and with that, the report ended. So NPR listeners heard for 4 1/2 minutes about the wonderful, exciting uses of drones from an executive of a drone corporation, an official with the drone industry, and a sheriff’s spokesman using drones, and then for about 10 seconds at the end from someone who is “a little wary.” If the drone industry had purchased commercial time on NPR, how would this report have been any different? (An industry commercial might have given more prominent play to the privacy advocate just to make it seem less one-sided).

There is no question that domestic political unrest is a major concern of law enforcement officials at every level. A new report released today by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development documents that “the gap between rich and poor in OECD countries has reached its highest level for over 30 years,” and, as an OECD official said, “the social contract is starting to unravel in many countries. . . Without a comprehensive strategy for inclusive growth, inequality will continue to rise.” As The Wasington Post said today: the report “comes as rising dissatisfaction with economic inequality has spilled over into street protests in dozens of cities around the world.” Moreover, “the United States, Turkey and Israel have among the largest ratios between the incomes of those at the top and the bottom, roughly 14 to 1.”

Drone technology is but the latest War on Terror weapon to be imported onto U.S. soil, and the dangers should be manifest. One article prominently touted on AeroVironment’s website hails the “Switchblade,” which the author excitingly describes as “an ingenious, miniature unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is also a weapon” and “the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems. ” The Switchblade drone is “a very short-range, low-altitude, lightweight, tube-fired UAV that is carried and deployed by individual warfighters.” It’s ideal for killing a person “behind barriers, around the corner of a building or in a cave.” Because of how small, light and easily deployable it is — it is meant to be used by a single individual on the ground, at the scene of the target — the article dubs this new product “the ultimate assassin bug.” I found that article because it was touted on the same website of the same drone company featured by NPR; that might have been an informative fact to include in the story.

As I’ve written about before, a prime aim of the sprawling Surveillance State — justified in the name of Terrorism — is to empower the government domestically. Indeed, the War on Terror now has a decidedly domestic flavor: with bin Laden dead and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan virtually nonexistent (i.e., with the original War on Terror justifications now gone), U.S. officials have been emphasizing that the leading threat is “homegrown Terrorists,” and the latest new War on Terror bill passed by the Senate focused on domestic powers and U.S. citizens as much as anything else. And, of course, the Obama administration has infamously asserted the power to target even U.S. citizens for assassination without a shred of due process. While one can certainly envision how drones could perform legitimate police functions, the importation of instruments like drone technology into domestic police activities raises a slew of profound questions, and there is one thing we can be certain of: establishment media outlets like NPR will do their best to obscure and belittle those questions while glorifying these weapons. That’s what it means to be the “establishment media.”

[RobinDaHood]

China's New Toy

In China's ambitious drive to bulk up its lagging military, its released this photo of a large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Stephen Trimble at Flight Global posted this shot and reports that readers also found a Chinese magazine article about the aircraft in Construction Technology (via sinodefense forum). The article describes two variants of the UAV: the Wind Blade, and the Crossbow.

Both were designed by Shenyang University students. Judging from the antenna visible in the picture, this may be the scale model of an full-scale version currently in production.

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-just-released-this-photo-of-its-new-wind-blade-drone-2011-12

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

NPR’s domestic drone commercial
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2011
Glenn Greenwald

.....NPR broadcast a five-minute report (audio below) from Brian Naylor that purported to be a news story on the domestic use of drones but was, in fact, much more akin to a commercial for the drone industry. .....

'Cause NPR is...the CIA's domestic version of Voice of America. duh.

Good, Glenn, for noticing the propaganda. But out the source for what it is. Don't just abhor the product.

[Nordic]

So Greenwald just noticed this about NPR? He musn't listen to them very often. They've been intolerable since about 2003.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/08/ ... -you/print

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

December 08, 2011

Militarizing the Borders
Drones Are Coming to a Theater Near You

by TOM BARRY


“The UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, are coming.” So says Candice Miller, the Republican congresswoman from northern Michigan borderlands.

She should know. Miller chairs the Border and Maritime Security of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security’s rush to deploy drones to keep the homeland secure.

In practice, there’s more boosterism than effective oversight in the House Homeland Security Committee and in Miller’s subcommittee.

The same holds true for most of the more than one hundred other congressional committees that purportedly oversee the DHS and its budget. Since the creation of DHS in 2003 Congress has routinely approved annual and supplementary budgets for border security that have been higher than those requested by the president and DHS.

One reason for the proliferation of DHS oversight committees is interest by congressional representatives like Miller in increasing DHS operations – and associated federal pork – in their districts. Another is the widespread and eminently bipartisan desire by politicians to demonstrate their commitment to border security, immigration enforcement, and counterterrorism.

Pentagon Filling Capacity Gaps at Home

Miller, who frequently displays her familiarity with military jargon, advocates the increased use of military technology for border and homeland security. She points to the increasing and allegedly successful use of the grimly baptized Predator and Reaper drones by DHS as an example of how military technology “used in theater in Iraq and Afghanistan” can be easily adopted to “fill capacity gaps at home.”

On November 15 Miller presided over a congressional hearing to explore how DHS can find technological solutions to homeland and border security in the military technology that is “coming back from theater.”

The DHS is the lead federal agency in bringing drones to the home theater, although the Department of Justice is also working closely with aviation technology manufacturers and local law enforcement agencies to introduce drones to police and sheriffs departments.

The Pentagon is also playing a major role in the planning to open more U.S. airspace for drone testing and deployment for national defense and homeland security, while U.S. military and National Guard bases are hosting DHS drones.

Another major player, of course, is the UAV industry, which is eager to open up not only U.S. airspace but also the international market for public and private drone operations.

Drone undoubtedly will play an increasing role in military, homeland security, border security, and law enforcement operations. Miller is certainly right that drones are coming.

Escalation Without Review

But as drones start coming to a theater near you, there is little reason to believe that government has exercised the due diligence and proper oversight when reviewing drone deployment plans.

Much of the enthusiasm for drones stems from the much-touted success of drones in military missions, particularly in hunting down and killing terrorists in South Asia and the Middle East.

But overseas drone operations have rapidly escalated in the absence of strategic review of the long-term consequences for international law, U.S. overseas missions, and U.S. national security.

News that a U.S. stealth drone – a RQ-170 manufactured by Lockheed Martin — apparently crashed on Iranian soil underscored fears of critics of drone proliferation that the technology will inevitably fall into hostile hands. The crash highlighted, too, the high crash rate of drones as the result of technological communications failures and the absence of onboard piloting.

At home, drone deployment is marching ahead without any cost-benefit evaluations, impact studies, or even any assessments about which UAVs might best meet DHS perceived needs. With respect to homeland security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is simply purchasing the hugely expensive unarmed versions of the Predator and Reaper UAVs (manufactured by General Atomics) that are currently deployed in overseas wars and interventions.

Neither the Obama administration nor Congress has insisted that CBP provide documentation to support its repeated assertions that UAV’s function as “force multiplier” for the Border Patrol and that drone patrols have substantially improved “border security.” What is more, CBP has failed to demonstrate that it has sufficient skilled personnel and the required logistical capability to operate UAVs successfully.

Drone Boosterism

The House proponents of expanded drone operations have their own caucus. Cong. Buck McKeon, the powerful Republican who represents the southern California’s 25th district, created the UAV Caucus – now called the Unmanned Systems Caucus — in 2009. McKeon also chairs the House Armed Services Committee, where he promotes drone use in foreign wars.

Under Miller’s chairmanship, the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee, has become another major font of drone boosterism. The committee’s ranking member is Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, who represents the border district of Laredo. Cuellar also serves as cochair of the Unmanned Systems Caucus.

Miller is effusive and unconditional in her support of drones. In subcommittee hearings, Miller has described herself variously as a “very strong” and “huge” supporter of UAVs. Miller has repeatedly called UAVs a “fantastic technology.”

Describing why UAVs are a fantastic instrument for border security, Miller describes the drones as the new wave of combat operations – where strikes and surveillance occur without risking U.S. lives.

At the March 15, 2011 subcommittee hearing on border technology, Miller, whose husband served as commander of the Selfridge Air Base (which DHS is considering as a UAV operations control center), said: “You know, my husband was a fighter pilot in Vietnam theater, so—from another generation, but I told him, I said, ‘’Dear, the glory days of the fighter jocks are over.’ “

The UAVs are coming, continued Miller, “and now you see our military siting in a cubicle sometimes in Nevada, drinking a Starbucks, running these things in theater and being incredibly, incredibly successful.”

The close association of drones and national security abroad and the new linking of UAVs with homeland and border security may shield budgetary and strategic decisions about drones from any critical oversight.

Proponents of the deployment of drones for border security have long framed their advocacy in terms of national security.

Cuellar, who was a leading force behind the provision to include $32 million for two more CBP drones in last year’s “emergency” supplemental border security bill, offered what is the now typical linking of border security, national security, and the war against terrorists at a committee hearing on UAVs.

According to Cuellar, “UAVs are one more tool for us to stay steps ahead and leaps above the threats that we face, and they can help deter and prevent illegal activity and threats to terrorism against the United States.”

At one recent oversight hearing, Miller made the argument that what is good enough in foreign operations should also be the standard at home. “Certainly,” she stated, “when we see ourselves involved in theater, in Iraq and Afghanistan, I mean, even in South Korea at the DMZ, we are securing borders for other countries, and we can’t secure our own border.”

What’s more, drones are apparently near risk-free, in Miller’s estimation: “You know, they are flying along at very high altitudes, 50,000- plus feet. Too bad if you lose one, but guess what? You didn’t lose a soldier.”

Miller demands that such Pentagon technology that has proved “so incredibly successful in theater” be used more extensively as a ‘force multiplier to support the incredible efforts, again, of our brave border agents.”

The facile merger of national security and border control is eroding the traditional constitutional and statutory barriers between the military and domestic law enforcement.

Miller advocates the creation of a special Pentagon office to facilitate the transfer of military technology to DHS, and she, like many border security hawks, backs increased National Guard deployment along the southern and northern borders.

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security — and the associated framing of immigration and border enforcement as security operations – has fostered a conceptual integration of national security and border control.

This post-9/11 strategic framework of border control and immigration policy as security issues has also bred a new militarism among congressional immigration and border security hawks.

Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who chairs the Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management, has led the pack of border security hawks with his alarmist assessments of border threats – on exhibit in the Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border report issued the by Republican members of the subcommittee in 2006. McCaul is also a leading voice for drone deployment both along the border and in Mexico, while also raising the possibility of the need for direct U.S. military intervention in Mexico.

The new border-related militarism pervades the proceedings of the House Homeland Security Committee, while also routine in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by one of Senate’s leading hawks, Joe Lieberman, the formerly Democratic senator from Connecticut.

The unblinking acceptance of the new militarism around border security – whether in deploying Predator and Reaper drones or in considering direct military involvement in operations to “secure the border” – is especially evident in the homeland security hearings chaired by Miller.

During the March 15 hearing Miller repeatedly proposed using Stryker Combat Brigades (all-terrain fighting vehicles first used in Iraq invasion) on the border. “If you have a Marine Stryker brigade on the other side of that border, I think those drug cartels are going to think twice about coming across that,” suggested Miller, who has also raised the possibility of “really utilizing various types of armaments that we do use in theater to secure the border.”

Miller also advocates the inclusion of a border security mission into all National Guard units and expanding Guard deployment along the border, “and perhaps other units of the military.”

But Miller wants the National Guard presence on the border to be more than “good optics,” and has expressed her concern that the Guard is “constrained by DOD regulations” – presumably referring to Posse Comitatus Act restrictions on using the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement.

Miller has been careful not clarify that she isn’t critical of the job that CBP agents are doing: “You do a wonderful, fabulous job. But I think we need to beef it up.”


Tom Barry directs the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy and is the author of Border Wars from MIT Press. See his work at http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/