“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.
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2 comments:
btw, rep. miller comes from harrison township, in metro detroit, which has selfridge air national guard base on lake st. clair. thanks for the article.
Obama Administration's Use of Drones Responsible for Increase in Civilian Deaths
By William Disher
truthout
January 24, 2010
The Obama administration is ramping up its use of drone unmanned aircraft to execute targeted killings in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and perhaps in other locations - and, in the process, killing civilians along with insurgents, and risking the compromise of US moral imperatives and foreign policy goals.
That's the view of a leading civil rights organization, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), calling on the president to lift the curtain of secrecy and level with the American people.
(SNIP)
The ACLU charged that the Obama administration has stepped up the use of drones to target individuals not only in Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan and perhaps other countries that are not active theaters of war.
"The use of unmanned drones to target and kill individuals is a profoundly new way of waging war. For the first time, military and intelligence officers can observe, track, and launch missiles at targeted individuals from control centers located thousands of miles away, without any significant US presence on the ground. The technology also permits the United States to target individuals nearly anywhere in the world," the organization claimed.
The number of civilian casualties caused by drone attacks varies from the dozens to the hundreds. Human rights organizations are particularly concerned that drones could be used to target criminal suspects rather than legitimate military targets. Criminal suspects should be arrested and tried in civilian courts, the ACLU contended, adding that failure to do so could amount to "unlawful extrajudicial killings."
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