Drone Proliferation: The Curve and the Conjuncture

(The following is a response by Tom Barry posted in the forum on drone warfare sponsored by the Cato Institute, and found here.)

Israeli Heron UAV

Although the United States has led the way in drone proliferation, Americans are not alone in addressing the issues and challenges associated with the new weapons, surveillance, and intelligence systems. This Cato Unbound forum is stirring “strong passions” and “vigorous debate” about the morality and strategic value of drones—passions and debate that Cortright contends are already spreading in America.

While the debate is certainly starting to simmer on this side of the Atlantic—although manifestly not in Congress or within the executive branch—the public policy discussions are fortunately more advanced in the United Kingdom. Our own discussion can benefit from the excellent European publications and forums about drone warfare and drone surveillance.

One reason for this more developed discussion in Europe, especially in the UK, is the convergence of concerns about the “surveillance society” and persisting questions about the British Army’s and NATO’s integration of drones into their overseas operations—along with Britain’s partnerships with Israel in drone manufacturing and testing.

Playing a key role in this debate is a nonprofit group called Drone Wars UK, which released in January 2012 a valuable overview of drone warfare issues in a special report titled Drone Wars Briefing. The briefing includes a helpful review of the noncombatant death reports in Pakistan, discussion of the expanding incidence of extrajudicial drone strikes by the CIA, and a summary of the UK’s program of Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS). The report makes a strong case that “we need a serious, public – and fully informed – debate on all these issues and to ensure there is full public accountability for their use.” Aside from the UK’s military intervention in South Asia, another connection, of course, is that its own drones are also piloted from the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The publication last year by Pax Christi/Netherlands of Does Unmanned Make Unacceptable? – Exploring the Debate on Using Drones and Robots in Warfare also points to the increasingly vibrant debate in Europe – one that can help inform the incipient public and policy debate at home.

What is striking, at least to me, about this forum is the deep divide that separates Cortright’s concerns, expressed in “License to Kill,” from the near-uncritical support of drone warfare expressed by the other responders.

Cortright’s concerns both about the morality of remotely controlled warfare and about the geographical distance and emotional disconnection from killing will contribute to increased military and CIA interventions contrast sharply—shockingly in my opinion—with enthusiasm for the potential of these high-tech systems not only to reduce civilian casualties by precise targeting but also to respond to humanitarian emergencies.

Caution and Skepticism versus Confidence and Enthusiasm

Obviously, the central problem is that the discussion brings together two distinct philosophical and strategic paradigms—which mostly clash, leaving little room for a bit of consensus and concordance.

To avoid this unfortunate breach, we would have benefited if Cortright had anticipated this communication problem by evaluating more forthrightly and dispassionately the strategic and tactical benefits of increased drone deployment across the range of missions—from intelligence gathering and reconnaissance to targeted missile strikes.

But the debate is further obstructed by type of facile dismissal by Wittes and Singh, and by Goure, of the proposition that the emergence of drone warfare changes little.

“Drones are a weapon like any other weapon,” write Wittes and Singh, pointing to a purported direct evolutionary line from spear to Predator. Goure asserts, “There is no evidence that armed drones have reduced the political inhibitions against the use of deadly force.” Such categorical and simplistic conclusions close the door to the kind of public policy debate that this forum should encourage and that is urgently needed in America. If the CIA can kill targets covertly by using drone-launched missiles rather than by initiating covert actions by infiltrating agents or special operations, political inhibitions fade.

The two security paradigms that are loggerheads in this forum were underscored by the concluding sentence of the Wittes and Singh essay: “Indeed, the question is not whether we will live in a world of highly proliferated technologies of robotic attack. It is whether the United States is going to be ahead of the curve or behind it.”

That’s the paradigm of militarism—persuasive if you believe that ever-increasing U.S. military development of new high-tech weaponry ensures our national security (and yet there is recent U.S. security history to assail this traditional assumption by militarists). Then there is another paradigm in which Cortright apparently situates himself, namely that U.S. security is best served when it aims to stay ahead of the curve with respect to arms-control agreements, international frameworks for just wars and interventions, international sanctions, and protection for noncombatants. This counter-security paradigm wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the need for a strong drone and anti-drone capacity within the U.S. security apparatus, although presumably it would place greater emphasis on seeking more diplomatic, economic, and social solutions to security and political tensions.

Thus far, however, the Obama administration has not stayed ahead of this curve in visionary international leadership—the place where the U.S. has historically often been in the vanguard, though in fits and starts.

Earlier this month the president announced a shift in U.S. military strategy, including the shedding of “outdated Cold War systems” in favor of the high-tech instruments and conflicts of the future—including the aptly denominated “shadow wars.” This evolution in military strategy, including the increased reliance on drones and special operations (and presumably a continuing pattern of extra-judicial killings by drone strikes around the globe) may, as its supporters contend, be exactly the course the U.S. military believes it needs to ensure national and global security.

Whether strategically right or not, this is a shift that clearly calls out for the kind of moral, ethical, and legal scrutiny that Cortright advocates. One can only hope that drone proponents will also recognize this need – although so far it’s not in evidence in this forum. Assertions that a weapon is a weapon is a weapon dismiss the evident truth of this new conjuncture in national and global security.

Meanwhile, we can confidently leave any “hand-wringing” about the fears of eroding U.S. military dominance to the busy hands and hearty handshakes of the still thriving military-industrial complex.

Relying on their capable lobbyists and on their congressional and Pentagon sympathizers, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the other companies in the flourishing drone industry—flush with military and homeland security contracts for drones—will surely do their best, without our help, to keep from falling behind the high-tech weapons curve.

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Drone Proliferation Issues at Cato Institute

What do Predators, Shadow Hawks, Tarantula Hawks, Reapers, Guardians, and Global Hawks have in common? 

No, they are not all predator species. Yes, they are all flying the skies of North America. And yes they are all drones, or what their breeders call Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs.)  

Although produced (mainly in the aviation-manufacturing complexes of Southern California) by military contractors, the drones in domestic airspace are unmanned but generally unarmed. For the most part, they are data-gathering “eyes in the sky” but lacking attack capabilities – although some smaller drones for law enforcement are being outfitted for possible taser strikes on criminals. 

General Atomics, Honeywell, Vanguard Defense Industries, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin are turning out flocks of drones for the Pentagon – more than $20 billion in UAV contracts in this century’s first decade. 

The U.S. military has been experimenting with remotely piloted drones for several decades. The operational concept guiding drone development was their role in what the military and the intelligence community calls ISR – Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.  It wasn’t until the U.S. military stepped up its presence in Afghanistan after the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001 that the Predator drones previously employed for ISR started carrying ordnance – largely missiles – payloads, thus opening up a form of air warfare.

It is commonly said that drones are especially well-suited for the so-called three Ds  – dull, dirty, and dangerous missions. All three types of missions stem from the unmanned character of UAVs. 

Although the drones require remote piloted and extensive crews to sift through data and to manage the launch-and-recovery operations of all UAV flights, the unmanned systems don’t directly put the lives of operators at risk in dirty (entering contaminated areas) or dangerous (entering conflict zones) missions. 

At home and in the close abroad (Mexico), the drone proliferation seen in U.S. counterterrorism and war-fighting mission since 2001 is increasingly paralleled by the deployment of drones on “dull” missions that take advantage of the capacity of UAVs to loiter for long intervals – as part of border security, law enforcement, and drug war missions. 

The surge of interest by law enforcement agencies -- the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Northern Command and the Justice Department, as well as by advocacy groups such as the House Unmanned Systems Caucus and the Association of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems International -- in drone deployment for these missions has not been accompanied by the congressional oversight and public debate necessary to ensure that drone operations don’t violate the civil rights, privacy, and human rights of all those subject to domestic ISR operations. 

DHS insists, for example, that its Predator missions are fundamental to gaining “situational awareness” – the same terminology used by the U.S. military in “war-fighting” missions.  If subject to proper oversight and regulations, UAVs could increase public safety and U.S. homeland security without putting constitutional and internationally stipulated rights at risk. 

Thus far, however, these checks and balances are not in place.  Nor are these safeguards even being properly considered by U.S. federal, state, and local authorities. 

(As part of an initiative by the Cato Institute to spark more discussion about drone deployments, I am participating in a online forum in Cato Unbound, the institute’s monthly magazine.

Here is a link to the lead essay, “License to Kill” by David Cortright: 

http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=5591

I will publish the response in the next blog post.)

Answers to the Border Drone Numbers Game

CBP has answers to the apparent inconsistencies and errors that I have pointed out in previous postings. Here, here, and here.

In response to a request to clarify the confusing and ostensibly errant numbers, CBP warned “it would be unfair to categorize UAS [unmanned aerials systems] by only using drug interdiction or border crossing metrics.”

Yes, ideally CBP would measure progress in securing the homeland by achievements by other measures, such as its role in countering terrorism and keeping the homeland secure – whatever that means.

The border agency further explains that:

CBP deploys and operates the UAS only after careful examination where the UAS can be most responsibly aid in countering threats of our Nation's security.  As threats change, CBP adjusts its enforcement posture accordingly and may consider moving the location of assets.

Then, the agency trots out the old force-multiplier assertion:

The UAS can stay in the air for up to 20 hours at a time-something no other aircraft in the federal inventory can do.  In this manner it is a force multiplier, providing aerial surveillance support for border agents by investigating sensor activity in remote areas to distinguish between real or perceived threats, allowing the boots on the ground force to best allocate their resources and efforts. 

That’s true. The Predators are called out when ground sensors signal movement. But as OAM’s (Office of Air and Marine) Major General Michael Kostelnik explained at the July 15, 2010 Border and Marine Security subcommittee hearing:

At a standard 15 sensor activations, 12 of them might just be the wind. Two might be animals. One might be a group of migrants, and one might be a big group carrying drugs.

If there is a plausible explanation as to why there has been no increase in the number of drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions despite a jump from 10,000 to 12,000 hours of drone flights, it may be, as CBP wrote in response to the request to clarify its numbers, that: 

UAS is not exclusive to the border security mission. CBP OAM leverages the Predator-B and Guardian UAS as a force multiplier during National Special Security Events and emergency and disaster response efforts, including those of the U.S. Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, USCG, and other Department of Homeland Security partners.

In other words, the border Predators haven’t been on the border but have been deployed elsewhere on homeland security missions.

Which, would mean, that despite the increased number of Predators and Guardians assigned for border security duty, the drones aren’t patrolling the border and coasts – a scenario, if true, would likely upset all the border security hawks who insist that these drones are needed to secure the border.

It’s more likely, however, that CBP/OAM has from beginning been cooking the books and manipulating -- and that no one has called them on the inconsistencies.

Asked in the same query to show how CBP/OAM disaggregated the drone-related numbers from overall seizure and apprehension data and for the documentation to support its UAV flight-time declarations, CBP/OAM had no response.

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Dubious Border Drone Numbers

The overall low number of apprehensions and drug seizures attributed to drone surveillance on the border raise new questions about the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the unmanned Predator drones deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. 


Even if the numbers of pounds of seized marijuana and of illegal immigrant border crossers were much higher,  the same questions might be asked given the failure of DHS to make a strong case that cannabis and immigrants threaten the security of the homeland.


Yet another problem with the border drone program is that the declared numbers are carelessly formulated by Customs and Border Protection and by its Office of Air and Marine. What is more, it’s unclear whether the number of apprehensions and seizures CBP/OAM does disseminate are entirely attributable to UAV surveillance.

First, it’s not clear whether the cited seizures and arrests are solely attributable to drone surveillance.  CBP and OAM officials have been ambiguous about this. Most agency media releases say that Predator surveillance “has led” to the reported drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions.

Yet other media releases and CBP statements to congressional oversight committees fudge the role of the drones, saying only that drones “contributed to” or were “involved” in the actions that led to the seizures and arrests.

Second, CBP is careless in providing its numbers of arrests, seizures, and flight hours, raising questions about the veracity of the numbers.

The Dec.  27 media release refers to the seizures and arrests during so many drone flight hours – 12,000 hours of drone flight-time since 2005.

But CBP/OAM has over the past year given the media, Congress, and this writer the same arrest and seizure numbers (46,600 pounds of narcotics and 7,500 apprehensions) for varying numbers of reported hours flight-time – for 10,000, 11,500, and mostly recently 12,000 hours of drone air time.

CBP/OAM’s numbers game also includes variations of the numbers of arrests and seizures for the same number of flight hours. Celebrating reaching 10,000 hours of drone air time in June 2011, CBP/OAM released a press statement asserting that the those 10,000 hours of “UAS Predator operations have resulted in the apprehension of 4,865 undocumented aliens and 238 smugglers; the seizure of 33,773 pounds of contraband.”

Setting aside questions about why CBP/OAM can’t get its current numbers straight, the integrity and value of the drone program are also called into doubt by the unimpressive rate in the increased number of drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions reported by the agencies since 2006.

As more Predators are added to the CBP/OAM fleet, the rate of arrests and seizures has dropped dramatically.

Crash and Burn

CBP deployed its first Predator drone in October 2005. Manufactured by General Atomics in the San Diego area, the Predator drone also came with a General Atomics technical team and pilot to operate the drone.

If evaluated against the total numbers attributed to the border Predators since 2005, the quantity of marijuana seized and the number of immigrants apprehended during the first six months of border drone surveillance are outstanding.

When announcing that it was purchasing its second Predator, CBP said that “during its operational period” its first Predator flew 959 hours and supported 2,309 arrests, contributed to the seizure of four vehicles, and the capture of 8,267 pounds of illegal drugs.

That operational period was from October 2005 to April 2006, when the Predator crashed in the Arizona desert near Nogales.

Crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board found that the contract pilot shut off the drone’s engine when he thought he was redirecting the drone’s camera. As Major General Michael Kostelnik, who directs OAM, explained to the Border and Marine Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, “There was a momentary loss link that switched to the second control” -- and the Predator fell out of the sky.

The safety board issued CBP 17 safety recommendations to address deficiencies in OAM’s drone program.

CBP/OAM has not, however, estimated the cost of this strategy. Nor have the agencies reported on the cost of the program thus far. A review of DHS purchasing reveals that the department spent $242 million in drone contracts with General Atomics.

The crash didn’t deter CBP/OAM, which has steadily increased the homeland security drone fleet – which now includes seven Predators and two more expensive maritime variants called Guardians, also manufactured by General Atomics. By 2016 CBP hopes to deploy a fleet of 24 Predators and Reapers protecting the homeland.

A recent report by the Government Accounting Office on CBP’s high-tech border-security programs noted that the UAVs have “significant infrastructure costs with the highest cost risk.” Yet DHS continues to burn through its ever-expanding border security budget without apparent concern for cost-effectiveness or aptness in pursuing the DHS counterterrorism mission. 

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Playing the Numbers Game with Border Drones

For decades, the Border Patrol has annually boasted of the millions of pounds of illegal drugs it has seized and the number of immigrants detained. 

It’s a practice that border scholar Peter Andreas aptly calls “the numbers game.”

Since the creation of the DHS illegal immigrants and drugs aren’t just illegal, they are now classified as “dangerous people and goods.”

In fiscal year 2011 CBP reports that it seized “nearly five million pounds of narcotics.” But it fails to note that the domestic consumption of illegal drugs, especially marijuana, is steadily increasing despite these monumental numbers or that most of these “narcotics” enter the country from Mexico despite a massive buildup in border security and U.S. support for the Mexican drug war.

In its latest Predator announcement, OAM tried playing the numbers game, but raised questions about the integrity of the numbers in the process. According to OAM:

Since the inception of the UAS program, CBP has flown more than 12,000 UAS hours in support of border security operations and CBP partners in disaster relief and emergency response, including various state governments and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The efforts of this program has led to the total seizure of approximately 46,600 pounds of illicit drugs and the detention of approximately 7,500 individuals suspected in engaging in illegal activity along the Southwest border [author highlighting].

One problem is the low numbers of seizures and apprehensions attributed to drone surveillance.

Another is that all the “narcotics” seizures CBP/OAM attributes to drone surveillance consist of bundles of Mexican-grown marijuana.  That’s understandable since marijuana constitutes almost 100% of the drug seizures between the ports of entry along the southwestern border – more than 99% along the Arizona border.

But is this small quantity of marijuana spotted by the Predators worth their $20 million price tag (including surveillance systems and support)? That’s not a question that the congressional oversight committees have asked DHS.

Nor has DHS asked itself questions about comparative costs and benefits of border control measures.

Instead, it has poured steadily increasing budgets for border security into all three of its defined instruments of border control, what it calls the “three pillars of border security,” namely personnel or “boots on the ground,” tactical infrastructure (border fence and other physical barriers,” and technology including the “virtual fence” of ground-based electronic surveillance and aerial surveillance.

In CBP-think, all three pillars are equally important and all components of these border-security pillars are equally fundamental to protecting homeland security.

Unimpressive Numbers

Since 2005 the Border Patrol has seized 13.5 pounds of cannabis. This does not include the border marijuana seizures by CBP agents working at the POEs or by other federal and local law enforcement officials.

Yet OAM, which first deployed in 2005, reports that drone surveillance has led to the seizure of a mere 46,600 pounds of marijuana. Drones, then, played a role in seizing less than one percent of the Border Patrol’s total marijuana in the past six years – to be exact only 0.003%.

On the “dangerous people” front, CBP reports that in the six years of the UAV program, drones have contributed to the apprehension of 7,500 suspected criminals detained. That’s small potatoes when compared to CBP’s overall number of detentions since 2005 – 5.7 million immigrants, including the 327,000 detained in 2011. Expressed as a percentage, amounts to only 0.001%.

Just as DHS eschews cost-benefit analysis, it also doesn’t apply risk analysis.  All illegal border crossers and all contraband fall into the broad post-9/11 mission of protecting the homeland against “dangerous people and goods.”  If all are dangerous, then DHS argues that all are targets, and the UAV numbers, while small, still demonstrate that these agencies are on target and on mission. 

Typically, CBP frames its UAVs as a fundamental instrument in combatting terrorism, even though no terrorists have ever been spotted or captured.

CBP says that the Predators play a “lead role in CBP’s critical anti-terrorism mission.”

Two Predators also patrol the northern border, and Cong. Candice Miller, the Republican from Michigan who chairs the House Subcommittee on Border and Marine Security, complains that CBP is slighting northern border security.

The northern border Predators, however, haven’t led to a single interception of an illegal border crosser in the past two years. 

Deceptive Advertising for Border Drone Toys

Candice Miller, the Republican chair of the House Border and Marine Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, is effusive in her praise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), referring to the drones at a March 15, 2011 hearing on Capitol Hill as “fantastic technology” that have proved “incredibly, incredibly successful in theater.”

As the new chair of the subcommittee that oversees the air operations of Customs and Border Protection, Miller has become one of the leading congressional advocates of increased domestic drone deployment. Miller is a member of the House Unmanned Systems Caucus, which works to increase drone use and open U.S. airspace to UAVs.

Over the past few years Texas Republicans – most prominently Gov. Rick Perry, Senator John Cornyn, and Cong. Michael McCaul – have been the among the leading high-profile proponents of drones for border security. Democratic Party politicians also generally share the mounting enthusiasm in Congress for this high-tech fix for border security.

Neither the high price tag for the Predator and Reaper drones –$20 million apiece – nor the inability of CBP to offer any substantive documentation of their successful deployment deters congressional drone boosters.

In support of the department’s use of drones for border security DHS officials routinely assert that drones are a “force multiplier” and that UAVs form an essential part of the “technological pillar” of border security. Congressional drone boosters commonly echo and amplify these DHS claims.

Yet DHS assertions about the success, value, and worth of drones in border security operations suffer a widening credibility gap six years after Predator drones first started patrolling the southwest border. UAVs may, as Miller states, be fantastic technology.

The purported achievements fall more into the realm of pure fantasy.

DHS has steadily expanded its drone fleet, and Congress has offered more cheerleading for drones than oversight.  Due diligence and accountability are nowhere to be found.

What makes this absence of proper oversight and good management especially shocking is that the waste, inefficiency, and strategic blunders of the drone escalation mirror the monumental failures of the SBInet “virtual fence” project – the other major DHS venture into high-tech border security.

Customs and Border Protection, which has eight drones in its UAV fleet with another two projected to be delivered by early 2012, projects a 24-drone fleet according to its strategic plan. Congressional members, alarmed about an array of perceived border threats, have pressured CBP to quickly increase its drone fleet and patrol areas despite CBP acknowledgements that it lacks the capacity and personnel to deploy the drones it already has.

Multiplying the Border Force

Since the inclusion in 2003 of immigration and border security agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, CBP has increasingly adopted a military lexicon to describe its operations. That makes sense since CBP since for the first time CBP had an explicit security mission – as evident in the wholesale adoption of the term “border security.”

Over the past six years CBP has spent more than $2 billion to create a “technological pillar” for border security. The other two border security pillars are personnel (Border Patrol and CBP agents) and infrastructure (mainly the border fence).

The two main components of CBP’s new technological border security are the “virtual fence” project (first known as SBInet and now called the Alternative Technology Plan) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In both cases, one from the ground and the other from the air, surveillance technology monitors stretches of the border and intelligence analysts attempt to determine if the received data includes evidence of illegal border crossings.

In both cases, CBP promotes these high-tech surveillance programs as “force multipliers.” That’s a Department of Defense term meaning a “capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment.”

The claim, then, is that UAVs increase the capability of the Border Patrol by increasing the effective scope of their patrols.

The ostensible logic of the force-multiplying effect of UAVs is persuasive, just as the CBP assertion that the virtual fence functions as a force-multiplier has been presented as common sense – that technology enhances productivity.

One problem with the “force multiplier” argument for border drone deployment is that DHS has never provided any data to support the assertion. The other main problem is that DHS probably cannot supply this supporting data because it is simply not true.

UAVs might be better described as being manpower-intensive rather than force-multipliers.

At any time, it is more likely that CBP drones are sitting on U.S. military bases along the border rather than serving as the Border Patrol’s “eyes in the skies.”

Why is that? Numerous reasons.

Bad weather, including cloudy conditions and winds, is a common explanation. Another is that CBP and its Office of Air and Marine lacks the personnel to operate the drones.

Attempting to explain why it is so challenging to get drones in the air, Gen. Kostelnik, who as OAM chief directs CBP’s drone program expressed his frustration with preconceived notions that the unmanned character of UAVs:

We're not flying to the full potential, not because of aircraft or airspace limitations, but because we're still building the force. We're still growing the crews….

We are all here talking about unmanned. The real issues have nothing to do with the unmanned part. The real issues are all about the manned piece, and this is a manpower-intensive system.

The manpower-intensive character of UAVs, observed Kostelnik, is especially true for “the remotely piloted ones like the Predator.” As the retired general explained, the Predators require two pilots for any one mission, but also large teams to handle launching and grounding. The manpower crunch obstructing more Predator patrols is also due to all the analysts required to do the “intel kind of things” with the steady stream of images transmitted by the drones.

Despite all the emphasis by CBP on the force multiplying advantages of UAVs, neither Kostelnik nor anyone else at CBP has offered any public description of exactly how much “manpower” drone missions require.

Although UAVs have the capability of flying as much as 20 hours, most missions apparently average about 10 hours, while the many training missions are still shorter.

During the same subcommittee meeting, Kostelnik was asked to give members some idea of the number of crew members required for a drone mission. According to Kostelnik, a typical drone mission requires three crews in addition to the two pilots – one handling navigation and the other directing the sensors -- to handle launching, landing, and recovery.

But what makes UAV missions so “manpower-intensive” is the data management and analysis associated with the stream of images flowing into the control centers.  “Taking the data takes more people,” explained Kostelnik, and the “data that comes out of our aircraft is now sent to processing, exportation, and dissemination cells.”

This complex data input component of UAV surveillance is what Kostelnik, using military jargon, called a “distributed infrastructure” that complements the command control centers on military bases where the pilots and aviation crews work. Another five full-time people are necessary, noted Kostelnik, to “tell the sensor operator where to look and the pilot where to fly.”

The OAM chief estimates that there could be 50 people involved in a typical drone mission.

Without even taking into account the number of Border Patrol agents deployed in planes, helicopters, and ground vehicles, the OAM chief estimated that UAVs depend on teams of fifty or more. Counting those agents that hunt down suspected illegal border crossers, it’s likely that more than a hundred Border Patrol agents and other support staff be involved in any one UAV surveillance incident.

Although CBP officials have repeatedly testified in Congress about the progress and success of the drone program, the CBP has not produced any hard information about the numbers of men and women involved in a typical UAV-driven border arrest or drug seizure.

Drones may be, as Cong. Miller says, a “fantastic technology.” But that doesn’t mean that they are a “force multiplier” as DHS repeatedly asserts.

Even if DHS could demonstrate that the Predators reduce the number of Border Patrol agents needed to effectively patrol U.S. borders, the homeland security department should still be required to justify the $20 million it spends for a Predator and its control system. If it were a responsible steward of government revenues, it should provide data showing that drone surveillance is at least as effective as surveillance by manned light aircraft or by Border Patrol officers on the ground.

Yet none of the numerous congressional DHS oversight committees have demanded such an accounting from DHS and CBP, and DHS has ramped up the border drone program without undertaking such a cost-benefit evaluation.

One reason for this lack of due diligence is the boyish enthusiasm in Congress and among border politicians for this new technological toy in their border security playground.

Reporting for the Washington Post, William Booth brought attention to this this uncritical drone boosterism.

“In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill,” wrote Booth, “Michael Kostelnik, the retired Air Force general and former test pilot who runs the Office of Air and Marine for the CBP, said he has never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of domestic drones. “Instead, the question is: Why can’t we have more of them in my district?” Kostelnik said.”

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More Predators on the Border

Here's a link to a Dec. 21 Washington Post story on border drones, where I am quoted.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/more-predator-drones-fly-us-mexico-border/2011/12/01/gIQANSZz8O_story.html 


The lack of diligent congressional oversight -- really, it's more cheerleading and boosterism -- over DHS is one of the  main reasons that Homeland Security is so bloated and unfocused. It's big government at its worst. No, that would be the Pentagon, but one would think (or hope) that a new federal bureaucracy would be expected to meet some standards of accountability. 


WaPo's William Booth captures this problem by quoting CBP's Kostelnik, who runs the drone program:

In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill, Michael Kostelnik, the retired Air Force general and former test pilot who runs the Office of Air and Marine for the CBP, said he has never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of domestic drones. “Instead, the question is: Why can’t we have more of them in my district?” Kostelnik said.

Booth gave me the last word:

 “Congress and the taxpayers ought to demand some kind of real cost-benefit analysis of drones,” said Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank, who has studied the domestic Predator program. “My sense is that they would conclude these aircraft aren’t worth the money.”

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