Weaponized Drones Coming to America?

Digby | Hullabaloo | AlterNet | July 8, 2013

I’m afraid only traitors wouldn’t want armed unmanned drones flying around over their heads?

According to a 2010 Department of Homeland Security report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) suggested arming its fleet of drones with “non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize TOIs,” or targets of interest, along the nation’s borders. Currently, none of the agency’s 10 domestic drones is weaponized; the recently passed Senate immigration bill, which would require a minimum of four additional drones, stipulates that those be unarmed as well.

The report doesn’t exactly rise to the level of proposing drone strikes against Arab Americans “sitting in a cafeteria in Dearborn, Michigan,” as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) postulated during his 13-hour drone filibuster in March. But it’s sure to fuel the concerns not only of border residents and immigration reform groups but of privacy watchdogs and anti-government protesters paranoid about domestic surveillance.

Jennifer Lynch, an EFF attorney, told the Atlantic Wire, “This is the first I’ve seen any mention of any plans [from a federal agency] to weaponize any drones that fly domestically.” However, local law enforcement agencies have been considering arming drones with the same weapons used in riot control—rubber bullets, tear gas, bean bag rounds. The CBP report didn’t specify the weapons it has in mind.

Ok, I know everyone’s going to roll their eyes and tell me that this is no big deal because we already arm police and the border patrol and this is just another weapon not something intrinsically bad.

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Drones Over the Homeland: From Border Security to National Security

Tom Barry | Truthout | May 19, 2013

A Predator B aircraft in Palmdale, Calif., on Dec. 7, 2009. To help spot and track smugglers, the Homeland Security Department is expanding its use of drones, the unmanned aircraft widely used in war zones, beyond the Mexican and Canadian borders to the Caribbean and possibly other seas. (Photo: Ann Johansson / The New York Times)

Public attention and Congressional review, writes Barry, should focus on the increasing militarization of border control, especially in the management of the border drone program.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it is the “leading edge” of drone deployment in the United States. Since 2005, DHS has been purchasing Predator drones – officially called unmanned aerial systems (UAS) – to “secure the border,” yet these unarmed Predator drones are also steadily creeping into local law enforcement, international drug-interdiction and national security missions – including across the border into the heart of Mexico.

DHS will likely double its drone contingent to two dozen unmanned UAS produced by General Atomics as part of the border security component of any immigration reform.  The prominence of border security in immigration reform can’t be missed.  The leading reform proposal, offered by eight US senators, is the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 – which proposes to spend $6.5 billion in additional “border security” measures, mostly high-tech surveillance by drones and ground surveillance systems.

Most of the concern about the domestic deployment of drones by DHS has focused on the crossover to law-enforcement missions that threaten privacy and civil rights, and that, without more regulations in place, the program will accelerate the transition to what critics call a “surveillance society.” Also alarming is the mission creep of border drones, managed by the DHS’ Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency with increasing interface between border drones, international drug interdiction operations and other military-directed national security missions.

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Fugitive alleged LAPD-killer is first drone target on U.S. soil

MSN News | Feburary 10, 2013

It’s official: The drone war has come home to America. Wanted fugitive Christopher Dorner, the homicidal former cop currently at war with the LAPD, has become the first known human target for airborne drones on U.S. soil. Their use was confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed the government’s fear that Dorner will make a dash for the Mexican border. The fugitive has already killed three people, according to police, and has a $1 million bounty on his head. Dorner, who has military training, is believed to be hiding in the wilderness of California’s San Bernardino Mountains, where locating him without air support may be all but impossible. [Source]

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