- An increasing number of federal agencies are pursuing
plans to use pilotless surveillance aircraft to help patrol the Mexican
and Canadian borders, protect the nationâs major oil and gas pipelines
and aid in other homeland security missions.
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- Incoming Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John
Warner, R-Va., said in an interview Tuesday that he will ask President
Bush to explore the possible deployment of such aircraft, known as unmanned
aerial vehicles or drones, by civilian agencies responsible for homeland
security.
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- The drones would be similar to those used in high-profile
missions by the CIA and U.S. military to target suspected Taliban and al
Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. But unlike many of the UAVs deployed overseas,
such as the one that fired a missile at a carload of suspected terrorists
in Yemen last month, the drones flown for homeland security operations
would not be armed with weapons, only cameras or sensors, several federal
officials said.
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- ãI think it would be very important that the president
initiate a study on the future use of UAVs by elements of the federal government
other than the military,ä Warner said.
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- Warner said he believes UAVs could be an effective means
of watching the home front in the war on terror. But he acknowledged that
ãtheyâre quite intrusive.ä Warner said concerns about
individual privacy, such as those raised when the Pentagon offered to do
aerial surveillance during the recent hunt for the Washington-area snipers,
are ãan open issue and should be addressed by the [presidentâs]
study.ä
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- Among the agencies now committed to deploying UAVs are
the Coast Guard and Border Patrol, both of which are moving to the Homeland
Security Department. Other non-Defense Department agencies, such as the
Transportation Department, are in the early stages of exploring possible
security roles for drones. Meanwhile, the Energy Department, which set
up a UAV program in 1993 to study clouds and climate change, has been developing
high-altitude instruments to measure radiation in the atmosphere.
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- Despite an industry rumor that the FBI is looking into
UAVs at its Quantico, Va. facilities, an agency spokesman said there is
no such activity.
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- Drones, which are controlled remotely on the ground,
can hover over an area for hours, sometimes days, to provide accurate and
timely information. In the war on terror, the military and CIA have used
UAVs for reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting, bomb damage assessment
and telecommunication relays over hostile areas, without risking the lives
of aircrews. San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.
has supplied the Predator, which can operate up to 25,000 feet, compared
to the 40,000-foot ceiling of commercial airplanes. Northrop Grumman Corp.
of Los Angeles has produced the still-experimental Global Hawk, which can
fly up to 66,000 feet and rival the venerable U-2 spy plane in reconnaissance
capabilities.
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- Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, interest
in UAVs among federal agencies has swelled, industry sources said. ãThereâs
been a lot more activity over the last couple of months,ä said one
manufacturing executive who asked not to be named. ãItâs been
really intense. Weâre doing things now that we wouldnât have
been doing a year ago.ä
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- ãThese [UAVs] are hot,ä said Daryl Davidson,
executive director of the Association for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems
International. Marketers for Boeing, Northrop Grumman and other top U.S.
defense firms have been busy talking to agencies about civilian applications
of UAV technology, he said.
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- Indeed, Boeing, which received a defense contract earlier
this year to develop a fuel-cell propulsion system for UAVs, hopes to sell
to civilian agencies high-endurance drones that can fly for weeks instead
of days, said Chick Ramey, a company spokesman. Lockheed Martin has been
shopping around its small Sentry Owl, which the Air Force has used to provide
surveillance at air bases, as a tool for property monitoring and pipeline
security.
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- At the Transportation Department, Ellen Engleman, administrator
for Research and Special Programs, said she will host a conference on UAVs
and transportation security early next year. Her agency began working with
NASA nearly four years ago to develop high-altitude sensors, at first to
monitor traffic flow and help highway planners but also now to follow trucks
carrying hazardous cargo and watch for ãirregular activityä
at major pipelines, according to her spokesman, James Mitchell.
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- ãUAVs could be very valuable to enhancing security,
as long as you can get a real or near-real time look at the pipes with
some sensors that can detect irregular activity,ä Mitchell said. At
Englemanâs direction last April, the agency solicited research proposals
for using UAVs to monitor pipelines but so far has failed to find an acceptable
submission, he said.
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- Last month, the Coast Guardâs prime contractor
for its $17 billion Deepwater modernization program began formal contract
talks with Bell Helicopter Textron to buy the first eight Eagle Eye UAVs,
part of a fleet of 69 high-speed drones that would take off vertically
from the decks of the serviceâs planned new National Security Cutters.
Beginning in 2006, these drones would be used to locate drug runners, illegal
migrants or boaters in distress, a Coast Guard spokesman said. Plans also
call for the deployment by 2016 of seven Global Hawks for high-altitude
maritime surveillance missions.
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- In August, the Border Patrol, aided by three Pioneer
UAVs operated by the U.S. Marines, nabbed about 100 pounds of high-grade
marijuana and several people who were trying to smuggle it across the Canadian
border into Idaho. Mario Villareal, a Border Patrol spokesman, said an
interagency surveillance operation was launched in July after the Forest
Service detected illegal entries along the Idaho border. Rep. Tom Tancredo,
R-Colo., who observed the Border Patrol operation, asserted recently that
the smugglers had been sending their drug proceeds ãback to Muslim
groups in Canada, and the money is used to finance terrorist activities
all over the world.ä
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- Since 1999, the Border Patrol and military services occasionally
have teamed up for UAV surveillance demonstrations along the Mexican border
near Laredo, Texas, according to industry officials. Villareal said his
agency had no plans to buy its own surveillance drones, explaining that
working with trained military UAV operators along both the southern and
northern borders has proven to be effective. Asked if his agency expected
to make greater use of UAVs, he replied: ãI wouldnât rule
it out.ä
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- Tancredo is delighted that military UAVs are supporting
the Border Patrolâs security mission. An outspoken advocate of using
military muscle along the border, Tancredo declared, ãWe have the
technology to aid in this. I saw it with my own eyes. It can work.ä
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- A spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman
of the House Armed Services research and development subcommittee, offered
more conditional support, emphasizing that the technology must work and
civilian agencies seeking to buy UAVs must use their own money, not the
militaryâs.
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- Besides money, regulatory and reliability hurdles must
be overcome before UAVs can fly homeland security missions, market analysts
said. The industry has been talking with the Federal Aviation Administration
about simplifying the process for authorizing UAV flights in U.S. civilian
airspace, but "it's going to take a while to get there," said
Davidson, the trade group executive.
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