As Congress considers a new immigration law that would expand the fleet of unmanned drones along the border, the agency in charge of border protection is increasingly offering the drones it already owns to a variety of domestic law-enforcement agencies and has considered equipping them with "nonlethal weapons," according to documents recently made public.
The documents, which include flight logs over the past three years, were unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
Agencies that have used the 10 Predator drones owned by the Customs and Border Protection Agency have deployed them to investigate fishing violations, search for missing persons and inspect levees along the Mississippi River, among other things. Three years ago, the drones were used by other agencies 30 times; in 2012, that jumped to 250 times.
In the documents, the border agency said data collected by the drones could be shared with other government agencies, raising concerns about the privacy of Americans within the nation's borders.
Additionally, the agency, in a 2010 report to Congress included in the documents, raised the possibility of eventually equipping its drones with "nonlethal weapons" to "immobilize" people and vehicles trying to cross the border illegally.
In a statement Wednesday, the agency said it "has no plans to arm its unmanned aircraft systems with nonlethal weapons or weapons of any kind." It said the drones supported the agency's "border security mission and provide an important surveillance and reconnaissance capability for interdiction agents on the ground and on the waterways."
The drones, the agency said, "were designed with the ability to add new surveillance capabilities, accommodate technological developments, and ensure that our systems are equipped with the most advanced resources available."
A bill proposed in the House of Representatives would prohibit firearms on drones in domestic airspace, but not necessarily other weapons like tear gas or pellets.
The agency has used Predator drones, the same vehicles used overseas by the U.S. military since 2005. Built by General Atomics, the drones weigh about 10,500 pounds and can fly for 20 hours nonstop. They are based in Arizona, Florida, North Dakota and Texas.
"CBP needs to assure the public that it will not equip its Predators with any weapons - lethal or otherwise," the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco, wrote in a blog post Wednesday about the documents. "Without first addressing these issues, the agency - and Congress - should halt the expansion of CBP's Predator drone program."
The flight logs provided by the agency show that it has become increasingly generous with its unmanned aerial vehicles. It lent them to the FBI, the North Dakota Army National Guard, Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Forest Service, among others.
The use of drones by the FBI came to light only two weeks ago, when its director, Robert S. Mueller III, in response to a question, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that unmanned aerial vehicles were "very seldom used" by his agents. He went on to say that the agency was developing guidelines on their appropriate use. At that time, it was unclear where the drones were coming from.
Drones could soon become even more ubiquitous along the nation's borders. The Senate immigration bill, passed last week, authorizes the border control agency to buy four additional drones, along with new radar equipment.
Drones have raised unusual anxiety about privacy. With the Obama administration opening up U.S. skies to civilian drones, several states have proposed measures to limit how they can be used by law- enforcement agencies.
Other documents obtained this year by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington, had found that cameras attached to the Predators can distinguish between a human figure and a beast but do not use facial recognition technology.
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
The New York Times