Domestic Drones Contribute to Governmental Oversight

Howard Altman
Tampa Tribune
September 17, 2012

To the agents of Customs and Border Protection, the future of the United States’ war on smugglers looks like this: a 36-foot-long, flat-gray flying machine with a 400-pound radar array under its belly. It has no windshield and no pilot on board.

The aircraft, housed in Hangar F, is an unmanned aerial vehicle, more commonly known as a drone. This particular one is a Guardian, an unarmed, maritime version of the Predator B drones the U.S. military has been using for years to spy on — and kill — enemies in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.

[...] The agency’s drone program is not without critics. The program includes the Guardian system, which costs $18 million with the radar and ground station, another like it in Corpus Christi, Texas, and seven Predator Bs spread across three other bases.

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This article was posted: Monday, September 17, 2012 at 3:00 pm

Tags: domestic spying, drones

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