UAS Vendor and Government Agency Desires a Fiscal and Privacy Danger

Naval Open Source INTelligence: US drone lobby’s power points to revived military-industrial complex

Financial Times special on the Drone Economy  (you have to register for free access)

Predator Guardian Variant with SeaVue Maritime Search Radar in Pod and EO/IR Ball used by CBP

DHS OIG Report

CBP had not adequately planned resources needed to support its current unmanned aircraft inventory. Although CBP developed plans to use the unmanned aircraft’s capabilities in its Office of Air and Marine mission, its Concept of Operations planning document did not adequately address processes

1. (1)   to ensure that required operational equipment, such as ground control stations and ground support equipment, is provided for each launch and recovery site;
2. (2)   for stakeholders to submit unmanned aircraft mission requests;
3. (3)   to determine how mission requests are prioritized; and
4. (4)   to obtain reimbursement for missions flown on stakeholders’ behalf.

This approach places CBP at risk of having invested substantial resources in a program that underutilizes resources and limits its ability to achieve Office of Air and Marine mission goals. 

CBP has not achieved its scheduled nor desired levels of flight hours of its unmanned aircraft. ... CBP scheduled just 7,336 flight hours for its seven unmanned aircraft and limited actual flight hours to 3,909 hours. This usage represents 37 percent of the unmanned aircraft’s mission availability threshold and 29 percent of its mission availability objective. Despite the current underutilization of unmanned aircraft, CBP received two additional aircraft in late 2011 and was awaiting delivery of a tenth aircraft in 2012. Predator Guardian was delivered to Corpus Christi without a Ground Control Station compatible with its maritime search radar.

An Agency for all Reasons

 

CBP is the only agency with clearance for operation of UAVs in domestic airspace. In addition to underusing its aircraft for the intended purpose, CBP made extensive loans of flight time to other agencies, and had not set up rules to protect domestic privacy:

Even after all the attention drone surveillance has garnered in the US, CBP has yet to establish rules for its drone flights that would protect Americans’ privacy rights. In the report on the DOJ’s drone use, the Inspector General severely chastised DOJ for similarly failing to implement privacy-protecting rules—and for willfully failing to recognize that drone surveillance raises privacy issues different from surveillance with manned aircraft. The OIG recognized what EFF has been saying all along—that the advanced technological capabilities of drones, their low operational costs as compared to manned aircraft, and their ability to conduct “pervasive tracking of an individual’s movements” whether on “public or private property “ raise “unique concerns about privacy and the collection of evidence.”