Report: Ex-Cop Christopher Dorner Is Now a Target for Drones

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41. here's why the border patrol guy didn't want to 'elaborate'...

Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio who is quoted as saying the agency is on the "forefront of domestic use of drones by law enforcement," while declining to elaborate further.

Like the government's highly controversial foreign program of hunter-killer drones, it is becoming apparent that the DHS drone operations also deserve urgent public and congressional scrutiny. But not so much because national or international laws are being violated, US citizens targeted, or anyone is being hunted down and killed by these drones - at least thus far. Mostly the DHS drone program needs to be subjected to full transparency and accountability because it's been such a bust - an enormous waste of money.

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This report, while limited to the shocking management failures of CBP, hints at the more serious underlying problems, like the lack of strategic directions and the dubious achievements of the drone operations of agency's Office of Air and Marine (OAM).

Predators Quickly Adapted for Border Security

The homeland security drone program, directed by a retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik (who played a key role in developing the armed Predator drone used for so-called "hunter-killer" missions overseas, deploys a fleet of highly expensive Predators on the nation's borders. The unarmed Predators, produced for border duty by General Atomics, cost $18.5 million to $20.5 million apiece, not counting the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for General Atomics to operate and maintain the homeland drones.

Flush with billions of dollars in post-9/11 funding for "border security," DHS hurriedly launched the campaign to patrol the borders - north and south - with these Predators. In the rush to secure the homeland, DHS trampled over due-diligence standards to speed through orders for the drones, pilots and crews supplied by General Atomics.

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CBP boasted in December 20111 that drone operations contributed to 7,500 apprehensions of illegal border crossers and 46,600 pounds of marijuana.

The 7,500 "criminal aliens" that the Border Patrol detained are small potatoes when compared to CBP's overall number of detentions since 2005 - 5.7 million immigrants, including the 327,000 detained in 2011. Expressed as a percentage, this amounts to only .001 percent of those detained during that period.

While categorized by CBP as "dangerous people" because they have crossed the border illegally, mostly they are simply unauthorized immigrants, although a small number are marijuana backpackers.

To give some perspective to the drug haul attributed to UAV surveillance over six years - 46,600 pounds of marijuana - CBP on average seizes 3,500 pounds of marijuana every day in Arizona, making a seizure every 1.7 hours. Drones had a role in the seizure of less than one percent of the Border Patrol's total marijuana in the past six years - only .003 percent to be precise.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14239-predator-drones-stalk-us-borders-without-budget-or-strategy