Thread: Civil Air Patrol expanded with volunteers to monitor border

Congressman wants Civil Air Patrol expanded with volunteers to monitor border with Mexico.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
By KURT BRESSWEIN
The Express-Times
ALLENTOWN

A nationwide network of volunteer pilots would bolster border security and disaster preparedness under a proposal announced Monday by U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent.

Dent, R-Lehigh Valley, plans to introduce legislation today expanding the role of the Civil Air Patrol, the nonprofit auxiliary of the Air Force.

The bill would require the nation's Homeland Security and Air Force secretaries to share the Civil Air Patrol's 535 single-engine planes and 29,000 or so pilots.

He announced the bill at Allentown's Queen City Airport alongside about 30 Civil Air Patrol volunteers, including some of the organization's 27,000 cadets ages 12 to 21. The patrol has six squadrons within 30 miles of Bethlehem, in the Allentown area, Slate Belt and Bucks and Hunterdon counties.

Dent saw the need for more sky-bound eyes on the nation's borders during a Congressional delegation trip last August to the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo, Texas.

But the second-term congressman had been thinking about using the Civil Air Patrol for border security since early last summer when he received a letter about the idea from Easton attorney David H. Miller.

Miller, 88, of Forks Township, said pilots can "see for 3 miles in every direction" and cover vastly more area than ground forces. Civil Air Patrol pilots, who by law fly unarmed, could radio law enforcement to capture illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, terrorists and others exploiting porous borders.

"The big thing is just the fact that they know there are airplanes up there watching," Miller said. "That will stop most of them from trying to come across."

Miller, a World War II veteran, sold his own plane three years ago. But he knows legions of pilots remain willing to volunteer in the nation's defense.

"Most private pilots look for excuses to fly," he said. "They think of a new place to eat lunch on a Sunday that's 100 miles away, things like that."

The Civil Air Patrol national commander, Maj. Gen. Antonio J. Pineda, said volunteers like him could be "patrolling both borders by tomorrow morning" at a fraction of the cost of operating National Guard aircraft.

Speaking from Civil Air Patrol headquarters at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., Pineda estimated the cost of Dent's proposal at $2 million a year for three or four flights per day four days a week.

The organization's costs for airplane maintenance and fuel and a staff of 100 are covered by a $25 million budget, Pineda said. Money for the new missions would come from the Homeland Security budget, Dent said.

A member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response, Dent said he anticipates bipartisan support for the proposal.

Reporter Kurt Bresswein can be reached at 610-867-5000 or by e-mail at kbresswein@express-times.com.


http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/pa/ ... xml&coll=2

Wuhl, gollee, doesn't this mean the AC-freakin-LU will have to fly too? Yunno, they're the self-appointed monitors of the monitors and expend much effort watching the Minutemen.

Excellent!

I wonder if the Pres. will call them vigilantes too?