http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/p ... 60303/1002

Senate votes to patrol Canadian border with remote-controlled aircraft
By FAITH BREMNER
Tribune Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON — Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, rancher Gloria Fey has gotten used to the idea that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents could be watching her every move.

Fey said she and her husband, Albert, often joke about giving border protection agents an eyeful whenever the couple answers nature's calls while fixing fences out on their Hi-Line ranch located just a mile from the U.S.-Canadian border.

The U.S. Border Patrol now uses high-altitude airplanes, low-flying helicopters, ground-based sensors and cameras and uniformed officers to monitor the border. With that much activity already, Fey said she and her husband aren't worried about losing their privacy if the agency puts new remote-controlled surveillance airplanes along the U.S.-Canadian line.

"We like security, and if it means giving up some conveniences to have it and to protect other people, we're all for it," said Fey, who lives 55 miles north of Galata. "We have to do whatever we have to do to protect our country."

The Senate this week approved a plan pushed by Montana Sens. Conrad Burns, R, and Max Baucus, D, and inserted into the 2007 Homeland Security spending bill to require the border agency to test an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at one of its three Northern Border Air Wing bases. The measure now goes to the House for consideration.

Critics say the unmanned planes are too expensive and unreliable and could open the door to real-time aerial snooping by a host of government and police agencies.

"I think that most Americans would not be comfortable with the notion that the authorities will fill our skies with what amounts to flying video cameras that can peer down on all property, public and private," said Jay Stanley, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council — the union for border patrol agents — said he'd rather have the money spent to hire more agents and buy more helicopters. He said helicopters and their pilots do a better job of helping agents on the ground round up large groups of people, who tend to scatter when law-enforcement officials approach.

On average, border patrol agents arrest 3,200 illegal immigrants a day, nearly all on the southern border.

"This (UAV) technology is great in a combat situation where you'd rather not risk the life of a highly-trained pilot," Bonner said. "People are not shooting pilots out of the sky on the northern border."

The U.S. military has used the remote-controlled airplanes in Afghanistan and Iraq for years. The border patrol operated one along the Mexican border until the plane crashed April 25 in Arizona. The planes can hover at an altitude of 50,000 feet for a day or more without refueling, and their cameras and sensors can spot objects as small as a milk carton.

Customs and Border Protection has two Northern Border Air Wing bases, in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and Bellingham, Wash., and is setting up a third in Great Falls this summer. Two others are planned for Michigan and North Dakota.

Customs and Border Protection officials like the high-tech airplanes because they can be additional tools for catching people sneaking across the border.

Agency spokesman Juan Munoz-Torres credited the Predator B UAV with helping agents catch 2,000 illegal immigrants and seize 700 pounds of marijuana and two vehicles in the seven months it was stationed near Nogales, Ariz.

The $14 million aircraft, about the size of a Lear Jet, crashed in the desert after its primary flight console locked up and operators failed to properly align a backup console to restore control, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

"We had a good record with the aircraft during the short period of time," Munoz-Torres said. "We're taking delivery of a second aircraft sometime around the beginning of September that will be placed in the same location."

While not endorsing the UAVs, Jack Riley, a border security expert for the Rand Corp., said the United States must beef up its security along the northern border.

Canada is an important logistics base for terrorists and other malcontents, and its border with the U.S. is as difficult to control as the United States' border with Mexico, Riley said.

"Canada has a very large Muslim Diaspora population, relatively liberal asylum rules and, as a consequence, there are concerns about the size of the radical population in Canada and their proximity to the United States," he said.

Contact Faith Bremner at fbremner@gns.gannett.com

On the Web:

www.auvsi.com, Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International

www.uav.com, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems

www.nbpc.net, National Border Patrol Council


Originally published July 16, 2006