Tuesday, March 17, 2020

PELOSI'S OPEN BORDERS - "Government fails to respond as drones flown by people smugglers and drug runners swarm border, watching agents"

Government fails to respond as drones flown by people smugglers and drug runners swarm border, watching agents

SAN ANTONIO  Smugglers are busing drones in the sky to watch U.S. Border Patrol agents as they work along the southern border while separate drones fly small quantities of drugs into the country, but the government is so far refusing to deploy technology that can take them down.
The use of drones by cartels operating at the southern border is not new, but what started as a rare occurrence five years ago has become constant. Between October 2014 and last month, Border Patrol agents observed 170 drones watching them or moving something over the border through the air, according to a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the patrol.
Drones lurk above agents who are on foot, in their vehicles, on an ATV, or on a horse. Mexican smugglers who are moving drugs or people use the devices to determine where agents are not present and can then send something or someone across the border without being detected. Other drones may be loaded with a few ounces to a kilogram of narcotics and flown to the U.S. side, then the drone can drop it for the next mover to pick up and transport deeper into the country.
The problem for agents is that drones can fly hundreds of feet overhead, which allows the unmanned aerial systems to go unseen, especially at night, and unheard. The agency knows they are a growing problem, but it is impossible to shoot them down with a gun, and they do not have the legal authority to use other measures to seize them.
Last October, Border Patrol acquired six counterdrone systems that can force down a drone. But they can't use them because CBP has not developed a policy for how agents should respond to drones. Instead, the agency said it is presently focused on increasing its ability to detect them. While CBP said it may test other counterdrone systems in the future, it is not doing so at present.
Officials for counterdrone companies, which showed their products at the Border Security Expo in San Antonio this past week, said this environment has made the past few years challenging. Despite DHS obtaining a few billion dollars for border security operations during the Trump administration, minuscule amounts have been tossed at the drone or counterdrone industries.
“This isn't like anything else that any of us have sold before in the physical or IT security space because there were a whole bunch of legal hurdles and questions that even the government didn't have sorted out,” said Lisa Meserve, federal sales lead for Dedrone, which makes DroneDefender.
Counterdrone solutions available at the expo included products that detect, track, and force them out of the sky. Most of the companies in attendance have attended before, but several who have been here in the past did not show up this year. Meserve said the drawn-out federal process of deciding what kind of counterdrone systems it needs and the government’s legal concerns led competition to start drying up.
“The Federal Aviation Administration, and primarily Federal Communications Commission, still has a hammer on [agents] on who can use what, where, and when. DHS clearly doesn't know what they want to do, and I've met with a bunch of DHS people, and they don't even think they have the authority yet,” said Andy Morabe, vice president of sales and marketing at IXI Technology, which makes DroneKiller.
Morabe has shown DroneKiller at the expo three consecutive years since it was launched. His frustration was that agents come by the booth every year and like it but cannot purchase it.
Border officials say they first need to figure out what information they want to learn about that suspicious drone because that will determine the type of machine they need to use to respond. Do agents want to know the flight path, where it originated, or where it is going?
Second, when a drone is detected, how will it be tracked? Are radars that display coordinates, optics systems that show pictures, and radio frequency systems necessary in every part of the border? Will a third party or agents monitor those systems, and how many agents will typically respond to a drone incursion?
Phil Pitsky, vice president of U.S. federal operations for Dedrone, said he expects DHS and the Justice Department to release by this fall evaluations on some counterdrone systems they are testing in hopes of answering some of those questions.
“I think, in 2021 and beyond, you're going to see significant deployments of the systems on the border,” said Pitsky.

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