Border Agency “Discovered” That It Lent Predator Drones Almost 200 More Times Than Previously Disclosed

The Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) claims that it

recently “discovered” that it in three year period, it lent out
predator drones to other agencies for domestic use on nearly 200
more occasions than it previously acknowledged.

The CBP didn’t divulge this surprising information unprovoked.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been slowly wrangling
data out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which
oversees the CBP, through a
Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) lawsuit since 2012.

When the agency made its initial release in September 2013, the
content was alarming enough. The documents revealed that
federal, state, and local agencies borrowed drones 498 times from
2010 through 2012. Various military branches, the FBI, Bureau of
Indian Affairs, North Dakota Narcotics Task Force, Minnesota Bureau
of Criminal Investigations, and numerous unnamed county sheriff’s
offices were among the recipients. The FOIA document also
contradicted information the federal government made available to
the public. The Department of Justice issued a report that, as of
May 2013, it only utilized CBP drones twice. The EFF
reports that the “CBP flew its drones over 100 times
just for Department of Justice components including FBI, DEA and US
Marshals.”

Conveniently, the agency forgot about an enormous chunk of data
until “the eve of the pivotal court hearing on those motions in
December 2013,” the EFF
explains. The CBP actually lent drones a total of 687 times,
not 498. Also, a
wide range of agencies have been added to the list of
recipients. This includes the Federal Aviation Administration,
Arizona Department of Public Safety, and a mysteriously titled
“Local PD Officer.” The EFF notes that the CBP’s latest
announcement “reveal[s] a sharp increase in the number of flights
for certain federal agencies like ICE (53 more flights than
previously revealed) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (20 more
flights).”

On top of the red flags of the CBP’s tricky behavior, the lack
of consistent information reported across agencies, and the
militarization of domestic police forces, the FOIA data highlights
another problem with the drone borrowing program. As Tim Cushing of
Techdirt
points out “borrowing a drone indicates the agency likely
doesn’t already have one — which also indicates it doesn’t have
anything in place to govern its use or disposal of unneeded or
incidental data.” This lack of institutional checks opens up the
real possibility that these various government outfits could
continue to abuse their ability to collect and access data, not
just on people near the southern border, but
virtually anywhere in the country.