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TechnoratiUS/Canada Border Increasingly Militarized
Unmanned drone prowls over the lonely prairie
WINNIPEG - Famed for prowling the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, a remote-control Predator aircraft took flight over the wheat fields of South Dakota yesterday, the first in a network of surveillance drones that could soon patrol the American border with Canada from Maine to Washington state.
![[The remote-control Predator aircraft will be confined to a 370-kilometre stretch along the Manitoba border for now. (Gerald Nino/U.S. Customs and Border Protection)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/drone_canadaus.jpg "drone_canadaus.jpg")
While security-conscious politicians applauded the start of Predator flight operations along the largely unmonitored northern border, some border experts regard it as a mere public-relations exercise.
"I think this has far more to do with the theatre of security than with dealing seriously about issues surrounding the northern border," said border security expert Ben Muller, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University.
For now, the South Dakota drone will be confined to a 370-kilometre stretch along the Manitoba border to test how it holds up to Prairie winters. By 2010, however, U.S. border officials hope to see the $10.5-million unmanned aircraft monitoring both sides of the B.C. border during the Winter Olympics.
"If the RCMP or Canadian government believes they can make use of the aircraft for support during the Olympics, we will be more than willing to provide it," said Juan Munoz-Torres, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Already the agency has established five bases to act as launch sites for the drones in Bellingham, Wash., Great Falls, Mont., Grand Forks, N.D., Detroit and Plattsburgh, N.Y.
The plan, called the Northern Border Air Wing, is a holdover from the 9/11 Commission Report, which recommended that the United States shore up security along borders with Mexico and Canada.
"It seems a palliative measure," said Michael Kergin, chairman of the Canadian International Council working group on border issues and a former ambassador to the United States, "but it does provide them with some assurances."
Five Predator drones currently patrol the Mexican border, and border officials give the aircraft partial credit for stopping more than 4,000 illegal immigrants and 8,000 kilograms of marijuana from crossing the southern boundary.
With a range of 5,900 kilometres and a maximum speed of more than 450 km/h, a single Predator will be capable of scouring a vast portion of the 9,000-km Canada-U.S. border. Sensors fastened to the plane's belly will take both infrared and HD video of anything within a 40-km radius.
Flight restrictions prevent the drone from flying any closer than 16 km to the Canadian border. That still leaves a roughly 24-km swath of Canadian borderland open to U.S. government eyes.
"There is no reason for Canadians to be concerned about this," Mr. Munoz-Torres said. "This is a military weapon adopted for civilian purposes."
But that relationship to bomb-ready military hardware is too close for some, who say the Predator challenges the border's distinction as the longest undefended border in the world.
"Post-9/11, there has been a significant militarization of the border," Dr. Muller said. "This certainly fits in with that."
More than a public-safety measure, the drone buzzing 20,000 feet over the prairies represents the clout of certain American political constituencies, Dr. Muller says.
"There has been a lot political pressure suggesting that these technological solutions will fix the security problem," he said. "They have this idea that if it's watched, we're all safer, but I'm very skeptical. They are the same people rolling out over and over again these examples that supposedly prove Canada is a terrorist hotbed."
Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota have applied much of that political pressure.
Both have been instrumental in attracting federal funding for the Northern Border Air Wing by highlighting drug-trafficking and terrorism problems along the northern border.
"It is vital to America's security that we protect our borders, particularly the northern border," said Mr. Conrad upon the drone's arrival in Grand Forks. "The Grand Forks Air Branch plays an essential role in helping shut the door on terrorists who want to sneak across remote border points to strike on U.S. soil."
Their efforts to draw political attention to northern border security issues may eventually result in 20 unmanned air vehicles, or UAVs, being housed at the Grand Forks base.
And plans are under way to create an unmanned aircraft program at the University of North Dakota.
For the most part, the RCMP is on board with the U.S plan to secure the border using drones. Some officers even attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Grand Forks on Sunday.
The plan fits a larger North American strategy to scrutinize the border without bogging down crossing times.
"It's a technology that's not intrusive and is relatively user-friendly," Mr. Kergin said. "I would argue that it's a useful tool."
58 Comments so far
Show AllAll you need is a fleet of these, armed, to shoot them down. ^-^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxOKpieJ6jc&feature=related
or you could get all 8ts on it with one of these...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IXQVh5IbHc
or you could just get one of these and bring your rifle up with you ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSnWbBjesRQ
are these drones to keep people out? or are they on maneuvers to keep people in. a wall works both ways.
If we were actually serious about border security and stopping dangerous drugs, we would stop making enemies, exploiting poor countries and we would legalize pot. But the MIC has the power and no one dares to defund it.
If pot was legal I'd never drink another drop of alcohol and it would be the same with millions of others. And the alcohol lobby knows this which is why its still illegal. Drink responsibly.
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
Speaking from 5 miles N of the southern US border, wait until you see how your life is affected by 1000's of ill-trained dumb-downs from South Carolina cruising around in their RV's "asserting control over situtions they encounter", which really means "gloating in their ability to impose their will on whoever." It's not the price of security, it's training an internal paramilitary to impose an alien order on local people, with Lou Dobbs providing political cover.
Yankee drone that flies so high
with your evil eye
penetrating the Canadian sky
go on home Yankee bir
we don't want your G D turd.
Is this the best use of our wealth?
Joe
Wealth? Surely you jest.
Maybe we're squandering Chinese wealth, but it ain't ours no more.
OK you got me - Is this the best use of our fast-disappearing wealth?
Joe
Canada the next Pakistan and Iran, BOMBS AWAY!! Welcome to the "NEW WORLD ORDERLY" Canadian Government style. Scum!
I'd like to make a complaint! How come Canada and Mexico and Pakistan have drones flying over them to keep them safe and, in Australia, I don't. It's a clear case of discrimination.
Mr Obama, mend your ways or I'll bring a class action against you. You've been warned!
Drones forever!
P.S. Neo-humans condemn drones. There are better ways to achieve peace than spying on people then firing missiles at them.
www.dangerouscreation.com
Why is it a South Dakota drone? Isn't there an Air Force base at Minot, ND? (I am trying to remember from about 45 years ago.) Why not locate the drone closer to the border, if the border is what they are interested in?
Europeans countries that were killing each other in WW2 now have virtually no borders and people travel back and forth with no hassles.
Canadian and American residents, who are supposed to be friends, must sometimes wait for hours to cross our border. If you are a clean cut university student you can be turned back to Canada in the middle of the night after being finger printed and iris scanned for having a valid Visa card but only $100 in cash.
But then I guess if you have troops all over the planet and routinely intervene in the affairs of numerous countries you have to expect a bit of trouble.
WTF -
I've always liked that proverb too, but let's not go overboard.
Do I really have to go on the payroll of Raytheon or Rand, or pull a tour of duty in the bowels of the Pentagon, before I can call out militarism and condemn it?
Would it really have been necessary to hang out with the Nazis for awhile and march with them for at least a mile by torchlight in Nuremburg before criticising Adolph Hitler?
Bill from Saginaw
Bill,
For me, it is an important mantra.
Having spent 30 years on/off receiving a DoD paycheck, I can comfortably criticize the MIC. Many others here at CD can justifiably criticize the MIC, but having served gives one a sense of frisson.
As for the rallies, yes, this is important as well. However, our country's relative acquiescence to the New World Order is extremely instructive, and has helped me understand the acceptance of Nazism by Germany's citizenry.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
nucanuck's post above summed it up very well: "...a fair foreign policy is the best Homeland Security."
I'd just make it a little more dire: a fair foreign policy is the only hope for Homeland Security.
The last time I checked the gentle Canadians were our good neighbors.
With this assassin's weapon overflying their borders they can't stay that way.
Since you started on the Southern fence and the centres (H. R. 645
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency
centers on military installations) we've realised that all these initiatives are to keep you folks in.
BTW has anyone seen the Homeland Security report on the Northern Border that was ordered for February 17th or is it secret?
Can these things be reprogrammed to spy on banks and mortgage companies?
I despise this weapon. It makes killing and spying all too easy. Get rid of these awful robotic death machines. They are evil.
This is just the obvious, lo-tech stuff.
Wait until you see the dust motes ARPA are funding. =80
Seriously. I'm not kidding.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
If you can imagine it, they've done it.
If you can think it, they know about it.
If you can run, they'll know where you're going.
"This is a military weapon adopted for civilian purposes." Well, not really.
It is the militarization of civilian law enforcement functions, all dressed up and sexed up as "the theatre of security" - a truly great, conveniently ambiguous Orwellian mixed metaphor if ever there was one.
The use of drone technology purely for surveillance purposes along sparsely patrolled international boundaries does have some virtues (although I don't quite see how the river separating downtown Detroit from Windsor, Ontario quite qualifies). Rather like the security cameras in stores and bank lobbies, a retrievable video record is created that, after the fact, can help identify, capture, and criminally convict a wrongdoer. So as long as the drones are way, way up there, very inobtrusive, just patrolling, what's the big deal?
The big deal is that once the technological foot is inside the door on American soil, who's to say the drones shouldn't later be armed and/or converted into targeted assassination devices like the ones being experimentally deployed and used in Iraq and in the Afghan/Pakistan border regions? Wouldn't any such a decision be classified? Isn't this really just another example of clandestine aerial surveillance technology like the U-2 and the Blackbird and NSA's satellite snoopery being aimed back upon the civilian home front?
And who is it that dreams up names like Predator and Hellfire in the first place anyway?
Bill from Saginaw
"And who is it that dreams up names like Predator and Hellfire in the first place anyway?"
The MIC employs monkeys that gives us names like Dominator, Destroyer, Rapier, Viper, Fighting Falcon, Demon, Phantom, Blitzer, etc, etc, etc.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
Don't you feel like your being robbed? $10,500,000.00 for a drone? I would bet we could build competent and unrivaled jet fighter for that money. F-22, F-35, just the over zealous weapons systems that Chalmers Johnson warned everybody about in the cluster F*$@ of the military/industrial/congressional complex budgets that bleed our country dry.
The drone would be ineffectual pure pork. How could it tell the difference from a legitimate tourist on a canoe trip from a terrorist. Most of Minnesota's border with Canada is very rugged wilderness canoe country. It would probably be more cost effective to train the bears, wolves, moose and cougars to sniff out and attack terrorist up there. What if Sarah Palin should ever become president? She'd just love to use those drones for wiping out wildlife.
Mexico is contained through the US elites' strategic secret bribery of the Mexican government. It's no secret that the Mexican government is the most corrupt government south of the border. It's no secret that the Mexican people are the most economically oppressed of all south of the border. This is no accident. This is a result of deliberate strategy by US elites to keep the Mexican people down. They have to be kept economically oppressed to prevent them from demonstrating an alternative route to human happiness for USans to rival the status quo pushed on us by the elites. It wouldn't be surprising if Jeb Bash has been put in charge of the Mexican government. The flood of Mexican economic refugees into the USA is in large part a result of US elites targeting (illegal dumping in pursuit of monopoly) the Mexican staple food market. The other factor in the refugee flow is US elites' strategy to build up its domestic underclass as most white USans have "graduated" from menial laborers to "professional credit consumers". Too busy consuming to learn or do anything. USans can protest but the best thing to do is shift all our exchange/association away from the power centers and to our local economies. Notice how this provides a natural brake on consumption among all the benefits.
Canada also represents a threat to the US elite establishment as a channel of enlightened influence on USans. The last thing the US elites want is for USans to learn there is an alternative to mindless consumerism. This is the engine of the empire. So the US elites work overtime to push the Canadian government to adopt consumerist policies itself to mold Canadians in the likeness of the USan consumption slave, to pull Canadians away from solidarity with their fellow human beings and all life in the biosphere. 9/11 provided US elites a fantastic pretext to strangle the channels of alternative influence under the camouflage of "war on terrier". So for example Greyhound is only allowed three crossing points along a 5500 mile highly industrial border. The more mammon you got the more privilege you got to come in and help fuel the engines. God Bless YOUR MAMMON! USans can help reinforce the channels of enlightenment from Canada, Mexico and everywhere simply by being aware of them and cultivating a taste for enlightenment. For example, take a nice long vacation from work and enjoy life on a greatly reduced income, a greatly reduced work schedule and healthy dosages of enlightenment. Watch out for drone missiles in Buffalo!
Mexico is contained through the US elites' strategic secret bribery of the Mexican government. It's no secret that the Mexican government is the most corrupt government south of the border. It's no secret that the Mexican people are the most economically oppressed of all south of the border. This is no accident. This is a result of deliberate strategy by US elites to kkeep the Meican people down. They have to be kept economically oppressed to prevent them from demonstrating an alternative route to human happiness for USans to rival the status quo pushed on us by the elites. It wouldn't be surprising if Jeb Bash has been put in charge of the Mexican government. The flood of Mexican economic refugees into the USA is in large part a result of US elites targeting (illegal dumping in pursuit of monopoly) the Mexican staple food market. The other factor in the refugee flow is US elites' strategy to build up its domestic underclass as most white USans have "graduated" from menial laborers to "professional credit consumers". Too busy consuming to learn or do anything. USans can protest but the best thing to do is shift all our exchange/association away from the power centers and to our local economies. Notice how this provides a natural brake on consumption among all the benefits.
Canada also reppresents a threat to the US elite establishment as a channel of enlightenened influence on USans. The last thing the US elites want is foor USans to learn there is an alternative to mindless consumerism. This is the engine of the empire. So the US elites work overtime to push the Canadian government to adopt consumerist policies itself to mold Canadians in the likeness of the USan consumption slave, to pull Canadians away from solidarity with their fellow human beings and all life in the biosphere. 9/11 provided US elites a fantastic pretext to strangle the channels of alternative inflence under the camouflage of "war on terrier". So for example Greyhound is only allowed three crossing points along a three thousand mile highly industrial border. The more mammon you got the more privilege you got to come in and help fuel the engines. God Bless YOUR MAMMON!
I can see it now: A Canadian Moose hunter sees on of these drones flying over and scaring "his" Moose back into the pucker - BANG: an International Incident!
Come on Mr. Obama lets have a Dept. of Peace!!!
Window dressing, pure and simple.
That's what I think. We only know what they allow us to know.
As the economic collapse strengthens and the social collapse begins,the more likely border threat may be north bound,toward a more civil society.
Again,the USA does not understand that a fair foreign policy is the best Homeland Security.
Hope is spelled OBAMA,so let's hope this drone deployment is a Bush policy leftover,soon to be canceled.
Much better idea than a wall.
If there were a wall, just imagine what the snowdrifts would be like in North Dakota and Minnesota.
So, if my math is right, this would cost around $2 billion to implement (but not provide 24hr surv. at all points). And unless thoses drones lead to bombing, how easy would it be to spot them and evade them? Would $2B be better spent given to Canada to beef up their own immigration/DHS offices? Maybe for $50B we can have a continuous eye on every bit of the border, with thousands of staff watching, then when we do see something, what happens? Ask the Mounties? the Minutemen? I think I'm gonna buy some stock in this, looks like a great money maker.
"Would $2B be better spent given to Canada to beef up their own immigration/DHS offices?"
If you give $2B to Canada that's practically $60 a head that we could use to tattoo serial numbers on our arms, the ones we use to salute the Homeland.
Predators are almost impossible to spot or hear.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
I think this may be the first step toward getting us used to having the drones patrolling our skies. One more step towards NorthCom's "Full Spectrum Dominance."
If you'll recall, when we were being Bushwacked, posse comatatus was eliminated so troops could be used in the United States against its citizenry, if necessary. Around the same time, KBR got a multi-million dollar no-bid contract to construct concentration camps to protect us from bird flu, mass invasion of aliens, "or such other uses as the president may direct." Since sometime last year, NorthCom, which has military jurisdiction over our United States has been training combat brigades rotating back to the US from multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq in suppression of civil unrest, as well as massing the greatest collection of non-lethal crowd control devices in history. Now, they are beginning to fly the drones. We've all seen and heard what the drones are capable of.
Our cell phones have GPS locators in them, most new cars do, many people have navigation systems for their cars. Most people carry their cell phones with them virtually all the time.
All of the above is not science fiction. Much of it has been read here on Common Dreams, it is all over the net, and you can get a lot of details by going to some of the military sites.
Much of the above has gotten rave reviews. Car thieves with kidnappers caught by GPS and road blocks, etc. Faux News et al love it!
Let's look a little deeper. Let's look forward to where the Obamanation has finally given away its last billion to the bankers and Wall Street gamblers. Millions are out in the street, having lost their homes. There is rioting and unrest as food gets scarce. Perhaps groups begin to organize. Perhaps We the People discover we still have some guts and determination and decide to take back the Constitution.
The government has been prepared for this for almost a half-century, and has been careful to keep adding the latest technologies and, the skills gained through practice on other lands and other peoples.
Martial law is declared. The camps are opened. People are tracked and picked up. Those labeled insurgents or terrorists are destroyed in their cars or homes by hellfire missiles fired from the ubiquitous drones, high in the sky. As always, collateral damage will be high, but regretted and will be just a side effect of keeping our "Homeland" secure.
Hitler or Stalin would have loved this technology.
Eagle Eye? A progenitor of things to come.
Cheers,
RR
As was earlier covered by CD, unmanned lighter-than-air-dirigibles (huge goodyear blimps)that "loiter" have already been built and will soon be deployed at 60,000 feet over US cities (if not already.) They give much cheaper and higher resolution monitoring than do NSA, CIA, DHS satellites. They can stay aloft for years since they are above all weather and can be powered by you-know-what. They also intercept all cellphone traffic and serve as repeaters for national signal feed. Are they corporate controlled or military controlled? No one knows. (and is there even any true difference anymore?) You're not even supposed to know about them.
What? Did you think the movie "Enemy of the State" with Gene Hackman was fiction? Did you think the movie "Conspiracy Theory" with Mel Gibson was absurd?
Stick around a few years.
TJ
"Those citizens who would sacrifice an essential liberty to gain temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security" - Ben Franklin 1775
Stay on your own side of the border, USers.
We are...it's just that we've expanded our border.
Border? We still have a border?
The first 4 fatalities in the "war on terror" were Canadian soldiers killed by American "friendly" fire in Afghanistan. By all means, let's have some more. This should make Hillary Clinton deliriously happy, as she has never retracted her comments about Canada as a "safe haven for terrorists." Americans may not have invented paranoia but they have certainly perfected it.
"The Grand Forks Air Branch plays an essential role in helping shut the door on terrorists who want to sneak across remote border points to strike on U.S. soil."
Can someone give a single case of such "terrorists" sneaking in through the Saskatchawan/Dakota wheatfields? What nonsense!
---USAn---
EVERY Canuck is a terrorist, especially when they win the NHL or IIHC World Championships.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
How can anyone know? There is nobody watching...
double post
How true.
Hopefully, soon, we will all be watched and monitored...for our own safety, of course.
Watch me! Monitor me! Shackle me! Bind me! Beat me! Oh God, yes...harder, harder. Beat me Daddy, beat me!
Like it or not, it's a pathology akin to S & M. Matter of fact, most "safety and security" folks are closet sado-masochists.
America still has far less surveillance than the Brits.
The Brits probably have far more S & M adherents than America. But, we're working out way up.
"the RCMP is on board with the U.S plan to secure the border using drones"
So what is the intention here? To keep "terrorists" in Canada? Who does the RCMP work for anyways when it comes to Canada's security?
-----------------------------------------
What Is Marxism? - a short primer on a subject the working class needs to know.
http://www.marxist.com/Theory/what_is_marxism.html
Two points.
1) Canada is the US largest supplier of oil. There is also the Tar Sands. Therefor, we are a target. Period.
2) The US has a PROVEN HISTORY of shooting at anything they think is supicious. So using the Preds as 'Olympic security' is a stakling horse to further interferance in Canadian soveriegnty.
I live in Vancouver, BC, and already see a marked rise in US helicopter overflight/airspace violations. As well, the Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP have adopted an agressive anti-protestor stance, and are presently practicing for a violent confrontation with peaceful, law-abiding protestors.
There is also a rising co-ordinated effort to cleanse the infamous Down Town East Side of Vancouver of it's poor and homeless. Many of the local low rent hotels, which have housed the truly poor for decades, are planning to evict their tennants later this year, do some minor renovations, and jack the room rates through the roof for the Olympics.
The fly in ointment is that very likely, by this time next year, the global economic collapse will keep many Olympic tourists at home, and Canada, BC, and the city of Vancouver will have pissed away BILLIONS of dollars for nothing...
Walk in peace.
By then, British Coumbia-grown marijuana (B.C. bud) may be the only only component of the B.C. economy that is not in the tank
How is flying 20,000 feet in the air buzzing?
As we have seen on another border 1/2 a world away, this is also an even more useful tool when fully armed and child-ready.
Honestly though, if we cannot get excited about the helicopters that watch us and the borders all the time I fail to see how we will be excited by this. Does it really matter if the pilot is in the cab or looking at a screen on the ground?
"Does it really matter if the pilot is in the cab or looking at a screen on the ground?"
It does matter. Cameras record. They can be replayed, zoomed-in, enhancement techniques can be deployed, used for training, or other intelligence gathering. A pilot in a cockpit is usually so busy that they may not notice the children's playground adjacent to the target.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
So now if Harper doesn't toe Washington's line he can expect Hellfire and damnation, eh?
Harper's base is most concentrated in Alberta making it unlikely for him not to toe Washington's line.