Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Border-patrol drones being borrowed by other agencies more often than previously known
Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are increasingly
borrowing border-patrol drones for domestic surveillance operations,
newly released records show, a harbinger of what is expected to become
the commonplace use of unmanned aircraft by police. Customs and Border Protection, which has the largest U.S. drone
fleet of its kind outside the Defense Department, flew nearly 700 such
surveillance missions on behalf of other agencies from 2010 to 2012,
according to flight logs released recently in response to a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group. The
records show that the border-patrol drones are being commissioned by
other agencies more often than previously known. Most of the missions
are performed for the Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration
and immigration authorities. But they also aid in disaster relief and in
the search for marijuana crops, methamphetamine labs and missing
persons, among other missions not directly related to border protection. Because they have sophisticated cameras and can remain in flight for many hours at a time, drones create novel privacy challenges.
Civil libertarians have argued that these aircraft could lead to
persistent visual surveillance of Americans on private property.
Government lawyers have argued, however, that there is no meaningful
legal distinction between the use of unmanned and piloted aircraft for
surveillance...more
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