DRONES START BORDER DUTY

La poli­cia is now the least of their wor­ries. People try­ing to hop the U.S. bor­der in Arizona are going to have to watch out for robot spy planes, too.
All sum­mer, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is going to use a cou­ple of single-engine, Israeli-built Hermes 450 drones to keep tabs on the U.S/Mexico line. Flesh-and-blood bor­der patrol agents are spread thin across the rugged, des­o­late area. By act­ing as eyes in the sky, “these aer­ial vehi­cles per­mit greater bor­der cov­er­age and quicker response times,” DHS claims.
DHS has been talk­ing about the move for more than a year. And for a few weeks last fall, the Depatment even tested out unmanned bor­der watch­ing. Vigilante groups have gone robotic, too, with their own, wild­cat patrols.
But these Hermes drones — which cruise at about 9500 feet, and stay in the air for 20 hours at a clip — are the first sus­tained effort that Homeland Security has undertaken.

June 25th, 2004 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.