The surveillance state expands with Border Patrol drone network
Recently released federal records show that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is preparing to add human-portable drones to the surveillance state toolbox, thus expanding government’s spying capacity to follow human activity in real time, anywhere and everywhere, even when they are not being used for so-called border control.
Tops on the Border Patrol wish list of features for this new army of drones is portability, fast and easy setup, and the ability to integrate them with spy equipment already used by border patrol (via Wired.com):
US Customs and Border Protection is quietly doubling down on a surveillance strategy built around human-portable drones, according to federal contracting records reviewed by WIRED. The shift is pushing border enforcement toward a distributed system that can track activity in real time and, critics warn, may extend well beyond the border.
New market research conducted this month shows that, rather than relying on larger, centralized drone platforms, CBP is concentrating on lightweight uncrewed aircraft that can be launched quickly by small teams, remain operational under environmental stress, and relay surveillance data directly to frontline units. The documents emphasize portability, fast setup, and integration with equipment already used by border patrol.
Those requirements build on earlier inquiries that show CBP steadily locking in its operational priorities: drones capable of detecting movement in remote terrain, rapidly cueing agents with coordinates, and functioning reliably in heat, dust, and high winds. Past requests highlighted the integration of cameras, infrared sensors, and mapping software to help agents locate and intercept targeted people across deserts, rivers, and coastal corridors.
That mix of high-endurance aircraft and short-range systems reflects a broader shift in CBP’s surveillance planning. As WIRED has previously reported, the agency is pursuing complementary platforms, including AI-enabled mobile surveillance trucks equipped with cameras, radar, and automated detection software. Designed to move rather than remain fixed, the trucks can be positioned in remote areas and left to operate unattended, extending monitoring beyond the reach of fixed towers and established patrol routes.
CBP’s drone operations, however, are not limited to the border. Flight logs and public records show that the agency has repeatedly deployed uncrewed aircraft in support of other federal missions, including aerial monitoring during protests and assistance with interior immigration enforcement.
That overlap has intensified concerns that tools developed for border control can migrate quickly into domestic policing. (Emphasis mine)
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has increased its spending on surveillance technology and is looking at spending more than $300 million under Trump for social-media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, license plate readers and services to find where people live and work (via Politico):
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is buying millions of dollars’ worth of new surveillance tools at the same time President Donald Trump has scaled back protections for use of civilian data — a combination that could lead to a vast expansion of domestic surveillance that goes far beyond immigrants.
Federal records show that ICE has increased its spending on surveillance technology, looking to spend more than $300 million under Trump for social-media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, license plate readers and services to find where people live and work.
The high-tech capabilities are also coinciding with policy changes from the White House that lower the guardrails around the government’s use of data on millions of American residents and expand its potential surveillance targets. A set of executive orders is giving ICE workarounds for the decades-old federal standard that protects American residents’ privacy, and the agency itself is signaling a shift in its enforcement policy, looking beyond immigrants and toward American critics of its officers’ behavior. (Emphasis mine)
Last month, we learned about an FBI plan to develop surveillance drones with new spying technology. Specifically, the FBI plans to launch AI-enabled surveillance drones capable of facial recognition, license plate recognition, and detection of weapons, among other uses . . . Constitution be damned (via The Intercept):
The pitch from the FBI immediately raised concerns among civil libertarians, who warned that enabling FBI drones with artificial intelligence could exacerbate the chilling effect of surveillance of activities protected by the First Amendment.
“By their very nature, these technologies are not built to spy on a specific person who is under criminal investigation,” said Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “They are built to do indiscriminate mass surveillance of all people, leaving people that are politically involved and marginalized even more vulnerable to state harassment.”
“Technically speaking, police are not supposed to conduct surveillance of people based solely on their legal political activities, including attending protests,” Guariglia said, “but as we have seen, police and the federal government have always been willing to ignore that.”
“One of our biggest fears in the emergence of this technology has been that police will be able to fly a face recognition drone over a protest and in a few passes have a list of everyone who attended. It’s essentially technology tailor-made for political retribution and harassment,” he said. (Emphasis mine)
The nearly simultaneous timing of these announcements is no coincidence; Trump is pulling out all the stops in order to build the surveillance state.
As the Strident Conservative recently documented, we are quickly approaching the point of no return concerning the growing power of the surveillance state. While government repeatedly tells us how this technology will have so-called safeguards in place to protect our God-given, constitutionally protected rights, the simple fact is that their plans are already having a world-altering impact on liberty, especially “the core democratic principles of privacy, autonomy, equality, the political process, and the rule of law.”
“Digital authoritarianism,” as the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned, “involves the use of technology to surveil, repress, and manipulate the populace, endangering human rights and civil liberties, and co-opting and corrupting the foundational principles of democratic and open societies, “including freedom of movement, the right to speak freely and express political dissent, and the right to personal privacy, online and off.”
How do we protect our privacy against the growing menace of government overreach working in partnership with Big Tech? Unfortunately, the ability to do so may already be out of our hands. The surveillance state is well on its way to creating a world where’s there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Border Patrol, ICE, and FBI drones equipped with facial recognition technology are just another piece of the puzzle.
Before long, every American will be subject to being flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score. And if the surveillance state succeeds, it will only be a matter of time before we find ourselves wrongly accused, investigated, and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment gathered by drones and culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence. The surveillance state tears away at the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly along with the Fourth Amendment’s right to due process.
The ramifications of the FBI, Border Patrol, ICE, or any government agency wielding unlimited, unregulated, and unaccountable power to track Americans using drones with facial recognition technology couldn’t be more consequential: an America where tyrants, authoritarians, and dictator wannabes possess the ultimate means of repression and control.
The time to act is now before the lines between citizen and subject, between freedom and control, between liberty and tyranny become irrevocably blurred. Our very future depends on it.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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