Customs & Border Protection Logged Eight-Fold Increase in Drone Surveillance for Other Agencies

Recently released daily flight logs from Customs & Border Protection (CPB) show the agency has sharply increased the number of missions its 10 Predator drones have flown on behalf of state, local and non-CPB federal agencies. Yet, despite this increase—eight-fold between 2010 and 2012—CBP has failed to explain how it’s protecting our privacy from unwarranted drone surveillance.

EFF received the three years of flight logs, a 2010 “Concept of Operations” report about the Predator program, and other records in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency. In that lawsuit we asked for specific information on the agency’s program to loan out its drones to local, state and federal agencies.

According to the documents, CBP already appears to be flying drones well within the Southern and Northern US borders, and for a wide variety of non-border patrol reasons. What’s more — the agency is planning to increase its Predator drone fleet to 24 and its drone surveillance to 24 hours per day / 7 days per week by 2016.

As the Concept of Operations report notes, CBP’s goal is that its drone data will be “persistently available” (p. 21) and interoperable (p. 29) — not just within CBP, but to other agencies, and also possibly to other countries. CBP plans that its “UAS will provide assured monitoring of entities along land borders, inland seas, littorals and high seas with sufficient frequency, continuity, accuracy, spectral diversity, and data content to produce actionable information.” (p. 29)

Daily Predator Flight Logs Detail Scope of CBP Drone Flights for Other Agencies

CBP’s three years of daily flight logs detail when, where and how the agency flew its Predator drones on behalf of other agencies. These logs show a marked increase in drone flights over the years. In 2010, CBP appears to have flown its Predators about 30 times on behalf of other agencies, but this number increased to more than 160 times in 2011 and more than 250 times in 2012.

While CBP blacked out important information about dates, geographic location of flights, and, in most cases, agency names, these logs do provide some insights into the agency’s drone program. For example, we’ve learned that CBP conducted drone surveillance for law enforcement agencies ranging from the FBI, ICE, the US Marshals, and the Coast Guard to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the North Dakota Army National Guard, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. These missions ranged from specific drug-related investigations, searches for missing persons, border crossings and fishing violations to general “surveillance imagery” and “aerial reconnaissance” of a given location.

CBP also flew its drones for non-law enforcement agencies and missions. The logs show that CBP conducted extensive “electro-optical, thermal infrared imagery and Synthetic Aperture Radar” surveillance of levees along the Mississippi River and river valleys across several states, along with surveillance of the massive Deep Water Horizon oil spill and other natural resources for the US Geological Survey, FEMA, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the Department of Natural Resources, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Yet even these missions raise red flags. While the goal of each may be to gather useful environmental information, the drones necessarily also collect information on the people living within those areas—and we’ve seen no policies describing limitations on how the information is used or whether it’s shared with law enforcement agencies like the FBI or ICE.

Report Details CBP’s Plans to Increase Surveillance Capabilities, Expand Operations, and Possibly Add Weapons to Drones

CBP also released to EFF a 2010 “Concept of Operations” report for its drone program. This document provides significant detail about CBP’s program, including the three major operational locations in which the agency flies its drones, the Predators’ on-board surveillance technologies, and CBP’s "far-term" goals for the program.

The report notes that CBP’s Predators have highly sophisticated, high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), color video, and electron optical (EO) and infrared (IR) cameras, and are capable of performing Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Targeting and Acquisition (“RSTA”) on and tracking o