Border technology remains flawed

Arizona Republic June 3, 2013 by Bob Ortega UCSON - A long, sharp, high-pitched beep sounds every 30 or 40 seconds at the Border Patrol’s windowless sector-control room. Agents here monitor a vast array of video screens and sensors linked to cameras, radar and other surveillance equipment along 262 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border — including hundreds of ground sensors that beep loudly whenever one detects something. That something might be a drug smuggler or a migrant — but far, far more often, it’s a cow, or the wind, or some other false alarm, which may be why the agents seem to pay these constant beeps little mind. To complement the 651 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border, Customs and Border Protection deploys drones, tethered radar blimps, P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, thermal-imaging devices, towers with day and night video cameras, ground surveillance radar and much more. But, as the ceaseless beeping of the sensor alarms illustrates, many pieces of that technology are flawed: Some produce frequent false alarms, some suffer detection failures or leave gaps in coverage. Then, too, CBP — despite spending more than $106 billion over the past five years militarizing and securing the border — struggles to mesh these pieces smoothly together so it can make good use of the data they provide. The flaws, the gaps and the challenges in analyzing the data have left CBP, of which the Border Patrol is a part, unable to answer such seemingly basic questions as how well all of this technology works and how many of the people and how much of the drugs coming across the border make it through. Many border-security analysts see that lack of answers as problematic, given current plans in Congress. The comprehensive immigration-reform bill being debated in the Senate would boost border-security spending by as much as $6.5 billion over the next five years. That would roughly quadruple the more than $2 billion in Customs and Border Protection’s existing budget plans for more technology and to fix what’s in place. In a nutshell, the bill would require the Border Patrol to build more fencing, more stations and more remote “forward-operating bases” near the border; to increase surveillance to cover the entire border 24 hours a day, seven days a week; to deploy more planes, helicopters and drones; to increase horse patrols; and to improve radio equipment and communication with other federal, state and local law enforcement. The bill also mandates hiring another 3,500 CBP officers (who work at ports of entry, versus Border Patrol agents, who work the rest of the border), a 16-percent increase, among other provisions. And it would require the Border Patrol to apprehend or turn back 90 percent of would-be border crossers. Within Congress, tighter border security has been treated as a precondition for any reform of immigration policy, but many analysts and academics who study the border express doubts about the need for more fences, agents and surveillance. The number of Border Patrol agents nearly doubled over the last seven fiscal years, to 21,394. But over that time period, the number of migrants heading north plunged — mostly because of the U.S. economic downturn, most analysts say, but also in part because of the increasing dangers of going north as more fences and surveillance pushed crossers into more remote areas. Border Patrol apprehensions fell 69 percent over those years, from nearly 1.2 million to fewer than 365,000. In 2005, Border Patrol agents apprehended an average of 106 people a year apiece. Last year, each agent apprehended an average of 17 people, or about one person every three weeks. In the Tucson Sector, each agent averaged 28 apprehensions a year, or about one every 13 days. In Yuma, each agent averaged one every two months. In the El Paso Sector, the least busy, each agent averaged 3.5 apprehensions a year. “On a lot of parts of the border, it’s gotten to the point that every person we put out there makes less and less of an additional difference,” said Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank that seeks to connect academic research to public-policy discussion. Complicating this picture is the fact that over the six months ending in March, Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border climbed 13 percent from a year earlier, to just over 189,000. Most of that increase is happening in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Even with this rebound, apprehension numbers over that period are still the third lowest since 1972, above only last year and the year before. Looking at the current state of border security, most analysts agree on some needs — such as improving radio communications — but some say CBP really should focus on what it has in hand. “It’s not just putting a surveillance camera somewhere and you’re done; the challenge is integrating the data into Border Patrol operations. ... The Department of Homeland Security (which includes CBP) needs to step back ... and integrate the technology they have now before they get any new technology,” said James Lewis, director of the technology and public-policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a conservative D.C. foreign-policy think tank focused on political, economic and security issues. Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said what is “really needed is a serious management effort to see what works and what doesn’t.” The lack of such an assessment “is at some level an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars, given that we spend $18 billion a year on immigration enforcement,” added Alden, one of the authors of a recent study on the effectiveness of border enforcement. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, one of the “Gang of Eight” promoting immigration reform in Washington along with Arizona’s other Republican senator, John McCain, said Saturday that the issues of added border security and technology snafus have been thoroughly discussed. “We believe the situation clearly is better on the border than in times past; the frustration with all of us is with conflicting information out of DHS. Within the same report, they’ll use increased apprehensions to signal success, and decreased apprehensions to signal success,” Flake said. “We haven’t had a comprehensive plan by the Border Patrol to reach certain metrics of effectiveness. We did come to the conclusion that more barriers in certain places, more manpower where they need it and more technology would help ... but in combination with employer enforcement, and a legal framework for people to come in.” The Republic made several requests to interview Mark Borkowski, the CPB’s assistant commissioner in charge of technology and acquisition. DHS and CPB did not make him or other agency officials available. Faulty ground sensors The ground sensors offer one example of the challenge of making sure technology works properly. About 13,400 have been deployed piecemeal along the border over several decades. They are typically placed along known or suspected migrant or smuggler routes, and may detect vibrations (for foot traffic), metal (for vehicles) or have acoustic or infrared sensors. Sensors from the Vietnam War era remain in use. A possible false alarm from a ground sensor, and faulty radio communications, may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie in a friendly-fire incident Oct. 2. As is often the case with sensor alarms, agents didn’t detect anyone but each other when they arrived. Ivie, responding separately, apparently mistook the other agents for smugglers and opened fire. One of the agents shot and killed him. But false alarms are nothing new. In 2005, Homeland Security’s inspector general reported that only 4 percent of the alarm signals detected migrants or smugglers (34 percent were confirmed false alarms, 62 percent couldn’t be determined). The sensors, which run on batteries, frequently fail because of corrosion or bugs eating through wires. They were supposed to be replaced as part of the $1.1 billion Secure Border Initiative, a massive 2006 effort to boost security at the border. But most of the money was spent on a problematic network of high-tech towers, known as SBInet. The towers, to be equipped with video and infrared cameras and radar, were to cover the whole border. By the time Homeland Security pulled the plug in 2010, after a host of problems, the contractor, Boeing, had completed only 15 towers covering a 72-mile stretch of Arizona’s border. Most of the old ground sensors — with their false-alarm problems — remained. In January 2011, Homeland Security launched another initiative, the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan. That plan called for spending $1.5 billion over 10 years to integrate the SBInet towers, build new camera towers, buy trucks loaded with surveillance gear — and replace 525 ground sensors in Arizona with more sophisticated military models. The military sensors use a combination of technologies that can distinguish more accurately between, say, a four-legged coyote and the two-legged kind, and can even detect the direction of travel. But CBP confirmed this past week that — eight years after the problems were identified — the sensors still had not been replaced. However, under the new technology plan, Arizona agents have received: Twenty-three hand-held thermal-imaging devices (like night-vision binoculars). Two “scope trucks” – modified Ford 150 4x4 trucks with day and night cameras mounted on retractable poles. Twelve “agent portable surveillance systems,” which include radar, video and infrared video sensors and can be carried in a box and set up on tripods. Drone problems Drones, too, have proven problematic. So far, CBP has acquired 10 drones, all versions of the Predator B made by General Atomics, for about $18 million apiece. CBP’s unarmed drones carry radar, video and infrared sensors. Theoretically, the drones can fly for up to 20 hours at a time. But last year, according to CBP, the drones flew an average of 94 minutes a day. The main problem: CBP spent so much of its budget buying the drones that it hadn’t set aside enough to operate them. “They’re on the ground most of the time for lack of funding,” said Adam Isacson, a regional security-policy analyst for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human-rights organization that studies the effects of U.S. policies on Latin America. “They cost $3,234 an hour to operate. They haven’t had the budget for maintenance or crews.” Last year, Homeland Security’s inspector general found that, because of poor planning, CBP not only flew the drones less than one-third the number of planned hours in 2011, but also had to use $25 million from other budgets pay for the hours the drones did fly. CBP also didn’t have enough operational support equipment at the airfields where the drones are based, and didn’t prioritize missions effectively, the inspector general found — all findings with which CBP concurred. Flight hours last year rose 30 percent from the year before, to 5,700, but were still well below half the target hours. Budget cuts this year because of the congressional sequester are likely to further limit flight hours, Isacson said. The drones are sensitive to high winds and thunderstorms. They face Federal Aviation Administration flight restrictions because they are less able than manned aircraft to detect other aircraft and avoid collisions. And their use raises privacy concerns. At a Senate hearing in March, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., cited reports that “DHS has customized its drone fleet to carry out domestic surveillance missions such as identifying civilians carrying guns ...” that fly in the face of civil liberties. “We must ask whether the trade-off in terms of border security is worth the privacy sacrifice.” But CBP officials have said they believe FAA concerns and other issues can be addressed, and that drones can help increase surveillance wherever it’s most needed. More coordination In practice, every piece of technology at the border has limitations: Eight aerostats, or tethered radar blimps, that CBP is taking over from the military, can’t be flown in high winds, and the line-of-sight radar makes them less effective in rugged, mountainous areas, which is much of the Tucson Sector. In May 2011, an aerostat crashed in a Sierra Vista neighborhood after coming loose in 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts. CBP limits the use of its 16 Blackhawk helicopters because the high rate at which they guzzle fuel makes them very expensive to operate, according to pilots; and CBP budget documents confirm plans to temporarily ground nine of the 16 Blackhawks next year pending enough money for renovations. The 16 workhorse P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft are, on average, 42 years old. Refurbishing costs $28 million apiece. But the bigger issue is a lack of coordination in fitting all of the pieces together and making effective use of the data they provide, said Rick Van Schoik, director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State University in Phoenix. “It’s still hard for CBP to figure out what we get out of all these billions that have been spent,” he said, which hampers planning for the future. Others argue that focus now should be on the ports of entry rather than on the vast spaces between them. By some estimates, as many as 40 percent of undocumented migrants are people who entered legally through ports of entry and overstayed their visas, said Eric Olson, at the Wilson Center. And, according to CBP data, most hard drugs are smuggled through the ports. “A strong case can be made now that the biggest risks are at the ports of entry,” Olson said. Olson supports the bill’s call to add 3,500 more CBP officers, which he said also potentially “has a huge benefit, which is making the ports more efficient and reducing wait times for business and for legal travelers between the U.S. and Mexico.” Outside analysts aren’t the only ones suggesting Congress reconsider its focus on more security. A May 3 Congressional Research Service study invited members of Congress to consider that “certain additional investments at the border may be met with diminishing returns.” Some lawmakers, the report said, “may question the concrete benefits of deploying more sophisticated surveillance systems across ... vast regions in which too few personnel are deployed to respond to the occasional illegal entry that may be detected.” For their part, Homeland Security, CBP and Border Patrol officials in recent months reiterated Secretary Janet Napolitano’s insistence that the border is more secure than ever before. And Assistant Commissioner Borkowski earlier this year made it clear CBP learned one lesson from its past struggles with technology: He said CBP won’t even consider buying technology unless it has been proven to work in the field. But Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., sees the push for border security as political. “Without it, you don’t have a path to citizenship or any real compromise” in the immigration bill, he said. “But if we’re going to put more resources on the border, we should modernize the ports of entry, to expedite trade and travel,” Grijalva said. More drones, towers and sensors “may have symbolic value. But it’s fighting a perception, rather than a reality.” http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130524border-technology-flawed.html

Expensive drones generate lots of buzz, few results

ABC News
June 15, 2012
by Andrew Becker, G.W. Schulz

TUSCON, Ariz. -- An aerial drone, zooming somewhere out of sight high above the cooling scrubland, first spotted the group of nearly two dozen migrants.

Snaking through the Sonoran Desert on a warm, moonless night last month, the would-be immigrants traversed the rugged foothills southwest of Tucson, a few miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

It had been a relatively quiet shift in that area for U.S. Border Patrol agents, who paused to chat in their passing green-and-white SUVs as dusk crept closer. But just after 10 p.m. agents perked up, their radios crackling with activity.

A fixed-wing Cessna took over from the Predator B unmanned plane and from overhead the pilot helped direct agents toward the migrants, who wove around ocotillo and brush.


A helicopter swooped in, its spotlight beaming over the hillside and rotors slicing the desert solitude as agents dropped down a ridge to chase the scattering group.

All told, a dozen men and women in olive uniforms converged. They rounded up eight of the migrants, walked them toward their gathered trucks and lined them up in a shallow drainage ditch along a washboard dirt road. A few of the migrants asked about the "camera in the sky" that had caught them.

A pilotless aircraft may have awed the failed migrants, but such success stories about U.S. Customs and Border Protection's quarter-billion dollar drone program come in short supply, according to a Homeland Security Department inspector general's report released Monday.

Grounded by wind and bad weather, costly maintenance and poor planning, the underachieving aircraft have flown only a fraction of the agency's desired flight time from four bases in Arizona, Texas, Florida and North Dakota, the inspector general found.

In Arizona, where the agency keeps four drones, agents seemed pleasantly surprised that an unmanned craft had aided their efforts, though they had apprehended fewer than half of the detected migrants.

In its audit, however, the inspector general recommended that the agency stop buying the drones, manufactured by Poway-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, until officials can properly plan how to get the most out of the unmanned planes and budget for the program, which includes having enough equipment to perform their mission.

"CBP has not adequately planned to fund unmanned aircraft-related equipment," such as ground control stations, ground support equipment, cameras and navigation systems, the inspector general report says. "As a result of CBP's insufficient funding approach, future UAS [unmanned aerial systems] missions may have to be curtailed."

Customs and Border Protection officials said they concurred with the inspector general's recommendations and were committed to continuing to improve the drone program. In its written response to the inspector general's report, the agency said it had no plans to add more drones beyond the 10 already in operation or on order "unless directed by a higher authority."

The agency's previously stated goal was to expand to 24 drones, which cost about $18.5 million for the Predator B and $20.5 million for the maritime version, known as the Guardian, to operate. Those costs include maintenance, surveillance technology and ground equipment.

In the past year the agency has added two unmanned aircraft to its underutilized fleet and expects to receive its 10th system by September. The agency can still purchase up to 24 drones, but authorization is based on the availability of funding.

Officials this year also hope to secure permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to extend drone coverage just east of the San Diego metropolitan area, the last major section of the Southwest border to be patrolled by the aircraft.

Drones now patrol about 1,200 miles along the Southwest border from the Gulf of Mexico to just east of El Centro in southeastern California and can stay aloft for 20 hours.

Championed by Congress, derided by critics

The report echoes what critics including some Border Patrol agents have long said about the expensive, remotely controlled Predator B fleet.

They point to what they view as the program's meager returns since it began in 2006, as the drones have assisted in the seizure of nearly 50,000 pounds of drugs and the detention of about 7,500 people.

By comparison, decades-old P-3 Orion propeller planes, which once hunted submarines for the Navy, in the past five years have aided in the seizure or disruption of 863,000 pounds of drugs including 148,000 pounds of cocaine last year alone. Agency officials have described the plane as an "unsung hero."

"It is my sense that Congress has consistently overlooked (dare I say, 'ignored') not only the operational effectiveness, but also the cost effectiveness of the Predator [unmanned aerial vehicle] as a border surveillance tool," David Olive, a Washington-based homeland security consultant, wrote last year for the Security Debrief blog.

Customs and Border Protection officials have defended the drones, saying they are also used to assist in disaster and emergency relief, such as flooding, and other reconnaissance. The Office of Air and Marine also has flown missions for other agencies, including the FBI, FEMA, the Defense Department, Texas Rangers and the U.S. Forest Service.

Critics like Olive have said that the drones haven't met expectations in other situations, such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, when the on-scene commander waved off the drones after a couple of weeks because they weren't helpful.

The inspector general also found that the agency does not have agreements to get reimbursed for missions flown for other agencies nor does it have a formal process to handle requests from outside agencies or ways to prioritize such missions.

In 2011, the agency's Office of Air and Marine flew its drones more than ever roughly 4,500 hours and 75 percent above any other fiscal year.

But that flight time amounts to a quarter of the agency's goal. The systems cost about $3,200 per hour to fly, for a total of about $14.5 million last year alone.

The result: Unmanned aircraft last year helped to find about 7,600 pounds of marijuana and apprehend 75 people suspected of engaging in illicit activities, according to the agency.

Overall, the U.S. Border Patrol, which is also part of Customs and Border Protection, in 2011 seized more than 2.5 million pounds of marijuana and apprehended 340,252 people, agency records show.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who has championed drones as the Democratic co-chairman of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, said that Customs and Border Protection has to go back to the basics and come up with a sound strategic plan for its drones.

"The first thing any agency should have is a strategic plan. I assumed they had a plan," said Cuellar. "We have to know where we are going before we start buying any more of the assets."

Yet, the program and drones in general continue to receive wide-ranging support from lawmakers. The unmanned systems caucus, which promotes "the overwhelming value" of drones and "the urgent need to rapidly develop and deploy" more of them, has nearly 60 members, including 11 California representatives and the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

The House Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee recently pushed for an increase above the Homeland Security Department's request for $18.6 million to buy, deploy and operate sensors and other equipment used on its existing drones.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, has called for the broader use of unmanned aircraft in the country's national airspace as large numbers of drones used in Afghanistan and other operations may return to the United States as those battles wind down.

"Without the ability to operate freely and routinely in the [National Airspace System], UAS (unmanned aerial system) development and training and ultimately operational capabilities will be severely impacted," according to a recent committee report.

Technologically advanced weather permitting

Touted for their technological advances and airborne omniscience, the drones require on average an hour of maintenance for every hour in the air, the report states.

Between 2006 and 2011, the agency spent $55.3 million to operate and maintain the drones. Congress has only appropriated $12.6 million for such costs, which include training, satellite links, facility rental and contractor support, since the agency's drone program began, according to the report.

Customs and Border Protection figures show that Congress has appropriated $240.6 million to establish, operate and maintain the unmanned aircraft program, which consists of 10 systems, and spent about $224 million.

Yet, winds often keep the drones on the ground, as it happened in late May when a reporter visited the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, where two such aircraft are based. Cuellar said in his two visits to the base pilots could not launch or retrieve crafts because of weather conditions. The Predator B design allows it to take off and land in winds up to 30 miles per hour.

Cuellar said he plans to address the issue next week during a House Homeland Security Subcommittee meeting. He said he has pushed the agency to station the drones at other places that provide more consistent flight conditions. But officials have been "stubborn" about keeping the drones on military bases for security reasons.

"That's almost insulting to say there's no other place along the Texas border that can provide security for [unmanned aircraft]," he said.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/state&id=8703008