The Electronic Frontier Foundation has made public documents it obtained from a lawsuit against U.S. Customs and Border Protection. EFF received three years of flight logs, a 2010 “Concept of Operations” report about the Predator program, and other records. While heavily redacted, the flight logs show an increased number of CBP missions flown on behalf of state, local and federal agencies.
One example is an Arizona flight on April 6 that was used to monitor a home during a joint operation to serve a warrant. The agencies involved, according to the following record, appear to be the Office of Border Patrol and Cochise County Sheriff’s Office:
The documents also show that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was contemplating equipping the CBP drones with non-lethal weapons, as reported by the New York Times and Arizona Republic.
Here are the Primary Documents:
Concept of Operations for CBP’s Predator B Unmanned Aircraft System (PDF)
CBP UAS Mission Prioritization Process (PDF)
2010 CBP Daily Flight Logs (PDF)
2011 CBP Daily Flight Logs Part 1 (PDF)
2011 CBP Daily Flight Logs Part 2 (PDF)
2012 CBP Daily Flight Logs Part 1 (PDF)
2012 CBP Daily Flight Logs Part 2 (PDF)
2012 CBP Daily Flight Logs Part 3 (PDF)