United States To Use Predator Drones Along Canadian Border
From what I am reading lately, the US will be using Predator Drones to patrol the Canadian border. These drones are the same drones I have written about in past posts, such as my 'Predator Drone Story' post and my post about a drone that crashed in Arizone while patrolling the Mexican border. The drones are a variation of the MQ-1 Predator used by the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan, Iraq and other regions where the U.S. military is deployed. These are really cool (and expensive) aircraft that are being used to protect our borders.
The first article I saw on this was on CNN back on January 12th, 2007 - here is the link to the article. According to the article:
The propeller-driven drones, called Predators, will begin patrolling U.S. airspace along the border with Canada by September and will fly day and night, said Scott Baker, chief patrol agent of Customs and Border Protection, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security.My guess is that these drones will initially be used to find any illegal crossing hotspots that need more surveillance. Given the long area to patrol and that the government is starting off with only one drone, this is probably just a test to see what Canada's reaction will be and to determine the extent of US vulnerability along the Canadian border. According to the CNN article, the initial drone will not be able to identify facial features but will be able to detect movement; however, the United States uses an amped up version of these drones in military missions and they have very good imagery and even weapons caches.
According to this article:
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego, maker of the Predator B, received a $33.9 million contract in October 2006 for two more Predator B aircraft to be delivered in fall 2007.That is not a small chunck of change for two aircraft. I really hope the benefits are recognized, though the public will probably never know the full extent that these aircraft help secure our borders.
Soldiers For The Truth has a good post about this with some commenters. There is also an interesting two-page article on this at Canada.com - click here.