US Military Shoots Down CBP Drone, Which Certainly Instills Confidence In Its Offshore Murder Program

from the goons-with-tech-are-still-goons dept

Wow. Imagine if you could just make this shit up.

The U.S. military used a laser Thursday to shoot down a “seemingly threatening” drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said.

It is to LOL. Not only did the military friendly fire a CBP drone into the dirt, it also caused a bit of disruption. The military is required to notify the FAA when it engages in any anti-drone “action” in US airspace.

So it did, which is how this came out. It would be great if it were an isolated incident, but apparently this is just the sort of thing we’re doing regularly in the El Paso area.

It was the second time in two weeks that a laser was fired in the area. The last time it was CBP that used the weapon and nothing was hit. That incident occurred near Fort Bliss and prompted the FAA to shut down air traffic at El Paso airport and the surrounding area. This time, the closure was smaller and commercial flights were not affected.

The Associated Press is being far too coy in this paragraph. First off, CBP did not coordinate with the FAA before firing the anti-drone laser, which resulted in a scramble to secure the airspace after the fact, leading to a shutdown that grounded flights and raised alarm.

The link in the paragraph doesn’t lead to the full story. Here’s what happened the last time the laser was fired at something that shouldn’t have been fired at:

The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.

I can only hope the Defense Department’s downing of a CBP drone was the result of determining the CBP itself couldn’t be trusted with the tech. If this isn’t the case, there’s a non-zero chance the CBP will shoot down its own drone at some point in the near future. I mean, it really doesn’t look like anyone is learning anything from these experiences.

But here’s what we can learn: tech is fallible. And given this chain of events, one has every right to demand more answers on the US military’s drone strike program targeting alleged drug traffickers in international waters. Even if you choose to ignore the legal issues, the logistics issues should be enough to keep you up at night. I mean, we’re only seeing what the administration chooses to share with us. What’s happening out there that we’re not seeing on DoD X timelines?

If drone-detecting lasers are being used to (1) shoot down friendly drones and (2) FAIL to shoot down party balloons, why should we believe the drones themselves are a better option when it comes to neutralizing threats? In both cases, humans are making mistakes, but their mistakes trigger tech that’s capable of killing people. Fuck around enough and there’s a chance someone with a federal paycheck is going to down an airliner.

It’s not really a matter of “if.” It’s a matter of when. This administration cranked up the proverbial heat, encouraging a shoot-first, sort-through-the-wreckage-later approach to pretty much everything. For the love of all that is unholy, it has rebranded the Defense Department as the Department of War. It’s all hair triggers and under-trained personnel. A national tragedy awaits, willed into being by an administration that considers collateral damage little more than viral content.

Filed Under: cbp, defense department, drone strikes, dumbfuckery, el paso, national security