Robot Aircraft To Watch Canadian Border

Unmanned surveillance aircraft will start patrolling the Canadian border by this fall, a Homeland Security official said.

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.

"Just one of the wrong people getting through, driving through our border area, could spell catastrophe," Baker said Thursday. "So it is a concern."

U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly voiced concerns that terrorists could exploit the remoteness of the northern border with Canada.

Predators, known by the military as unmanned aerial vehicles, have flown missions along the U.S.-Mexico border for several years, Baker said. They can cover about 850 miles in a five-hour mission and can remain airborne for as long as to 36 hours. Depending on lighting conditions and weather, their cameras can detect a person on the ground and identify movements, but are not accurate enough to show facial features

The patrols, which will extend along the entire 5,430 mile U.S.-Canadian border, will initially begin with one drone flying out of Grand Forks, N.D., said Baker. Other drones will be added to the patrol.

The American government chose a base in Grand Forks as its Predator hub in part because of its location at the heart of the continent, Baker said.

"We're dead center on the northern border," he explained. "So, they can go either way and they're equidistant."

Many Canadians might be taken aback by the use of the Predators to track cross-border traffic, one Canadian defense analyst believes.

"Didn't we have the longest undefended border for a very, very long time?" asked Ian Glenn, chairman of ING Engineering, an Ottawa consulting firm. However, he acknowledged the machines will likely be productive.

"Will it be a deterrent to terrorist activity? Yes, I guess."