Senator asks Bush to consider drones for homeland use

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., has asked President Bush to explore the option of using unmanned aerial vehicles as part of the homeland defense mission, suggesting that drones be deployed to monitor critical U.S. borders, waterways and pipelines.

"The potential applications for this technology in the area of homeland defense are quite compelling," Warner said in a letter to the president.

Warner sent the letter Wednesday as a follow up to indications he gave CongressDaily in December that he would ask Bush to weigh the wider use of UAVs by civilian U.S. agencies responsible for homeland security. CongressDaily reported that an increasing number of federal agencies were independently pursuing plans to use UAVs as surveillance tools to guard against acts of terrorism in the United States.

Warner endorsed the use of long-endurance, land-based UAVs to support the Coast Guard, which must monitor more than 300 U.S. ports and 95,000 miles of waterways without neglecting other maritime missions. As part of its Deepwater modernization program, the service already plans to buy 69 high-speed drones that would take off vertically from the decks of its planned new National Security Cutters. The first deployment of UAVs is scheduled for 2006.

Warner also urged the president to consider allowing UAVs to monitor the safety and integrity of the nation's major oil and gas pipelines, and critical infrastructures such as dams, hydroelectric power plants, drinking water conduits and long-distance power transmission lines.

Raising the issue of privacy, Warner said, "It is essential that any examination of this concept address the real concerns we all share about the possible loss of privacy." But he also acknowledged that "there may be many detractors to the idea of using UAVs for other than military purposes based solely on the concerns regarding privacy."

In addition to privacy concerns, one of the current barriers to wider use of surveillance drones within the United States has been civilian airspace restrictions set by the Federal Aviation Administration. Warner hinted in December that if the president wanted UAVs to play a major homeland security role, the FAA would find a way to accommodate agencies that want to use them.