Mexican drug cartels have
conducted more than 9,000 drone flights into U.S. airspace in the last year
to surveil American law enforcement and security operations in the southern
border region, a senior Homeland Security official told Judicial Watch this
week. The drones are observing federal, state, county, and city agencies
near the Mexican border, including the U.S. Border Patrol, Texas Department
of Public Safety, Texas National Guard, county sheriffs and local police.
The Border Patrol, which operates under Customs and Border Protection
(CBP), has captured about a dozen of the drones, and accessed the Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles’ (UAVs) guidance and memory systems to gain intelligence
information, according to a high-level official at the agency. |