Douglas Quan for Postmedia reports on the status of unmanned drones along the US-Canada border.
US Customs and Border Protection is using a General Atomics MQ-9 (commonly Predator B or Reaper) unmanned aerial drone to monitor the US-Canada border from Washington to Minnesota. Flying for up to 20 hours at a time, at about 6,000 metres, officials say it used to monitor illicit border crossings related to marijuana and drug trade.
Quan reports that the long-term plan is to have the unmanned drones, now common in Iraq, Afghanistan and along the US-Mexico border, to be flying the entire length of the US-Canada border.
Canadian officials were approached for comment:
Supt. Warren Coons, director of the RCMP Integrated Border Enforcement Team, said Wednesday he has not received information about the surveillance program's effectiveness and declined to offer a personal opinion.
Coons said there are no plans to adopt such technology in Canada, but he wouldn't discount it, either. He noted Canadian authorities use other forms of visible and covert technology — he declined to say what — at points of entry and in remote sections along the border. Improved communication between U.S. and Canadian authorities has helped to identify vulnerable areas, he said.
Progressive-Conservative Manitoba MLA Clifford Grayson said he's not aware of any arrests linked to the Predators. Grayson also added that US state legislators have told him the robots have had mechanical and performance issues, especially in bad weather.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
From the Ottawa Citizen:
The Harper government is planning a Taj Mahal complex for the Defence Department's spies, complete with a hockey rink, basketball and volleyball courts and a bank in a secure facility on Ogilvie Road, says the head of the department's largest union.
John MacLennan, who obtained the details of the Communications Security Establishment's seven-building campus, says he is concerned that DND has gone overboard as the department is facing budget cuts.
"Do they need the sports field? Do they need the walking paths? Do they need the hockey rink complete with a Zamboni?" asked MacLennan, national president of the Union of National Defence Employees. "It's going to be the Taj Mahal of government buildings in this country. "How do you justify that in the restraint times we are in?" he asked, adding that in the next several years DND is required to cut $1 billion from its budget.
The project, announced last year by Defence Minister Peter MacKay, will cost taxpayers around $880 million. That doesn't include facilities management, which will be added later. MacLennan said an Australian firm, Plenary Group, will be the facilities manager, with a 34-year contract expected to be worth $5.5 billion.
Access to Information requests by the Climate Action Network have revealed that elements within the governments of Canada and Alberta attempted to undermined clean energy and climate policy in California, the United States and Europe.
Much of the information compiles existing public statements, speeches and policies by federal and provincial politicians and civil servants in a way that identifies a pattern of deliberate and coordinated disruption of climate and energy policy agendas in friendly, foreign jurisdictions.
“We have proof that the Harper government is aggressively intervening in Europe and the United States to kill clean energy policies in the name of promoting the tar sands,” says Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada. “Canada is not just exporting dirty oil anymore - we're also exporting dirty policies.”
The report documents extensive evidence of federal and Alberta government lobbying efforts against clean energy policies proposed in three jurisdictions: California, the United States and Europe. Documents obtained through Access to Information also point to a broad-based and secretive “Oil Sands Advocacy Strategy” led by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The press release also notes that Greenpeace has set up a tip line for federal civil servants -- essentially, a "Climate Crime Stoppers" line. Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada says it has been set up for "federal civil servants who are frustrated with the oil industry calling the shots on Canada's energy and climate policy and want to help us separate oil and state.”
The line is being advertised in the national political elite newspaper The Hill Times and will be promoted throughout 2011.
The release continues:
“A friendly neighbor does not secretly try to undermine your clean energy jobs and efforts to fight climate change,” says Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Washington D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council. “The greed for tar sands oil is not only harming the Boreal forest - it is harming the North American clean energy future.” “We are calling on the governments of Canada and Alberta to stop all efforts to kill clean energy and climate policy in other countries,” says Steven Guilbeault of Équiterre. “This is an outrage, it is a reckless approach to energy policy that needs to be brought to an end.
The full report, in PDF, is available here.
(h/t via joelaf, citing CBC)
An unpublished report acquired by Le Devoir shows the Canadian Forces are preparing to respond to more disasters, fighting, and general insecurity as a result of climate change and peak oil and other resource shortages.
The 176-report, L'environnement de la sécurité future 2008-2030 was approved by General Staff Headquarters of Defense in January 2009.
From Le Devoir (translated from French):
Conflict for control of resources within fragile states, including guerrillas, are expected. It will probably be necessary to conduct humanitarian missions to rescue people deprived of everything after a disaster, and possibly stabilization missions or reconstruction if civil unrest and instability lead to conflicts between peoples” military strategists write.
By 2030, environmental problems and scarcity of food and water, threaten to destabilize entire regions, they still feel. “It could be that the pressures caused by migration and the influx of refugees or displaced persons cause a resurgence of ethnic tensions, religious or territorial, instability and perhaps the collapse of states. These effects manifest themselves more in coastal areas (where lives 75% of world population), especially among groups of individuals, economic sectors and localities >that are already economically or environmentally sensitive to climate >variations. ”
And a specific reference to peak oil:
Operations which will also increasingly difficult to achieve as the oil will be scarce. The expected decline in fossil fuel resources and the simultaneous rise in oil prices will force the MoD to find alternative energy sources for military equipment. Rising fuel prices will drive the cost prohibitive, not to mention the cost of operations in the country or even abroad, which will strain an already tight budget. It will primarily carry out research and development to find forms of alternative fuels.
More at Le Devoir.
This is consistent with planning by other armed forces for climate change and peak oil related-conflict. UPDATE: Although Le Devoir claims the document had been previously unpublished, this does not appear to be the case. It is available in English, from the Department of National Defence, with a date modified stamp of 2010-08-26. Full report in PDF, in English.
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