However, the key to such successes is concealing the technologies and strategies from criminals (or terrorists) for as long a period as possible. By gushing to the media about our capabilities in hopes of bigger budgets and public adulation, agencies are hobbling their own counterterrorist efforts and exposing existing holes in our homeland defenses. The Navy phrase “loose lips sink ships” comes to mind as a suggested motto for all agencies and departments involved in the War on Terror.
Two very clear examples of well-intentioned but ultimately dangerous government disclosures to the media occurred yesterday and today, and both involved the ubiquitous unmanned aerial drones (UADs, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs) utilized by the U.S. in various war and terror surveillance operations worldwide. These drones have proven to be one of the most useful and cost-effective intelligence gathering (and covert attack) tools available in the War on Terror.
The first of the two examples of government droning on and on to the media was reported in a USA Today article titled “Drones Could Defend Airports”. The title and the concept of unmanned drones detecting, disabling, or destroying shoulder launched missiles (MANPADs) should bring some peace of mind to America’s air travelers. The use of drones in this manner is a promising system of defense for our airports and should be supported and fully implemented. Yet by publicly reporting plans for continued testing and implementation of a UAD airport defense system, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also providing notice to terrorists worldwide that America currently has no systems in place around our airports to defend against shoulder-fired missiles, which, as the USA Today article mentions, are widely available and inexpensive.
Indeed, such portable and easily concealed missiles have already been utilized against civilian aircraft in several incidents. As I discussed in a previous post, Pakistan cloned American Stinger missile sensors and helped the Taliban equip their SAMs to make them more effective against U.S. and NATO aircraft. An Israeli airliner departing Mombasa, Kenya in 2002 was fired upon by a shoulder launched missile, but the attackers failed to hit their target. A DHL cargo jet luckily crash landed successfully after being hit in one wing by a similar missile in Iraq in 2005. And just today, a cargo plane was rumored to have been shot down by a missile upon take off from Mogadishu, Somalia. According to the State Department, since the 1970s, more than 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by MANPADs.
The potential for such an attack on an American civilian airliner cannot be overstated, yet DHS has now made it officially known that our government is concerned, but unprepared. Terrorists looking for a window of opportunity also learned from the DHS official quoted by USA Today the following useful intelligence information: the official internal DHS name of the project, when and where the airport defense drones will be tested, what technologies the UADs will be equipped with, and an admission that 4 years of testing of anti-missile laser systems mounted directly on jetliners did not produce a workable aircraft defense. Would it not have better served the interests of national security to have completed testing and successfully deployed UAD defenses for our major airports BEFORE making announcements about their existence?
The second example of “loose lips” about UADs by government officials was published in today’s Seattle Times, in the article “Border Drone Spots Suspect in Child Rape”. The article described the effective use of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP, also a DHS agency) UAD equipped with infrared cameras patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. The UAD camera’s heat sensing infrared lens spotted 6 men illegally crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona, and relayed the images and GPS coordinates to CBP agents monitoring the UAD from a command center. Agents were dispatched to the coordinates and arrested the illegal aliens. The arrest netted a load of smuggled marijuana, but more importantly also resulted in the capture of a felon charged with child rape in the State of Washington. He had been wanted by authorities for more than a year. By all accounts, the use of UADs in this manner is a tremendously cost-effective method for patrolling broad desert expanses near our southern border. According to the CBP spokesman quoted by the Seattle Times, UADs have produced 3,900 arrests and
significant seizures of narcotics in the Southwest.Had the CBP spokesman resisted the understandable urge to “toot the horn” of the CBP, this article would have contained an encouraging example of why UADs are needed and a complimentary account of the CBP’s work. The spokesman, however, allowed enthusiasm for a successful program and a seemingly innocuous media question to override good judgment. It was clear from his response that the spokesman was asked a general question about how many drones are in operation and in what areas, as well as a specific question about CBP’s UAD use in the State of Washington. The reporter recorded the spokesman’s reply:
A second aircraft will be launched in North Dakota later this year to monitor the Canadian border. . . . He said there are no plans to have such an unmanned plane patrol the Canadian border in Washington State.
The spokesman thus announced to any terrorist or criminal seeking to infiltrate our borders in remote areas on foot that Canada, not Mexico, offers less risk of detection since there will be no UADs patrolling any part of the northern border until later this year. More specifically, terrorists, who already crossed into Washington State in December 1999 from Canada en route with explosives to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Years Day 2000, learned from the CBP spokesman that “there are no plans” to have UADs on that border in the future. A vehicle checkpoint and an alert Customs Inspector foiled the plot to bomb LAX, but the next group will know to walk through the forests with no fear of infrared detection from high above, thanks to a CBP spokesman justifiably proud of the UAD program.
In fairness to the spokesman, the plans to implement UADs on the Canadian border was first reported in January 2007 by the Canadian National Post, which obtained a press release from CBP containing detailed specifications of the UADs to be utilized as well as the location of their operational base and a general time frame for implementation. Why this information was provided to Canadian media instead of remaining known only to the Canadian and American governments is really the crux of the issue. The altitudes at which these drones fly, their relatively small size, and their quiet operational noise levels would have made it unlikely that residents on either side of the border, particularly along the North Dakota border area, would have noticed or paid any attention to them. Instead, CBP, because that is how the Beltway budget game is played, drew attention to the project intentionally.
Perhaps the most effective law enforcement and intelligence deterrent to terrorists and criminals plotting to strike America is the mystique which surrounds our agencies. The more terrorists and criminals know about our methods and technologies, the easier it is for them to adapt, and the less fear they will have of being detected or captured. Hollywood nearly always portrays government and law enforcement agencies as villains, but it also portrays these agencies as possessing a myriad of super secret advanced technologies and capabilities. This actually acts as a somewhat valuable deterrent to crime and terrorism in America, since fiction and reality are so skillfully intertwined that it is nearly impossible for the average American (or foreign national) to accurately estimate our capabilities. In many cases that is very helpful, since reality too often relies on budgets rather than threat assessments.
Some foreign militaries, intelligence services, and even terrorist groups possess such drones, but currently the U.S. inventory appears to contain the most sophisticated and most effective models yet developed. Foreign governments that have not developed or acquired their own silent sentinels desperately want them, and terrorists operate in constant fear of being detected and possibly bombed by our drones.
When the War on Terror began, terrorists were only vaguely aware, if at all, of the capabilities of our UADs, and did not account for them in the planning of their personnel and equipment movements. This resulted in successful destruction by the U.S. of terrorist Surface to Air Missile systems (SAMs) and in at least one instance, the assassination of 6 known al-Qaeda leaders bombed by a Predator drone. Likewise, terrorists were largely unaware of our communications interception capabilities, and spoke freely and frequently on their cell phones. Unfortunately, through treasonous internal leaks and willing media exposure, the communications intercepts became front page news and terrorists, who employ their own media monitoring and production staffs, soon realized their vulnerability and the phones went silent. Now they use disposable, prepaid phones and have also embraced encrypted email systems.
Once terrorists realized the dangers posed by UADs, through government “horn tooting” press releases to the media, they began targeting these drones with SAMs and MANPADs, shooting down several in the past few years. In the BBC account linked here, note the details available to the public of the drone’s features, equipment, capabilities, and vulnerabilities. Where did those details come from? What national security purpose was served by making these details available to the media?
Having an open society must also be tempered by being a wise society. Too many details of too many government intelligence and law enforcement agency programs and strategies are made public, for no other reason than to increase their public visibility and budgetary justifications. Publicly announcing what we can and cannot do, and where we are weak and where we are strong invites our enemies to exploit those holes in our defenses. Publishing manuals containing our military doctrines and tactics and later making them available for purchase by the public helps our enemies learn how we think and how we are trained to respond. We should make it more difficult for them to identify those vulnerabilities, rather than announce them to the media. Budgets and agency images will not seem so critical when we suffer another attack on America soil.
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