Improving Interagency Information Sharing Using Technology Demonstrations: The Legal Basis for Using New Sensor Technologies for Counterdrug Operations Along the U.S. Border

摘要

The Department of Defense (DoD) has been developing new sensor and data fusion capabilities for military forces for many years, and has significant experience in developing advanced sensor capabilities for a wide range of contingencies and missions. New and innovative intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities have been developed to support military forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. These new capabilities, initially developed for overseas operations, may have the potential to provide important new detection and monitoring (D&M) capabilities that could be used along the U.S. border by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and DoD. DoD's Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Research and Engineering (OASD/ R&E), Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) organizes U.S.-based technology demonstrations to test and demonstrate the potential of such ISR technologies in as realistic an operational environment as possible (i.e., in field conditions that closely resemble those found in current theaters of operation, such as areas along the southern U.S. border). In this report, we focus on RRTO's Thunderstorm series of demonstrations. Legal concerns have been raised as to whether Thunderstorm demonstrations, with this objective, would fully comply with U.S. law when they include advanced DoD sensors. A related question is whether advanced DoD sensors can legally be used in domestic CD operations when they are operated by U.S. military forces. In this study, we sought to address both legal questions above. More specifically, we seek to answer legal questions that fall into two categories. First, does U.S. law restrict or prevent the use of DoD sensors in CD operations along the U.S. border. The second major question is: Does U.S. law restrict or prevent the use of DoD sensors or ISR capabilities in DoD technology demonstrations along the U.S. border.