County in Arizona test drones along the border
COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. (NBC, KYMA) - One county in Arizona is looking at adding some heavy-duty hardware to the border as they are testing big drones that could stay in the air for hours.
Cochise County, right on the border fence, and when someone slips through the fence and into the U.S., they can send a fleet of drones that can intercept a person, even on infrared, and direct law enforcement to them.
If there's an injury, they can drop off medical supplies without landing for hours.
The Cochise County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) has been working with a company called Draganfly to build their dream drone.
"That's why the Outrider is such a huge project. It's going to change the game for this kind of operations," said Capt. Tim Williams with CCSO.
Capt. Williams says the office already uses drones, but they're small cheap and only last about 20 minutes.
"The possibility of having that thing deployed across the border is definitely what we're looking at," Williams explained.
The drones Draganfly says can operate for hours. There's a gas generator on them that charges that batteries as it flies.
"If you wanted to push it, and you wanted to make the payload actually fuel as well, then you could run this thing for, you know, a day and a half maybe," said Cameron Chell, founder of Draganfly.
Draganfly says they're still working out the kinks, but they want to roll them out soon.
"We've got probably two to three months of more work to do," Chell shared.
"Think about having the ability to have a quad-style copter that can stand for seven hours and use that to do surveillance and things like that," Williams added.
However, David Maass with the Electronic Frontier Foundation is questioning why CCSO needs drones that are going to be over people's homes for 17 hours a day.
"So essentially, the privacy and civil liberties and human rights of people who live at the border is the cost that people pay for this technology," Maass explained.
Maass, who studies border security surveillance and the virtual wall, technology deployed at the border, says Cochise County has a lot of cameras drones and surveillance equipment.
He's not only worried about drones at the border, but also over things like protests and demonstrations.
"We hear right now that you know border crossings are an all time low, so it kind of makes you wonder why this technology is necessary at this time," Williams expressed.
That's why Cochise County wants these new drones, but it will cost a lot of money. They don't even have a price for them yet, far more than the consumer drones they use now.
Cochise County says they'll roll out first as a pilot program a proof of concept. Then if they work as advertised, the county can talk about buying them.
