CBP drone take off from Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Ariz. (Matt York/AP)

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) caught 120,939 illegal boarder crossers in Arizona during 2013, but CBP’s fleet of 24 drones providing aerial border surveillance aided in fewer than two per cent of the apprehensions. This statistic is cited in a recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general audit that found “little or no evidence” CBP’s current fleet – that surveys a mere “100 miles of the Arizona border and 70 miles of the Texas border” – warrants the agency’s planned $443 million expansion of the program. The DHS audit is released while “Congress considers whether to spend more on drone surveillance to secure the borders as part of immigration legislation.”

WikiLeaks has released a July 7, 2009, CIA analysis entitled “Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Tool,” highlighting the limited overall effect of “high…