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Politics

Senate Limits Border Drones In California

By Michel Marizco / Senior Field Correspondent
Published May 14, 2013 at 2:13 PM PDT
This story was published more than 11 years ago.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein
feinstein.senate.gov
Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Senate Limits Border Drones In California
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to keep drone planes limited to patrolling only within three miles of the border in California.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to keep drone planes limited to patrolling only within three miles of the border in California.

The amendment will not affect U.S. Customs and Border Protection flying the drones within the border regions of Arizona, Texas or New Mexico, only California. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked for the exception.

“The reason for that is that we have several million people within a hundred miles of the border, in cities in Orange County, San Diego County and up to Long Beach lying within that mileage," she said.

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Others on the committee said they wanted the drones to fly. The bill calls for drones to patrol within 100 miles of the border. Supporters and critics have said they expect drones in the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Politics
Michel Marizco
Senior Field Correspondent Michel Marizco (Tucson) has reported along the Southwest border for the past decade, most of that in Arizona and Sonora. Before joining the Fronteras Desk, he produced stories in the field for CNN Madrid, the BBC, 60 Minutes Australia, and the CBC. His work now focuses on transnational trafficking syndicates, immigration, federal law enforcement and those weird, wild stories that make the U.S.-Mexico border such an inherently fascinating region. He is a contributing author on Shared Responsibility: U.S.-Mexico Policy Options for Confronting Organized Crime and an occasional writer at High Country News. In his spare time, he works with Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, assisting in the ongoing investigations of journalist killings in Mexico.
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