TL;DR: On January 20, 2026, San Clemente's city council voted 3-1 to let Customs and Border Protection install an Anduril Sentry surveillance tower on a hilltop, not at the border, but 1.5 miles inland from the coast and 75 miles from Mexico. The system uses radar, cameras, and AI computer vision to autonomously detect, classify, and track people 24/7. It can see up to nine miles, covering the entire city and into neighboring Dana Point. CBP refused to contractually promise it wouldn't surveil residential neighborhoods. The city has no access to the system and no oversight of how it's used. The lease costs $10. The EFF is calling on San Clemente to reverse the decision before the tower goes operational.
$10 for a Spy Tower
San Clemente sits on the Orange County coast, about 75 miles north of the US-Mexico border. Population: 62,000. Known for surfing, Spanish Colonial architecture, and being the site of Nixon's Western White House.
Now it's getting an AI surveillance tower.
On January 20, the city council approved a lease agreement allowing CBP to install and operate Anduril's Sentry autonomous surveillance system at the Reservoir 5 communications site, a hilltop overlooking the city.[1]
The deal: CBP pays a one-time fee of $10 and covers monthly electricity. The lease runs five years with three renewal options, up to 20 years total. The city gets no access to the surveillance system. No ability to monitor what it captures. No oversight of how the data gets used.[1][2]
One council member, Mark Enmeier, voted against it. He raised the obvious question: without oversight, how does anyone know what CBP is actually doing with the system?[2]
Nobody had a good answer.
What the Tower Does
The Anduril Sentry isn't a security camera on a pole. It's a military-grade autonomous surveillance platform that runs 24/7 without human operators.[3][4]
Here's what CBP is planting in a residential neighborhood:
AI-Powered Detection
The system uses "advanced computer vision algorithms to autonomously detect, identify, and track items of interest" and determines whether targets are "human, animal, or vehicle without operator intervention."[3]
Nine-Mile Range
The long-range maritime model can see up to nine miles. From a hilltop 1.5 miles inland, that covers the entire city of San Clemente and potentially reaches Dana Point to the north.[3]
Constant Scanning
The system is "constantly scanning" for movement using radar, cameras, and sensor fusion. It flags anything the AI decides is interesting. Every person, every vehicle, every movement within range.[3]
Indefinite Data Retention
CBP documents say imagery is held for 30 days, then contradict themselves by stating data will be kept indefinitely as "learning training data" to improve algorithms. Your daily walk to the beach trains Anduril's AI.[3]
This is the same Sentry platform that Anduril has deployed 300+ times along the US-Mexico border. But those towers sit in remote desert and border zones. This one sits above people's homes.
The Promise They Wouldn't Make
During the city council process, officials tried to add language restricting the tower from surveilling residential neighborhoods. They wanted a lease clause guaranteeing the cameras wouldn't be pointed at San Clemente's homes, schools, and parks.[2][3]
CBP said no.
The agency told the city it "can't commit contractually to not surveilling anything inside the city limits of San Clemente or inside the residential area."[2]
Instead, CBP offered an "exclusion zone": a software configuration that limits the default scanning area. But there's a catch. During "active smuggling events," the exclusion zone gets overridden. The system can track targets from the coast into residential neighborhoods, through streets, past homes, wherever the AI's algorithm decides to follow.[2][3]
A city staff report noted that restricting the residential surveillance capability would contradict "the spirit and intent of the deployment."[3]
Read that again. The spirit and intent of deploying a surveillance tower 75 miles from the border, in a residential city, is to be able to surveil residents.
Panga Boats and Talking Points
CBP's pitch was coastal security. Smugglers use panga boats (small, fast vessels) to land along California's coast. CBP argued the tower would help agents spot incoming boats before they reach shore.[1][2]
One council member cited recent panga incidents: "In the last month or two, five human beings had died on panga boats."[2]
But the math doesn't add up. The tower isn't on the coast. It's 1.5 miles inland. If the goal is maritime surveillance, why not put it at the shoreline? Because CBP already has maritime surveillance assets. Coast Guard radar, aircraft, ship-based systems. What they didn't have was a 360-degree AI camera system pointed at a residential city.[3]
The EFF's Dave Maass, who has been mapping CBP surveillance towers for years, pointed out that the San Clemente installation differs from other coastal towers specifically because there's a substantial population between the tower and the beach. And because it's a 360-degree system, it watches neighborhoods even further from the coast.[3]
The Border Creep
San Clemente isn't an accident. It's a pattern.
In Calexico, California, an Anduril tower overlooks a baseball field and residential homes. The lease: $1 per year.[5] In Nogales, Douglas, and San Antonio, entire towns fall within scanning range of border surveillance towers.[5]
In 2024, the Government Accountability Office assessed CBP's surveillance tower programs against six baseline privacy protections. CBP failed all six. Zero out of six.[6]
The GAO found that none of these protections appeared in "technology policies, standard operating procedures, directives, or other documents that direct a user in how they are to use a Technology." CBP pointed to their Privacy Impact Assessments. The GAO rejected those as inadequate.[6]
Now CBP is moving 75 miles from the border into Orange County. The EFF's Saira Hussain has warned: "What's often deployed at the border and what's normalized at the border in terms of surveillance eventually makes its way into the interior of the United States."[5]
San Clemente is the interior. The creep already happened.
The Town Hall Nobody Expected
Public comments during the city council vote ran overwhelmingly against the deal. Residents described the agreement as "a federal black box operation on our soil."[2]
One resident raised the racial profiling question directly: "Given that racial profiling is a common tactic of these agencies, how can you guarantee that someone who looks like me won't be swept up?"[2]
Oakland Privacy, a community surveillance watchdog, organized a town hall on April 28 to educate the public about the tower's capabilities and what can still be done to stop it.[3]
The EFF is calling on the city to reverse the decision. On April 24, Maass published a detailed analysis of the tower's capabilities and the lease agreement's lack of privacy protections, urging the community to reject the deployment before it goes operational.[3]
The $6 Billion Pipeline
Anduril's parent company is now valued at over $20 billion. It's the sole approved vendor for autonomous surveillance towers under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated $6 billion for border security technology.[7]
The company has deployed 300+ towers covering 30% of the US-Mexico border. Its Lattice AI platform integrates radar, infrared, acoustic sensors, and computer vision. A single operator can monitor dozens of towers remotely.[4]
And with the San Clemente approval, the towers aren't just at the border anymore. They're in Orange County beach towns, scanning nine miles of residential California, 24 hours a day, feeding Anduril's AI training pipeline.
Sixty-two thousand people just became training data. For $10.
What You Can Do
Attend the April 28 Town Hall
Oakland Privacy is hosting a public event to discuss the tower deployment and community response options. Check Oakland Privacy for details.
Contact San Clemente City Council
The lease can be revisited. Three council members voted yes. Let them know their constituents have concerns about hosting a federal surveillance system with no local oversight.
Support the EFF's Tower Mapping Project
The EFF is tracking every surveillance tower CBP deploys. Their work brought San Clemente's deal into public view. Donate or volunteer to keep the mapping going.
Watch Your Own City Council
CBP leased a tower in Calexico for $1/year. San Clemente for $10. If they're approaching your city next, the first you'll hear about it is the staff report. Monitor your local government agendas for CBP or DHS lease requests.
References
- LAist: San Clemente Approves Controversial Border Patrol Agreement to Deploy Coastal Surveillance Cameras (January 2026)
- ABC7: San Clemente Approves High-Powered Border Patrol Camera to Monitor Panga Boats on the Coast (January 2026)
- EFF: California Coastal Community Must Reject CBP's AI-Powered Surveillance Tower (April 24, 2026)
- Anduril: Deploys 300th Autonomous Surveillance Tower (September 2024)
- EFF: CBP Is Expanding Its Surveillance Tower Program at the US-Mexico Border, And We're Mapping It (March 2023)
- EFF: Customs & Border Protection Fails Baseline Privacy Requirements for Surveillance Technology (December 2024)
- State of Surveillance: Anduril Built a Border Surveillance Empire. Congress Just Gave It a Monopoly.
Published: April 25, 2026