EL PASO, Texas - The governor of Texas wants to turn all the world into a virtual posse. Rick Perry has announced a $5 million plan to install hundreds of night-vision cameras on private land along the Mexican border and put the live video on the Internet, so that anyone with a computer who spots illegal immigrants trying to slip across can report it on a toll-free hot line.
"I look at this as not different from the neighborhood watches we have had in our communities for years and years," Perry said last week.
Some say it is a dangerous idea and a waste of money.
"This is just one of those half-baked ideas that people dream up to save money but have no practical applications," said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin. "We would be far better off to invest that money in Mexican small towns along the border so people wouldn't have to emigrate."
Before I comment on this, I need to hunt around for my jaw--it dropped down on this floor somewhere. So Governor Perry wants to install hundreds of internet webcams along the Texas border with Mexico, and then allow private citizens to call a toll-free number if they spot illegal immigrants trying to cross over the border?
Has Governor Perry been chewing too much peyote? Continuing on with the details of this webcam border control:
The plan marks a political about-face for Perry, a Republican seeking re-election, who has long argued that security along the state's 1,200-mile border with Mexico is strictly a federal responsibility.
This week, he said cuts in federal homeland security funding, a rise in reports of border violence and the crossing of Mexican soldiers into Texas about two years ago have demonstrated that "Texas cannot wait for Washington, D.C., to act."
Under the plan, announced on the eve of the state GOP convention, cameras and other equipment would be supplied to willing landowners and placed along some of the most remote reaches of the border. The live video would be made available to law enforcement and anyone else with an Internet connection.
Viewers would be able to call day or night to report anything that looks like trespassing, drug smuggling or something else suspicious.
The governor plans to pay for it all with grant money the state already has, and wants the first cameras in place within 30 days.
The Border Patrol already has lots of its own surveillance cameras along the border, but the images are not made available to the public. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar did not comment directly on the governor's plan Wednesday, but said: "We are looking forward to the opportunity to sit down and discuss it with him to ensure that whatever is done will be aligned with the efforts of the Border Patrol."
Agency officials did not immediately return calls for comment Thursday.
Where do I start on this multi-million dollar boondoggle? First, you're talking not hundreds--but thousands of web cameras to fully cover the 1,200-mile Texas border with Mexico. For this hair-brained plan to work, you have to cover the entire border--not just the particular hot spots for illegal border crossings. You see, the drug smugglers and "coyotes" will quickly spot these webcams, and simply move further out into the open country to cross over the border. And who is to say that the smugglers and "coyotes" won't try destroying a few webcams in the process as a diversionary tactic? Second, this video is going on the internet. You can bet that the smugglers and "coyotes" will take advantage of that and monitor the tracking of those live webcams. So we've got a security question here.
But there's an answer to the problem of having the bad guys looking at the same webcams. Consider this:
Connie Hair, a spokeswoman for the Minuteman organization, which patrols the border against illegal immigrants, said access to the video should be restricted to trained volunteers and law enforcement officials, to prevent smugglers from using the equipment to adjust their routes.
First, law enforcement officials have their own cameras. They don't need more cameras--they need to hire more border patrol agents! Consider this:
Bush Administration Underfunds Border Security Called For By 9/11 Act. The Bush Administration "continues to fall short of fully-funding the level of Border Patrol Agents, detention bed space, and Immigration and Customs Agent resources called for by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (9/11 Act). . . Funding in the President's fiscal year 2007 budget is 25 percent short of what is needed to hire the 2,000 Border Patrol Agents required by the 9/11 Act." (Democratic Staff of the Committee on Homeland Security, Annual Report Card, 2/06)
But it appears that Governor Perry, and George Bush are happy with developing a high-tech border security plan:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The Bush administration is looking to military contractors for high tech help controlling the U.S. border, according to a published report.
The New York Times reported Thursday that three of the nation's largest defense contractors -- Lockheed Martin (Research), Raytheon (Research), Northrop Grumman (Research) -- have confirmed they plan to submit bids within two weeks for an estimated $2 billion federal contract to build what the paper reports the administration is calling a "virtual fence" along the nation's land borders. Two other companies, Boeing (Research) and Ericsson (Research), are also expected to bid.
The federal government is looking to use unmanned aerial vehicles, ground surveillance satellites and motion-detection video equipment to monitor rivers, deserts, mountains and settled areas that separate Mexico and Canada from the United States.
But beyond buying the type of high-tech equipment that these companies have already put to use in Afghanistan and Iraq, the paper reports that the administration will be asking the contractors to devise and build a whole new border strategy that ties together the personnel, technology and physical barriers.
The government has spent at least $425 million in the last decade to buy cutting-edge technology to monitor the border, with limited success, the paper reports. Nearly half of video cameras ordered in the late 1990's did not work or were not installed. A $6.8 million unmanned aerial vehicle bought to patrol a 300-mile stretch of the border in Arizona crashed last month.
And the paper says a report late last year by the homeland security inspector general showed that ground sensors installed produced false alarms in 92 percent of the cases they were triggered, forcing the border patrol to send out agents to respond to what turned out to be a passing wild animal, a train or other nuisances.
If the federal government is having this much trouble with their high-tech border security, which is to say that Governor Perry's internet webcam border security system is going to be even more successful? And then we have Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair's idea that access to this internet webcam video should be restricted to trained volunteers? Who determines the criteria for selecting these volunteers? Who is going to train them--the Border Patrol? They are already understaffed and suffering from the budget cuts. The Minutemen? I'm not sure I would trust this type of high-tech border security to these wing-nuts. I certainly don't like them sitting on the border as they currently are doing now. And who is to say that anyone who gains access to these cameras as "volunteers" won't also provide that access to their friends? Finally, I'm not sure I would trust the training of these "volunteers." To have these volunteers sit watching an empty countryside a low-quality night-vision webcam image for hours on end is a recipe for hundreds of false calls coming into these toll-free lines as these "volunteers mistakenly report possible wildlife movements as illegals crossing the border.
But I'm starting to wonder if there is a political motive behind Governor Perry's webcam plan. This whole idea of having volunteers watching a webcam to catch illegals will certainly draw support from the hard-line conservatives who want to stop the illegals at the border. And you can bet the Minutemen would love this plan--especially if their own members could be exclusively trained as the "volunteers" to be watching these cameras. You've heard of the Junior G-Men. Well, how about the Junior Minutemen!
I think I'm going to need some peyote.
In all seriousness, this is an election year issue, and a cheap political solution, proposed by Perry, to court votes among the law-and-order Texans. It is also a way for Perry to pick up some campaign contributions from defense contractors eager to supply Texas with these webcams. We know that President Bush is happily supplying the military-industrial complex with gobs of federal cash for a high-tech border security service that doesn't work on the federal level. How about having those same defense contractors pick up some excessive profits from Texas taxpayers and state grants on a webcam service that also will not work. While I don't know exactly who the corporations are that will be awarded these webcam contracts, I would be curious to see if any of the corporations that are awarded these webcam contracts have also given campaign money to Governor Perry, and how much did they give?
So are you ready to check out some hot Mexican babes trying to cross the border on your webcam?
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