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Texas to Provide Online 'Bordercams'
Dr_Barnowl writes "The BBC reports that Texas intends to erect a network of online webcams at its border to Mexico. The intention is apparently to use viewers as a kind of distributed processing network, with a free phone number to report border-jumpers." From the article: "'A stronger border is what Americans want and it's what our security demands and that is what Texas is going to deliver,' Mr Perry said. The cameras will cost $5m (£2.7m) to install and will be trained on sections of the 1,000-mile (1,600km) border known to be favoured by illegal immigrants " Hey, it's working for Britain, right?
These cameras will be publicly viewable by anyone on the internet, not just The Authorities.
I have absolutely no problem at all with 100% public surveillance, as long as all of the video feeds are available to any person at any time, and not just Big Brother.
Hey, it's working for Britain, right?
There's a subtle, but important, difference. Britain's cams look in while Texas's cams look out. If Texas tried to spy on its citizens the same way that Britain does (not that I'm saying that Brits necessarily mind the camera), the Texans would blow them away with 20 gauge shotguns.
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A stronger border is what Americans want
Says who? I suspect an honest poll of real-life ordinary Americans would reveal that they want affordable social security, the end of the war in Iraq, sensible energy policies and a range of other things first...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Just as illegal immigrants "do the jobs americans don't want to do"(sic), now we have texans doing the jobs the government doesnt want to do.
way to feed people's obsessive compulsive disorder government!
Seriously, i can only see people fanatically obsessed willing to stare at a screen of nothing but desert for hours on end to report the evil job stealing border jumpers... that is while theyre not tapping the walls trying to find the martians out to roast them with laser beams.
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Now drug smugglers and other criminals finally have the possibility to find out in advance where the cameras are located and avoid being seen.
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We would prefer they not enter intending to work and consume taxpayer funded services unless they're actually documented and paying taxes. Most of them just jump the fence and do whatever the hell they want letting the rest of us pick up the tab on already mounting deficits.
Before crossing border illegally, tell the authorities to check on the other side of the state.
Sure it's hopefully not intended as something for rapid response, but if they are going to use just regular people its something that can be manipulated, and why even bother.
I'm always absolutely baffled by people who use words like "Privacy" to discuss people watching things that are done in public. You have no privacy in public. When you're in public, passers-by, cameras, the police, CIA satellites, nosy neighbours and anyone with a telescope can all see you.
..... is to "Public").
That's why "Public" is the opposite of "Private".
If you want privacy for your actions, do them in private. It's not rocket science.
(The clue is in the words: "Privacy" is to "Private" as
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
What sorts of response times are we looking at? Suppose I saw someone run across the frame and reported it. How long would it take the officials to get there to deal with it? And what do you want to bet that the description that most callers report is going to be along the lines of "Well, he looked like a dirty Mexican"?
This guy's the limit!
I've been waiting for something like this -- something that gets ordinary people to spy on one another. I know people will say this is the border, and the people crossing aren't "us".
But I don't buy the distinction between "us" and the people crossing, and I don't believe this will stop at the border. Pretty soon we'll have the public looking for traffic violations, doing screen caps and scribbling down license numbers, infrared cams in parks looking for kids having fun at night, etc.
We can put cams outside of bars, and let people look for people coming out, staggering a bit, and getting into their cars. You don't support drunk driving do you? And it's all on a public street.
If we all spy on each other, we can live in a crime free paradise! Look how well that whole stasi thing worked out.
Shouldn't there be a way to tell if anybody else is watching that camera so that you don't have everybody watching just one camera while the rest of the cameras go unwatched? I just skimmed the article, but I didn't see any mention of that feature.
Stick that in your compiler and debug it!
You do realize, that Mexico has a fence, with armed guards, at their southern border. And they shoot trespassers on sight.
Funny how that fact never makes it into the US media.
Because then people will just find 21-foot ladders. If you can't patrol the wall properly, it's nearly useless and a terrible waste of money. As long as there's an incentive to cross the border and people can find a way across that's worth the cost, they'll come. Which points to the smart solution, I think.
On the other hand, we could build the wall. And then a future Mexican president can stand by the wall and demand that the US bring down that wall. The circle will be complete, although the irony will probably be unappreciated.
There is a legal system for getting a visa to the USA. (Or to any other country, for that matter.) If these people needed to, they could get one. It's not really that hard.
There are official border crossings, with visa checks and more, at every border in the world. People are expected to use them. There are reasons for this, besides just xenophobia. Money is one. Legal accountablity is another. So is soverenty, and protection of the legal citizens of the country. (One of the basic purposes of having countries in the first place.)
The USA has a problem on it's border to Mexico, that people are ignoring the legal meathods of crossing. It is in both the USA and Mexico's intrests to solve this problem, in the long run.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
PS: No Mexicans
How about "PS: No People whose first act in this country is violating its laws and sovereignty" instead.
What about all those people in the world who aren't lucky enough to live in a country along your southern border (like me). Are they doomed to never be allowed into your country legally because Mexicans are illegally flooding into your country, illegally filling whatever "immigrant" quota exists (unofficially, of course)? Or do we have to enter your country illegally as well now? If you believe that every person who wants to should be allowed to enter and live in the US, I suggest you find some place to put 3 billion people at least (the pop of the world - Western Europe - Canada - Australia - New Zealand - Japan - South Korea - Very Rich of China & India - Hong Kong - Singapore - Taiwan >> 3 billion). Or is entering your country at will a privilege only available to Mexicans?
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Just like democrats don't care about poverty stricken people, they just say they do to get more votes.
The real point is you can be a self center jack ass jerk no matter your race, religion, creed, political affiliation, penis / boob size, hair color, nationality, etc...
If people would concentrate on what we have in common, and what we can all do that is good for each other the world would be a much better place.
That being said, cameras on our borders is a fine idea, because we do need to protect what we have.
I wonder if those opposed to border patrols believe anti-spyware should be illegal too? Why not open your computer up to unseen visitors. I am sure they just want to make a better life for themselves by sending out a few emails... While you're at it why not leave your door unlocked, since its ok to sneak into places, might as well let people sneek into your home, raid your fridge, sleep in your bed. Goldie-locks, must be your favorite fairy tale.
We can be charitable, but people have to play by the rules. The rules are there to make sure things do not get out of hand. I am sure most illegal immigrants are hard working, good people, who want something better for themselves and families. But it is their home country that should provide the opportunity for that -or- if they choose to try a new country and come here they should follow the rules, and be properly accounted for otherwise they are taking away from you and I.
Everybody deserves a chance, but it needs to be a level playing field, the illegal immigrants are not only taking away from natural born citizens, but the legal immigrants who followed the proper channels to get here, and are contributing and making our country better.
Basically they are being selfish, and irresponsible, much like the little blonde girl we know so well from childhood.
-MS2k
Hey, it's working for Britain, right?
No, its not working in Britain either. Besides the fact that the cameras in Britain are for another purpose, lets talk about these cameras and immigration.
Britian is an Island. It is SURROUNDED by a physical barrier (the sea). Yet they still have illegal immigration. Why? Because the authorities are not serious about enforcing immigration laws or rounding up and deporting visitors who overstay their visas.
Any barrier or suveillance can be defeated if the guards don't give a damn. So there is a phone number. Big deal. You can take it for granted that reports will go into the circular file and be ignored. Having cameras or electronic surveillance does nothing unless coupled with a guard force that will then response to an incident. Having a sea barrier or wall does nothing unless you have a force of people willing to respond to breaches. A camera will not stop theft or crime or border-jumping, if it is generally known that nobody will respond. Electronic sensors or a virtual barrier will not stop anybody if they know that its all for show. Even physical barriers will not stop somebody if it is ungarded and they only need a ladder. If these careras are placed in "hot spots", then why isn't there a guard team there already if its a know "hot spot".
Only GUARDED physical barriers backed by the political will to do what is necessary will work. Otherwise it is just window dressing. The political will is lacking however, because immigrants equal cheap labor and political constituancies and everybody (or rather everybody with power) wants cheap labor to drive down wages or more people for their own constituancy so they can grab more power.
So now you can just watch as they steal the camera. I give it a few weeks before the cameras start showing up for sale on e-bay or El Paso pawn shops.
I have a problem with people watching from private what I do anywhere in public. If you want to see what I do in public when I'm not in front of your window come and join me, so I can see you as well.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
It's a futile discussion, both US and Canadian beer are like water. Let's get a few things straight:
1. Beer should be warm
2. Beer should have a taste
3. Beer should ideally have sawdust and maybe some mouse droppings in it.
4. Tea should be hot with milk & sugar.
5. Coffee should be coffee. Not a skinny latte mexicana american lightweight with 2 scoops and a stripe.
6. Feel free to slag off British cuisuine though. You're probably justfied.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
So you want to live in a world where one only has privacy when one is in their own home? Should we put up surveilance cameras to cover every inch of public space? Should people not be allowed to have some privacy when they go camping in the woods or mountains or go to the beach? Is it okay for others to peak in on you when you're in a public restroom? Is it okay for the feds to listen in on your cellphone conversations as long as you're in a public place?
Being in public doesn't mean you have no right to privacy. Being in public just means you are in a shared space with others, where one can expect to interact with others, where everyone has a right to be. It doesn't have anything to do with surrending your right to privacy. Your private life isn't just private when you're in your own home. Your employer doesn't have the right to spy on your private life just because you're at the mall or at a public park. Same goes for the government.
Unwanted surveilence is a form of harassment, and just because you are in a public place doesn't mean you have to be subjected to it. If you enter onto someone's private property, and they have surveilence equipment, then you agreed to the surveilence by entering onto their property. But one should be able to go out in public and not expect to be under constant surveilance.
It's utterly moronic to think that the concept of privacy only exists within one's own home. Is it ok for the government to mount a camera in front of every person's frontdoor and monitor who you socialize with? Is it ok for them to monitor what books you check out at the public library or what stores/public establishments you visit? If you see someone wearing a backpack in public, do they have to show you the contents of their backpack if you ask just because they're in public?
Here's a clue: just because two different words/phrases share a word or root-word doesn't mean they're talking about the same concept. Like, if someone dies from taking a pain-killer it doesn't mean that the pharmacutical company can't get sued. The opposite of public space is private space, but privacy is an entirely other concept.
Obviously, you've never been on a South Texas ranch. You've never had your ranch house burglarized, vandalized, or your cars stolen by illegal immigrants or drug runners. This kind of stuff happens all the time in South Texas. Most of the ranchers that I know would welcome any federal progress towards stopping illegal immigration, including the installation of security cameras on their land.
There are plenty of stories about that border.
Go read the links Google finds for that search. What you'll discover (after you ignore the deliberate propaganda sites) is:
Finally, even if the rumors were true, I have to ask "So what?" Even if Mexico's southern border were a Berlin wall-style no-man's land with minefields, automatic machine guns and guard towers every 100 yards with order to shoot to kill, would that justify the US using inhumane tactics in guarding its own border?
I actually don't think the webcams are such a bad idea, they're almost certainly more effective than fences and they should greatly reduce the number of guards required. They may also have a small effect in limiting the abuse of illegals by guards and others (though more likely the abuse will just move to where the cameras don't cover). In the final analysis, though, I think any attempt to keep people out is ultimately doomed to failure, and of questionable morality besides. We're better off finding ways to allow people to come in legally.
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Yup. No way should you be able to stop a murderer, or someone having consentual sex with your 8 year old daughter, you don't get to control what they do.
== Jez ==
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So who's doing all those jobs in Hawaii, which has a very low percentage of illegals? How about North Dakota? Wisconsin? High-illegal states like Texas and California would feel a sudden lack of cheap labor for a time, but would rapidly adapt. Some jobs would start paying more, some would go overseas (using illegals is the equivalent of 'outsourcing' except we bring the cheap labor to the job instead of vice versa), some would vanish because they wouldn't be worth doing at higher wage levels. Lettuce would NOT be selling for $8 a head (it's currently $1 where I live). For an increase of $7 a head, they'd have to be packing each head in a UPS box and shipping it by air to my door.
"...US more the $10 billion in government services for households headed by illegal aliens"
And how much miney goes into SSN that will never be collected by these illegal aliens?
Oh, and not all illegal aliens are low wage migrant workers.
Any motivated* illegal alien will start there own business, pay taxes(you don't need an SSN to pay taxes), and buy stuff.
My point is: Don';t look at one data point and determin something is bad. Look at as many as you can, then think for yourself.
*Most people that cross a river, desert, risk getting shot are pretty motivated people.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Securing the border is about controlled growth, making folks respect the law, and equal opportunity for all who want to come here
Exactly. Millions of people from all over the planet want to come to the US. The economy cannot absorb them all at once. There has to be a system to determine who gets a visa or green card - economists know that you ration a good either by price, or by queue. We choose not to ration by price - if you want a visa, you wait in line. Although the wait is long and the process is not simple (there are alot of people that want to come here, natch) everyone has shot at getting a visa.
Now the question: why should latinos be given preferential treatment in that process just because they only have to swim the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo instead of the Atlantic or Pacific?
Finally, even if the rumors were true, I have to ask "So what?" Even if Mexico's southern border were a Berlin wall-style no-man's land with minefields, automatic machine guns and guard towers every 100 yards with order to shoot to kill, would that justify the US using inhumane tactics in guarding its own border?
Nothing would justify us using inhumane tactics in guarding our border. With that said, no fence means people are more likely to try and cross in fairly dangerous desert areas and die trying. A fence raises the barrier to successful entry and makes people less likely to try (and thereby less likely to risk their lives).
The remaining people are either really bad, or really bad off, and in either case, handling a smaller number of people would be easier. Of course, since our current president, his counterpart in Mexico, and the senate don't seem to want to do anything to actually control entry to the US, it's a moot point.
I actually don't think the webcams are such a bad idea, they're almost certainly more effective than fences and they should greatly reduce the number of guards required. They may also have a small effect in limiting the abuse of illegals by guards and others (though more likely the abuse will just move to where the cameras don't cover). In the final analysis, though, I think any attempt to keep people out is ultimately doomed to failure, and of questionable morality besides. We're better off finding ways to allow people to come in legally.
The webcams *are* a bad idea for several reasons. First, because they'll cause more deaths than a fence (parallel: potential drownings at a public pool protected by cameras vs. a fence), and second, because the Texas DPS (state police) will be monitoring the cameras, and they are currently explicitly not allowed to perform any type of immigration enforcement.
In addition, they are actively discouraged from reporting potential immigration-related problems to immigration officials...basically, Perry wants to spend some money so we can watch people walk on in, but not actually do anything about it.
We *are* better off finding ways to let people come in legally, and we do need some effort put into greatly improving the legal immigration process, but we have to deal with the existing problem *first*.
My favorite analogy for what's happening immigration-wise is an amusement park. You and your kids (legal immigrants) buy tickets to DisneyFlagsGardens and get to the front gate at 6AM so you can go on the new supercoaster first. The gates open, and you make a beeline for the ride, only to see a couple hundred people emerging from between some greenery at the edge of the park near the ride and queuing up in line already.
You tell one of the staff at the park, and they tell you that there's nothing they can do about it, and that you should just wait normally, all the while more and more are squeezing in line ahead of you.
It's just not fair. If we want to allow open immigration and diversity, then I guess we need to start programs to fly people from other poorer countries across the atlantic and pacific oceans so that they can have the same opportunity. Proximity should not make it okay for illegal immigrants to enter our country unchecked. There should be a line, and everyone should fall in at the back.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
it cost the US more the $10 billion in government services for households headed by illegal aliens. Good to know that my tax dollars are hard at work.
Your tax dollars... and theirs too.
Illegal immigrants pay taxes, too, and they often pay more in taxes relative to their income than legal immigrants and citizens, because they don't dare file a tax return to get their refund back. Of course, that only applies in the cases where the employer actually submits W-2s or similar to the IRS, but in the other cases, the employer has a hard time finding a way to claim the employment expenses, so the money paid to the illegal workers ends up looking like taxable profit. In fact, employers of illegals often use the fact that they'll have to pay income taxes on their unclaimable wage expenses as part of the justification for paying such low wages.
Illegals also use mech less in the way of social services than legal immigrants and citizens of comparable economic class, because they're afraid of getting caught and deported.
I don't actually know whether the net effect on government revenues is positive, but I suspect it is, especially when you consider the indirect benefits that come from low wage workers' positive effect on the economy as a whole.
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Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
You seem to be confusing witnessing with spying/surveillance.
Witness is when you happen to be somewhere that something happens unexpectedly (to you) and you see/hear/experience it. You may or may not be engaging in responsible citizen type behavior by reporting what you witnessed whether voluntarily or by request. The OP is not in any way talking about this - why are you?
Spying/surveilling is when you're actively, purposefully on the look out for what you believe to be bad things and report them whenever they happen. That's what the subject is here, not witnessing. I don't consider this kind of activity by non-authorized/non-professional people as being a RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN. It's quite the opposite in fact. It's one ingredient in the recipe for a miserable, repressive society.
RANT
You know what a true RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN is? It's someone who understands and is behind the principles on which the U.S. was founded and doesn't sit by spouting xeonophobic, fascist nonsense attempting to justify corrupt, morally bankrupt politicians and businessmen taking the wizz all over the Constitution for personal gain, crumpling it up, shoving it up our collective asses on a nearly daily basis and then calling it ice cream. It's pretty much the opposite of that in fact - it's someone who takes a stand against such things when they're attempted or even hinted at indirectly as is happening here with this fucking bill.
END RANT
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you just didn't get what the OP was talking about. Otherwise you're engaging in defense of uneeded xenophobia, totalitarianism and fascism, to which I'd say - god, cowardly douche bag morons make me sick.
(BTW, it's "try to", not "try and".)As far as I can tell, it isn't Mexico (i.e., the government of Mexico) that is "invading us; it it individual citizens of Mexico.I do not "love" the U.N., nor do I support any U.N. "one-world government" (although I have nothing against representatives of governments getting together and trying to solve their differences peacefully).
I don't know where I gave you the impression that I loved the U.N.
I don't recall mentioning the U.N. at all.
And there's nothing wrong with being a hippie.I doubt very much that my head would fit in my rectum, although I have never tried, have no intention of trying, and am not the least bit interested in trying, to insert it into that particular opening in my body.
However, it is my body, so if I were so inclined to attempt such a maneuver, it would not be either your or any government's place to tell me that I couldn't try.I don't know of any reasonable person who advocates homosexuality for everyone.
Such a thing would lead to the extinction of our species.
If you are talking about homosexual marriages, well, the government shouldn't be involved whatsoever in restricting marriages of any kind between (or among) any number of consenting adult entities of any sex or species.
Any such interference violates the separation of church and state.HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Based on the rest of your post, introductions of pot to kettle are appropriate here.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana