Slashdot Mirror
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?
That's not the issue I have with the act. I never said we should get rid of border patrols. If they instituted a law that ordered border patrol officers to shoot anyone that tried to cross illegally, that'd be trying to secure the borders too. But the method/fashion by which they're trying to achieve that objective, and the extent to which they're willing to go is a little ridiculous. I mean c'mon, having thousands of border patrol officers isn't enough, we need to get citizens to sit in front of their computers and watch for people trying to sneak in?
Personally, I'm against such a closed-border policy as we already have. I think that in itself is wrong and fosters/reflects a really unhealthy cultural attitude within our society. I'm one of those people who truly believes in the Thomas Paine quote "[My] country is the world, and my religion is to do good." But it's not the act of watching the borders with video surveilance that I'm particularly opposed to in this case. It's the fact that this act seems to encourage individuals to sit at their computers watching for people crossing the border illegally and be government informants. I mean, how is anyone going to tell that some illegal immigrant is a "terrorist"? They can't. And what are the chances that this is actually going to catch any terrorists? Probably close to nil. Do you know how many people we have patroling the Canadian border? Do you honestly think that terrorists will try to hop the Mexican border rather than simply forge a fake passport or come in from Canada? And what kind of people do you think are actually going to waste their time with this border-watch nonsense?
The kind of people this will encourage are what I'm worried about. It's sorta like if the government started offering money to people to report illegal immigrants. You could argue that it's to secure our nation, but that's a stretch. Sure it's just enforcing our borders, but the social consequences of encouraging people to rat out a really quite benign segment of our society just because they were born in a different country and wanted to make a better life for themselves here is much more detrimental to our society than any terrorist attack.
I just think that not bombing the shit out of other countries and exploiting developing nations would do much more for our national security than having the public monitor the borders. This act just perpetuates unfounded fears that merely serve as a political distraction while the real threats go unnoticed.