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Patrolling the US Border Via Webcam
The BBC features a story today on a controversial effort to patrol the border between Mexico and Texas by means of 21 hidden cameras, the output of which is streamed online for viewers at home, who can then report suspected illegal border crossings; more than 130,000 people have registered to observe the streams, from as far afield as "Australia, Mexico, Colombia, Israel, New Zealand and the UK."
Why is a wholesome, All-American, project to Defend the Homeland(tm) letting dirty foreign IP addresses in?
I read on freerepublic that foreign IPs can carry tuberculosis and communism.
Now if Mexico was registered to monitor the hidden cams..... "quick, duck, I can see you on the webcam"
Could it be that Mexicans have registered for the purpose of locating the cameras?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Ok yes, we see you. We will mark that crossing off our list of possibilities. Ok, a little further...there I can see you...keep going....now I can't, mark that with a flag or something.
Well played Border Control, well played.
Really, crowdsourcing a problem like this shouldn't be hard - 21 cameras, lots of geeks, Google Earth? How long will they stay hidden? Let's have a contest to find the things!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They're hidden if they are difficult for people in the area to see. "hidden" is not the same as "secret".
The US border with Mexico is long. Patrolling it effectively would probably take more guards than we want to pay for. Furthermore, in situations like this were most of the time nothing is going on, guards tend to get bored, inattentive, and sleepy, which makes them miss things. Having lots of volunteers allows each one to monitor for a short time while alert and interested.
The Romans did not routinely use intensive foot patrols as you suggest. Their strategy was much like tat of the US, with walls instead of fences and occasional patrols.
...we would be concerned that the cameras might encourage vigilantism. That people would think they saw an illegal immigrant and then jump in their truck with a gun.
That criticism shows up at least twice in the BBC article, but it doesn't make sense to me. The cameras might attract some people already partial to vigilantism, but I don't believe they flat out encourage vigilantes in general.
What's more, the locations of the cameras are secret; otherwise immigrants and traffickers would learn to avoid all those spots within days. The watchers shouldn't be able to find the camera locations, so this stuff about "jumping into their truck with a gun" isn't even possible.
I don't know whether I agree or not with the program, but the "concerns" quoted here seem a little far fetched. Furthermore, vigilantes present as much danger to law enforcement as to their prey, so I don't believe the Border Patrol or sheriff's offices will continue the program if there's significant evidence of more people hunting illegals.
I wonder if something like this couldn't be used to provide more effective protection than the police currently provide for witnesses, abused women, and others under threat. All too often even when such people get some protection it takes the form of a patrol car driving by now and then or officers posted outside the front door, often for limited hours and not for very many days. Providing really effective protection takes a lot of manpower that is hard for police to provide. And then there are cases where te police are unsympathetic or consider that there isn't enough hard evidence of a threat. If cameras could be set up to monitor building and in some case apartment entrances and exits and streamed to sites where volunteers would monitor them, that could provide a large increase in the manpower available.
I Feel Asleep.....
Karnal
There's already a moat of sorts - the Rio Grande river. I think that only stops illegals who can't swim and have no access to a raft or other boat.
I think we have bigger problems than illegal immigration and trying to patrol the border, which is an arguably worthwhile endeavor, is really not the most effective technique at our disposal. It would help, for starters, if the country they were fleeing wasn't such a cesspool of corruption, crime and poverty. Notice that we don't have nearly as much trouble with Canadians fleeing their country. I can hardly blame those Mexican immigrants for wanting to get the heck out of there.
Second it would probably be more effective if we made it easier for them to come here LEGALLY. Then they could work and live here, with less fear of deportation, and contributing more openly to the society they want so badly to join.
It's a complicated problem, which is why nobody has really managed to solve it. Just ask a Cherokee. If you can find one.
-B-
There is a fairly straightforward way to locate the cameras if you have a bit more time than me. Using the time of the sunrise and sunset (and the length of the day), you should be able to get a decent fix on the location (people use the same technique on whales and sea turtles.)
I believe the term is "crowdsourcing", or in this case, "sponsored crowdsourcing", where the citizens want their border protected, and there is not enough manpower or money for the government to do it.
However, I doubt it will catch on much, unless there is incentive/award to successfully identify illegal crossing that requires a high 'hit ratio' or low rate of false reports to claim a reward.
It is not vigilantism for citizens to assist law enforcement in enforcing the laws of the country. It is responsible citizenship, and it is getting involved, which are good things.
Using the army might work in times of peace, but at present the army is stretched thin by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I doubt that they have personnel to spare. The Roman troops along Hadrian's Wall mostly stayed in the milecastles and the towers on either side. Intensive patrolling was not their strategy. Hadrian's Wall was only 73.5 miles long. The US border with Mexico is 1,969 miles long. To staff it the way the Romans staffed Hadrian's wall would require approximately 50,000 troops.
That's actually quite practical, especially with UAVs and manned surveillance posts, but there is little political support in Washington for effective border control.
It's easy to build small operating bases, easy to stage patrols to monitor what sensor and cameras detect, and while it would not halt border crossings it would reduce them to a more reasonable level.
What isn't easy is doing this when Mexico objects (failed narcostate that it is, every dime sent from Yanquiland is welcome) and when Mexicans in the US (who have zero logical interest in border security and everything to gain from lack of it) vote and protest against it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The border is massive, and 21 cameras cannot possibly cover a significant portion.
It's good as a pilot project, but the border is thousands of miles long.
Would-be illegal immigrants will eventually get word about regarding which reasons are "safest" or that they're most likely to succeed at in crossing.
Probably forested most geographically hostile areas, where cameras can't easily be placed, are going to be more favored crossing points.
The low number of border agents places them at significant advantage to catching or outrunning illegal immigrants in geographically hostile areas where vehicles can't ride.
Especially if any of the illegal immigrants have "invisibility cloaks", EMPs, or other technological sophistication involved in their efforts.
If you are so concerned about criminal activity "crossing the border", why not do what that lovely man in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City suggested for florida, build a moat!
Yeah as an Aussie it has long been my belief that you shouldn't be able to be a country unless you have water all the way around. Of course the Panama Canal is sort of a moat, and it is part of the USA.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I think we have bigger problems than illegal immigration and trying to patrol the border, which is an arguably worthwhile endeavor, is really not the most effective technique at our disposal. It would help, for starters, if the country they were fleeing wasn't such a cesspool of corruption, crime and poverty. Notice that we don't have nearly as much trouble with Canadians fleeing their country. I can hardly blame those Mexican immigrants for wanting to get the heck out of there.
Exactly! All this talk of "criminals" and "drugs", calling large swaths of people "illegals"...its a terrible thing! They are still human beings you know...
This idea of having people watching computer screens for desperate people trying to make a new life in another country, its revolting to me. I also feel sorry for those who have grown up on the other side to see these people as a "pest".
---
There is an option for citizens who want to be good guys and snitch on companies who employ illegals and are thus tax cheats.
You can turn in illegals, punish employers who exploit both them and Americans who need jobs, and make a profit.
http://www.taxwhistleblowers.org/main/page.php?page_id=2
"Amount of Form 211 Reward
Rewards range from 1% to 15% of amounts collected (including taxes, fines, and penalties, but not interest) up to a maximum of $10 million."
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Why use autocannons? Just link the cameras and guns to an online sniper game and let the crowd do it!
Heck, you could probably charge $1 per shot and make money!
After being on hold for 30 minutes: "Officer, i saw a crossing, 50 miles from any human post.. "
By the time they mobilize, all the cameras will do is allow us to count how many crossed over, for the census.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If they've got the vote, they are no longer "Mexicans". They are Americans.
Really, if some impoverished people want to come to your country, is it such a bad thing for you, as a "rich" person?
Put that way its not really a bad thing but spare a thought for the great number of people from poor countries who do the right thing by applying through channels, filling out the forms and working hard to qualify. Letting asylum seekers through does two bad things IMHO:
I 1997 I visited friends in the US. They had an apartment in Manhattan and during the day I made use of the laundry in their building. The demographics in the laundry and the attached playground were totally different from elsewhere generally in the building. The clothes were being washed and the children were being cared for by middle aged women from central America. It was actually a lot like Malaysia (my wife's native country), where many families have Indonesian servants.
If you want to retain your identity, migration has to be slow. I am sure that India or Sri Lanka could dump enough people on NZ in one year to create a new majority. I doubt that even the past immigrants from those countries want that to happen. And it is a sad fact I think that population pressure has to be used to reduce population growth. Its sad because starvation is implied in that equation.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It means that closing borders is a waste of time and energy. It's a pointless drain on the economy to waste tax dollars on a pipe dream. Not to mention the privacy concerns of erecting sophisticated surveillance equipment wily-nily.
Patrolling the Mexican-American border is about as effective as the war on drugs. I thought the economic and social drain of the Berlin Wall was well known.
The point is:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
TFA says: "the administrators of the site maintain the primary goal of the initiative is to tackle crime, not illegal immigration." In other words, this is about the war on drugs. At a cost of about 4 million dollars, 21 arrests have been made; "Critics say this does not represent value for money."
This is a fascinating proposition. Let's figure out the value-per-dollar supplied by the war on drugs in general, and see if it's better than the value-per-dollar supplied by this program.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs. (The term was first used by Nixon in 1969.) I don't think it will come as a surprise that it's been a failure.
What about the "per-dollar" part? Well, I don't know about your state, but mine (California) spends more on prisons than it spends on education, and the vast majority of prison spending arises from drug prohibition. First of all, you have all the people in prison for buying, selling, or using drugs. Then you have all the crime directly associated with the illegal drug trade; just as the stereotypical Chicago gangster of the 1930's wouldn't have existed without Prohibition, gangs today wouldn't exist without drug prohibition. And then you have all the crime that indirectly arises from drug prohibition. Drug prohibition makes drugs expensive, so people commit crimes to support their habits. So we have all the costs of incarceration, the social costs suffered by the victims of violent crime, etc. It's a lot of money.
So I would estimate that the value-per-dollar of the war on drugs over the last 40 years equals x/y, where x is a number so small that it's controversial whether it's positive or negative, and y is huge.
Find free books.
1. Wear a Bigfoot costume and approach the border. /. front page, then congratulations on the career move from a deal smuggler to an internet celebrity.
2. Frail around for 5 minutes.
3. Take a smoke break and then google "bigfoot Mexican border".
4. If there are no relevant results, you're safe to cross.
5. If there are a few million hits and you find yourself on
The best part is that you're guaranteed not to be fired upon if spotted by the boarder patrol. Also you can claim you're just perpetrating a hoax if you're caught performing steps 1-3.
Security through obscurity never works.
Please. This isn't even slightly tricky. Time the sunset / shadows. That gives you the east-west position (and very accurately, too.) Local noon identifies local midnight (and every other local time) perfectly. So does sunset. Since the cameras are on the border, that reduces the problem to a very small one -- what portion(s) of the border match those times. Then go there (using GPS and holding a pic of the POV of the camera)... walk right up to it, grab it, throw it in the 4WD. Rinse, repeat. If the cameras are observing places where people can go, they're in places where people can get at them.
Also, borders aren't "square miles", they are linear miles. The problem is not as intractable as you want to think it is.
Offer me fifty grand per camera, as well as guaranteed legal immunity, and I'll go down there and hand the vast majority of em to you in a dusty heap in, oh, a couple of weeks or so. It'd be fun. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'll comment under the assumption that you haven't thought this out to its many possible consequences. Maybe you could make a case for some intrinsic right of travel, but there are other natural rights (not to mention socially-accepted rights and responsibilities) that would supersede such a right.
Here is an extreme example: If Israel opened their borders, there wouldn't be an Israel, just a bunch of craters.
Here's another: If the US opened their borders (ports, specifically), you wouldn't be able to trust that the antibiotic you're taking isn't actually cyanide or an ineffective knockoff.
Here's another: If there was no barrier to trade in controlled arms and dual-use technology, North Korea and Iran (among others) would already have space-capable nuclear arsenals.
For that matter, take any horrible thing you can imagine, from lethally incorrect medication to radioactive waste to biological and chemical weapons to slaves and make those things available anywhere in the world. Better get out your Geiger counter and make sure your toothpaste wasn't made with reactor-coolant sodium.
There are a lot of things that we get wrong. The mere existence of famine, poverty, and widespread illness are testaments to our social failures. These things do not invalidate what we have gotten right. Some things should be controlled, some things should be validated, some things deserve a chain of responsibility and a means of seeing that responsibility culminate in rational consequences for those that abuse their fellow man.
The real problem is that there is no one solution. Every problem plaguing us today is a trade-off. Drugs are illegal in part because of the collateral damage, in part because some people are just too stupid/irresponsible to have them, in part because it offends some people's morality, and in part because it damages someone's bottom line. Guns, same thing. The 'war on' targets are all like this. Other problems such as poverty, famine, economic collapse; these are due to many factors. Adjust that 'one thing' that seems like it will make everything better and something else collapses, some other unforeseen consequence hits us. We could do nothing and see no improvement at all, but then what would be the point of trying? Besides, different cultures define moral in different ways. There is no one right way.
To bring this back to the original topic, no. We absolutely cannot throw the border open. We may not like our laws, but we are bound to respect them and it is not legal to enter this country without a visa or citizenship. We are not morally obligated to drive our own support systems past the point of collapse solely to appease the guilt-ridden people who feel bad about the terrible conditions across the border or anywhere else. To put it bluntly we're no help to anyone if we can't help ourselves, and we're not doing so hot right now. Maybe it sounds callous to you, but screw the people that drain our social support without giving anything back. If individuals want to donate their time, money, or expertise then so be it but we cannot allow a de facto aid package to be sucked out of our hospitals and food pantries and shelters.
-1 raving lunatic; +6 subGenius... Things even out...
How does this work? Defending border by webcam sounds like "Stop! Hold it right there! Or I'll start my video feed and show you my genitals". How is that wholesome for that matter?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I always thought we could just consolidate all US military bases into one, long skinny one along the border. :-)
The whole controversy is weird. It's like we're not allowed to have a border. You'd think it was Kashmir, but even India and Pakistan mange to have a little fun with it.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1689795,00.html
I can't think of any other border where people act like it's an offense against the universe. Meanwhile, you see all sorts of anti-illegal immigration laws being tightened around the world and you don't hear boo about them.
I was with you on the first sentence. But there's a problem with the Berlin Wall analogy: the Berlin Wall was designed to keep people in, whereas the US border controls are designed to keep people out.
Find free books.
Exactly, I think we should treat our border with Mexico the same way the treat theirs with Guatemala.
Funny how people cavalierly dismiss what the law says...until they need it to protect them. The cops are all pigs and tyrants...until it's your home being broken into, your family under attack, you who needs protection under those same laws from those same "tyrants."
In the absence of law you would see a whole other kind of tyrant. It would be the tyranny of the strong and cruel where the bullies would rise up and take what they wanted without consequences. For evidence of that just look to some of the parts of the world where there is no working system of law. If that's the way you want to live I'm sure you could find a nice place in Somalia, for example.
At least the way it is now we get to choose who has that power and it's those laws you speak of so derisively that keep them at least somewhat in check.
Is our system perfect? No, it's the worst system there is...except for all of the other ones.
-B-
http://news.slashdot.org/story/06/06/02/1250244/Texas-to-Provide-Online-Bordercams?art_pos=4
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?
1. Wear a Bigfoot costume and approach the border.
Since I first heard of this strange setup, I too have wondered why nobody has played with the cams, the potential for harmless shenanigans making fun of the security loonies is limitless.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
There really isn't much barrier for someone to come here legally.
Trust me as someone who has researched the options - US is actually one of the hardest countries to immigrate to, at least in First World. If you want to see what "really isn't much barrier" is like, look at Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or Ireland. Even then, a degree is essentially a must (sometimes, you can get away without it, but you need lots and lots of work experience in a field that's on priority lists).