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Should America Build a Virtual Border Wall? Or Just Crowdfund It... (chicagotribune.com)
As America's government faces its longest-ever shutdown over the president's demands for border wall funding, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suggested "possible alternatives to a physical wall," according to one Silicon Valley newspaper:
Among the president's justifications for a wall is to stop drugs from coming into the United States, so Pelosi proposed spending "hundreds of millions of dollars" for technology to scan cars for drugs, weapons and contraband at the border. "The positive, shall we say, almost technological wall that can be built is what we should be doing," Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said during her weekly press conference.
That didn't go over well with Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group that on Friday started a petition asking Democrats to drop plans for a "technological wall" that it says could threaten Fourth Amendment rights that guard against unreasonable searches and seizures. "Current border surveillance programs subject people to invasive and unconstitutional searches of their cell phones and laptops, location tracking, drone surveillance, and problematic watchlists," the group's petition says...
In December, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General released a report that showed searches of electronic devices at the border were up nearly 50 percent in 2017. The report also found that border agents were not always following standard operating procedures for searches, including failing to properly document such searches. In addition, information copied by agents were not always deleted as required.
The article also notes that Anduril Industries -- founded by Oculus Rift designer Palmer Luckey (and funded by Peter Thiel) -- is one of several companies already working on "a virtual border wall."
CNN also reports on a GoFundMe campaign started by an Air Force veteran to simply crowdfund the construction of the wall. Though 340,747 people pledged over $20 million, it failed to reach its $1 billion goal, and is now pointing supporters to a newly-formed non-profit corporation -- named "We Build the Wall."
Meanwhile, another 7,121 GoFundMe members have pledged $160,985 to a rival campaign raising money for ladders to climb over Trump's wall.
That didn't go over well with Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group that on Friday started a petition asking Democrats to drop plans for a "technological wall" that it says could threaten Fourth Amendment rights that guard against unreasonable searches and seizures. "Current border surveillance programs subject people to invasive and unconstitutional searches of their cell phones and laptops, location tracking, drone surveillance, and problematic watchlists," the group's petition says...
In December, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General released a report that showed searches of electronic devices at the border were up nearly 50 percent in 2017. The report also found that border agents were not always following standard operating procedures for searches, including failing to properly document such searches. In addition, information copied by agents were not always deleted as required.
The article also notes that Anduril Industries -- founded by Oculus Rift designer Palmer Luckey (and funded by Peter Thiel) -- is one of several companies already working on "a virtual border wall."
CNN also reports on a GoFundMe campaign started by an Air Force veteran to simply crowdfund the construction of the wall. Though 340,747 people pledged over $20 million, it failed to reach its $1 billion goal, and is now pointing supporters to a newly-formed non-profit corporation -- named "We Build the Wall."
Meanwhile, another 7,121 GoFundMe members have pledged $160,985 to a rival campaign raising money for ladders to climb over Trump's wall.
"Any barrier that can be built by tools can be penetrated by tools, it's just a matter of time and preparation."
Do you have locks on your doors? They won't stop a thief that wants in either, but I bet you use them all the same. Locks do at least retard their entry and keeps the thieves with low initiative out so there is at least some benefit.
"For the wall to work, it needs pretty close to continal surveillance in those remote places. Not only along the wall, but in front to detect people who went through or over or under. You also need to be able to catch those people. Once you have those things, you don't really need the physical wall anymore."
A statement of ignorance. Surveillance does not need to be continual. In fact the building of a wall is usually so you can avoid that expense. Only occasional surveillance is necessary.
It is an open border without a wall that would need continual surveillance because there is no wall to delay entry at all.
I don't even agree that we need a stupid wall, but I am smart enough to figure that out, why aren't you?
In 2019 we've got much better technologies to detect border crossings than some stupid-ass wall that has to be patrolled anyway because they will get over it or tunnel under it regardless of how high or how deep it goes! Just like everything else Trump does he's trying to use 1940's """technology""" to solve a problem; how can anyone be behind this, are you all dumb, too? For fuck's sake for what his retarded-ass wall would cost we could put a surveillance satellite in geosync orbit that would watch the entire border and not have to take any private citizens' land, and be so much more effective because you wouldn't have to have an entire army of people to physically patrol some damned wall.
As a Texan, I am highly motivated to keeping the masses of people from California, New York, Illinois, oh and especially Oregon and Washington and to a much lesser extent the liberals in Colorado from migrating here after their own states have started failing.
But, alas, like Britain and the Poles, we don't have the authority to do that.
I'm all for a Texit. 250%. Or a Calexit. Either would enable this goal to be possible.
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