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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.
Do you really want to fly when air traffic controllers are working without pay and probably even more stressed out than usual? That's how mistakes happen and mistakes get people killed.
Notice I'm not weeping for the "papers please" TSA jobsworths, but things like air traffic control, FAA inspections, FDA inspections, Dept of Ag, are actually useful and desirable.
Border Patrol disagrees with you:
https://www.kusi.com/cnn-reque...
The advantage of a physical wall is it doesn't care who is in the white house. When you rely on catching people crossing illegally what to do with them after is a matter of policy that can be determined by the administration. If you prefer ignoring the law and allowing illegal immigration this is a feature.
Taken out of context -- the Border Patrol talking head stated that walls work in urbanized areas where they can be patrolled easily, not that building a wall through rural/desert areas would be terribly useful.
Tunnels take time to dig and create a single entry point that can be monitored more easily. Claiming a shovel makes the entire wall useless is an idiotic argument, especially when walls have been demonstrably effective where we already have them.
Take $20B out of the DoD budget and build a really awesome border wall.
Advantages:
* $20B that is spent domestically.
* $20B that builds things that last (ie not ordnance, bullets, etc.)
* Will pay for itself quickly with the reduction in human traffic across the border.
* Defense spending that saves lives instead of taking them.
Disadvantages:
* Keeps the flow of new Democratic voters reduced.
* Doesn't enrich the Military Industrial Complex.
* Forces the Chamber of Commerce to hire more native low skilled workers.
Huh, hard choice.
"Thats why walls work"
There's one thing I don't understand, though... I have clear memories of Trump stating it was going Mexico the one to pay for the wall so, what's the problem with the wall not having a line in USA's budget? Wasn't exactly that what Trump expected -and promised?
Arizona had 240 illegal immigrant inmates incarcerated in federal prison for homicide related charges. California had 2430, Florida had 480, New York had 1350, and Texas had 900
That's some interesting math considering that it's more than the total number of inmates in federal prison for homicide charges.
The most bizarre thing about this is that all of this technical funding (well, at least a lot of it) is already in the request that the Trump Administration is making. Border walls do work (ask any resident of San Diego), and technology can be used in places where the border fencing is not necessary. (As an example, the border wall ends about 20 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean here as the urbanized portion of Tijuana ends and the mountain terrain on both sides provides a good deterrent.)
Here's more detail on the request from a few days ago. Really not sure what Pelosi is yelling about at this point, since a comprehensive mixed-focus border strengthening is ostensibly what both sides want:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-asks-for-billions-of-dollars-to-fund-border-operations/
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
There is also the human cost to consider.
Rep. Brooks outlines the cost of not having a wall:
“With the southern border, we have the loss of at least 15,000 Americans a year. You have 2,000 that are homicides by illegal aliens, according to federal government data. You’ve got another 15,000, 16,000 that die each year from heroin overdoses, 90 percent of which comes across our porous southern border. That’s not counting the 55,000 additional deaths that are caused by overdoses, a significant amount of which comes across the southern border,” Brooks stated."
I've looked into this, and the numbers are accurate.
And completely irrelevant to a wall. Do you really think people are carrying bags of heroin on their backs through the desert? The heroin comes through ports of entry, hidden in trucks or ships.
Rep Mo Brooks is lying to you.
The GAO estimates for 2009 show that Arizona had 240 illegal immigrant inmates incarcerated in federal prison for homicide related charges. California had 2430, Florida had 480, New York had 1350, and Texas had 900.
"Taking the data only from these five states, and assuming that each person incarcerated for a homicide-related offense is responsible for only one death, yields 5,400 people killed by illegal aliens."
For comparison, automobile deaths in the US is around 35,000 annually.
Total non-medical deaths in the US is about 161,000 annually. Deaths due to illegals is more than 2% of that
Wow that article is hilarious.
"DACA is bad because a much larger group of which DACA is a very unique subset committed bad crimes!! And I'm skeptical of studies that completely contradict my thesis but won't actually say why!!!!"
depending on where you put the blame for overdosing.
All of this is fact, and should be the basis for any political arguments about the wall.
The human cost of not having a wall is very high.
Even assuming illegal immigration was as terrible as you say did you notice last year when Democrats and Trump agreed to a deal for $25 billion in wall funding, but then immigration hardliners came in and blew it up?
There's a reason they did that, a wall is a giant waste of cash and not that useful for stopping illegal immigration.
But if President Crybaby really wants a wall he can do the thing Presidents are supposed to do when they want a policy and needs the other party's support. Negotiate and find something of value they'll take in exchange.
The US system does not give Trump the right to build a wall without congressional support.
I stole this Sig
CNN also reports on a GoFundMe campaign started by an Air Force veteran [Brian Kolfage] 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."
Guess who sits on the Board of Directors of this new non-profit and will probably get paid to do so? Yup, Brian Kolfage, along with his team including:
Erik Prince, an American businessman known for founding the security firm Blackwater (he is also Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' brother), David Clarke, the former Wisconsin sheriff known for expressing controversial views on immigration, and Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state.
Business Insider (and others) also note:
Kolfage's previous endeavors, which included stints running conspiracy-theory websites and a related Facebook page that was kicked off the platform in October.
People getting refunds from the GoFundMe campaign will be contacted via email and offered the opportunity to donate to this new "501(c)(4) non-profit Florida Corporation named 'We Build the Wall, Inc.'" -- which will probably *not* be refundable (which will be nice for Brian and his team).
In addition, this Business Insiderarticle Man behind 'Build the Wall' GoFundMe has reportedly made a potentially lucrative contact list thanks to a shadowy email-harvesting operation notes (from interviews with former employees and public records):
NBC News reported that Kolfage, who was associated with websites that published false stories and had pages shut down by Facebook, claims to have gathered 3.5 million email addresses through his border wall campaign.
Those addresses, NBC News reported, have allegedly been used to encourage people to support Kolfage's websites, to buy a coffee brand he owns, or to be stored for future use by conservative campaigns.
Lindsey Lowery, a former staff writer at the now-defunct conservative website FreedomDaily, shared a text message with NBC News in which Kolfage discussed his email harvesting plans.
In the texts, Kolfage told Lowery in September 2017 that "we can make our own [petition] through the website to steal/collect emails."
So... this guy sounds great. /sarcasm
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
and overstay their visit. But even if the goal is no longer to stop the flow of illegals (which is how The Wall was sold to me) but instead of make border patrol's life easier it's no good. For one thing there's ladders. For another it's pretty easy to climb a fence.
As others have pointed out Israel doesn't have a lot of wall or fence. Unless you're gonna station somebody at every inch of fence they're just gonna go over it. Israel's solution is snipers and a willingness to kill. I suppose we could do that.
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i can't speak to the murder statistics
The murder statistics are nonsense. Saying "Mexicans murder people in America, therefore we should have a wall", is as silly as saying "Californians murder people in Nevada, therefore we should have a wall".
Illegal immigration does not increase violent crime
Mexican immigrants are LESS likely to commit violent crimes than native born Americans
The murder statistics are nonsense. Saying "Mexicans murder people in America, therefore we should have a wall", is as silly as saying "Californians murder people in Nevada, therefore we should have a wall".
No, it's not silly. Because Californians living legally in the US are different than people who we should be preventing from being here when they cheat to do so. If we can reduce some of the tens of thousands of crimes committed in the US by those who are illegally present, that's tens of thousands of crimes fewer we have to deal with. People who end up alive, instead of dead.
Let me guess. You're going to say that there are simply a fixed number of crimes, and if the illegals who commit thousands and thousands of violent felonies every year weren't in the country, then law-abiding citizens would step up and commit those crimes instead? Do you realize how absurd your position on this actually is? How about we just use that old liberal/progressive staple: "If we can save just one life by [banning/regulating/taking-away-liberty-in-some-way], then it's worth doing." So, if we can prevent thousands of violent felonies from being committed by people, many of whom have been repeatedly deported and who simply walk back across the border because there's nothing stopping them or even slowing them down, doesn't that more than qualify for a Progressive "Think Of The Children" blessing for whatever method contributes to that end? No? I see.
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