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Home » Homeland Security » Border Tech Upgrade?

Border Tech Upgrade?

When I drove into Ft. Huachuca, Arizona last year, one of the first things I noticed was the aero­stat lin­ger­ing above the hori­zon, keep­ing track of the Mexican bor­der, just a few miles away. A cou­ple of days later, I vis­ited with a pair of Border Patrol agents, who showed me how their new fly­ing drone had helped them catch ille­gals cross­ing into the coun­try. They couldn’t wait to get another.
drones_wired.jpgNow, the Times tells us, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion wants to expand the use of techno-​​goodies like these along the bor­der — at a cost of $2 bil­lion.
Lawmakers are skep­ti­cal. “We’ve been pre­sented with expen­sive pro­pos­als for elab­o­rate bor­der tech­nol­ogy that even­tu­ally have proven to be inef­fec­tive and waste­ful,” Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky, said. So are some of my favorite home­land secu­rity ana­lysts, like Christian Beckner. He notes that the Border Patrol’s Predator B robotic spy plane, which crashed last month, sucked up about $7,808 per appre­hen­sion — com­pared to a $1,166 per-​​catch aver­age cost for the rest of the Patrol’s bud­get.
So, clearly, there needs to be big-​​time over­sight of this “Secure Border Initiative” — espe­cially if com­pa­nies like Northrop are going to come up with hare-​​brained schemes like watch­ing for coy­otes from 65,000 feet. And, obvi­ously, no tech­nol­ogy is going to beat boots on the ground — trained boots, that is.
But still, I’m inclined to give the admin­is­tra­tion the ben­e­fit of the doubt here. The Border Patrol — espe­cially in the Tuscon sec­tor, around Ft. Huachuca — has a nearly impos­si­ble job, try­ing to catch mil­lions of ille­gals with just a few thou­sand agents. The least we can do is equip ‘em right.

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May 18th, 2006 | Homeland Security | 187765 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/05/18/border-tech-upgrade/Border+Tech+Upgrade%3F2006-05-18+15%3A24%3A07david_axe You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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    May 18, 2006 at 12:28 pm

    Many folks com­plain because low tech solu­tions exist. They’re also cheaper than bor­der agents.
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    Effective remote con­trol of pilot­less vehi­cles and air­craft is pos­si­ble today. With a “dri­ver” or “pilot” on the ground at a remote site a safe and cost effec­tive alter­na­tive to piloted or auto-​​controlled vehi­cles and drones is avail­able now.
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