Posted on 06/04/2007 12:47:26 PM PDT by TheDon
TUCSON, Ariz. - When Elizabeth Isaman leaves the El Mirador Ranch smack on the Mexican border, she can see a tall metal tower, packed with cameras, radars and sensors about a quarter-mile away.
It's one of nine towers creating a so-called virtual fence stretching along a 28-mile segment of the Arizona-Mexico border, dubbed Project 28, straddling the Sasabe port of entry - the federal government's newest effort at deterring illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.
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According to Arivaca merchant Roger Beal, U.S. Border Patrol officials have said the 360-degree ground surveillance radar on each tower has a range of about 9 1/2 miles and the cameras more than 10 miles.
The all-weather, all-hours technology will be able to distinguish humans from animals and vehicles, determine a group's size and whether weapons are being carried.
The images and information, called a Common Operating Picture and including global positioning locations of intruders as well as Border Patrol agents, will be relayed to command centers in Tucson and Sells. It also will be sent to nearby agents in vehicles equipped with hardened laptops so they can intercept the border-crossers.
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(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
Effective operation of a “virtual fence” presupposes that the government wishes to enforce the law. If they decide to watch somebody cross the border on a camera located five miles away, it won’t make any difference unless they go out and pick him up.
Nine towers, along a 28-mile stretch of border, and each tower has a range of over 9 miles? I guess they’re going for redundancy, but they seem to be packing a lot of expensive equipment into this little space.
Those are just virtual towers and cameras along with virtual Border Patrol agents near the virtual fence. But, you can almost imagine them when reading this article.
It would still be far cheaper in the long run and take far less annual appropriations to go with the physical barrier, than to leave the border open and use high tech, expensive equipment with large amount of manpower in order to continually catch the border-crossers.
Of course the advantage of this alternative for the politicians is that in later years the politicians can simply reduce the appropriation of the annual expenditures for this hi-tech, high manpower approach, and reopen the borders for their Wall Street “open borders” buddies. (”But we have higher priorities in healthcare and education - it’s for the chil’un!” they’ll say.)
Boondoggle
Also it would seem that for the drug smugglers and coyotes, they would just need to find a guy (or a group of 2-3) whose job is to watch the monitoring devices for a particular stretch and willing to be paid off to look the other way. When they find that weak human link, they can then use that area to get their goods and people across.
I have no doubt that grass roots is the only thing that will stop this Juggernaut.
Yeah, boondoggle. So we got great cameras. What are we gonna do, count ‘em? How does this STOP them?
Exactly. This high-tech wall garbage is pandering. We need an impregnable wall.
Effective operation of the border requires that the government enforces the law regardless of what detection and deterrent methods are used to a great extent.
Given a little time, fences can be cut, vehicle barriers removed or destroyed, ditches filled in, etc.
I will agree that it is less obvious that the laws aren't being enforced if the illegal crossers don't have to leave a trail of destroyed barriers, and that destroying the barriers requires extra effort and tools.
However, barriers and surveillance are really tools to aid in enforcement. They do little by themselves.
“ranchers solitude”? Give me a break. I know of ranchers as far north as Wilcox who get regular, unwanted visits from illegals passing through.
Sure the contract was let months back to build a total of nine towers, deploy by July 2007. Provided you actually had people watches the cameras, border agents in the field to apprehend ... it might do some good. No where near what a real secure fence would do, as the border can still be rushed and overwhelm the responders. It also depends on the wathcers not getting tired and turning it off for the day.
Build the real fence use the toys for surveillance of the real fence.
but they seem to be packing a lot of expensive equipment into this little space.
If I was a rancher along the border, I have my non-virtual Remington 700 loaded up with non-virtual 175 grain .308 cal. Sierra Matchkings, and non-virtually defend my property and family. And then I’d probably be non-virtually arrested for being a bad boy. Can’t have people actually defend themselves now, can we?
A physical fence allows for physical holes — either through or under. Those holes would require a lot of manpower to find and repair. A hole in a fence can be made to be invisible except from very close up.
If somebody is spotted when they are 9 miles away — and agents dispatched to intercept them — they will never get a chance to damage a virtual fence by taking out cameras and radar units.
A virtual fence can never be as effective as a physical barrier if it comes to large numbers of people rushing through, but I would guess the manpower and maintenance costs of a virtual fence would be lower.
Now, if each of those posts was also a roosting point for a UAV armed with guns or tasers, I’d like it even more. It’s about time we got some benefit from our kids’ addictions to video games.
Best of all might be a physical fence with the electronic surveilance and UAVs to prevent anyone from messing with the fence.
Theoretically, the radar and camera systems can see for 9 miles. Can somebody hit one with a 0.380 from a distance of 9 miles ?
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