AZ Town Opposes Border Fence
Arivaca, Arizona is making a big stink over proposed surveillance towers planned for the Mexican Border. They liken it to Big Brother.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is installing a network of nine towers with ground radar and night vision cameras to monitor a 28-mile (45-km) stretch of border near Arivaca, southwest of Tucson.
It is the first trial for the communications and technology arm of the government's Secure Border Initiative announced in 2005. Dubbed "SBInet," authorities say it will be extended across some 6,000 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders in segments in coming years.
The town's population of 1,500 is very upset. They say the entire town will be under surveillance. I think they are right. They cost a bundle too.
More...
The Border Patrol said the system, which is being built by aerospace giant Boeing under a contract estimated at some $2 billion, is a necessary step to close the border to illegal entrants and allow agents to promptly identify and capture illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.
Even George Orwell wouldn't have conceived of this:
Information captured by the towers -- including live images giving GPS locations of any intruders -- will be streamed live via satellite from command centers in Tucson and Sells to Border Patrol agents with laptops patrolling nearby.
Eventually it will be integrated into a wider network, including a fleet of Predator B unmanned surveillance drones.
Other communities will be next. America. Surveillance capital of the world. What a shame.
| < The Iraq Supplemental: The Likely Deal | Senate Reaches Immigration Deal With White House > |
