Legal Commentary

Obama Ends High Tech Border Fence

By Jeralyn

The Obama Administration announced today that it was scrapping the high-tech border fence project known as SBI.

The project cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion and covered 53 miles along the border. It also was hugely invasive. Boeing was the builder, and as I wrote in 2007, there were plans to extend it across some 6,000 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders in segments in coming years. It was also very privacy intrusive: [More...]

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.

A new plan is in place. According to Janet Napolitano:

“The new border security technology plan will utilize existing, proven technology tailored to the distinct terrain and population density of each border region, including commercially available mobile surveillance systems, unmanned aircraft systems, thermal imaging devices, and tower-based remote video surveillance systems. Where appropriate, this plan will also incorporate already existing elements of the former SBInet program that have proven successful, such as stationary radar and infrared and optical sensor towers,” the statement said.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 14, 2011 (boomark / email).