[rockinqsranch]

“What if anything will replace the balloons?”

That is my question as well. The article is written in the perspective of the company, the employees etc. effected by the shutdown, but is there something replacing their system that hopefully is more effective than old fashioned balloons? Being that it’s Bizarro Barry’s World I would doubt it, but I don’t know.

[butterdezillion]

I just called Sen Johanns’ DC office. Said I had read that Obama is shutting down our southern air defenses and asked if they knew if something else was going to replace it, or if we’re being left wide open to an EMP attack. She said she didn’t know but would have somebody find out and get back to me.

I should have asked her if they’d call me back BEFORE the mushroom cloud hits.

[jpsb]

I've looked into this a bit this AM, very upsetting, what my thinking is, and implied in the article is that most of the southern US border will the covered by some other means (ship radar, unmanned aircraft, etc). But there will be large areas of isolated unpopulated and difficult terrain that will not be covered and that would allow low flying aircraft unobserved entry into US air space.

Sequestration happens in March, so the March 15 shutdown date suggests that this is a result of sequestration. Typical Rat behavior, shut down the useful programs that everyone likes (scare the voters) but keep the patronage programs. One part of sequestration was military cuts, the other part was an end to extended unemployment benefits. I'll bet dollars to donuts the benefits are not cut.

[EBH]

It has only taken ...6 odd years....

For those of you hoping for hordes of drones and blimps to start patrolling the Mexican and Canadian borders, there’s bad news this morning. “After a face-off among large military contractors, the Boeing Company was picked by the Homeland Security Department to lead a high-tech effort to secure borders,” the Times reports. And unlike proposals from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and others, Boeing’s plan for the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, doesn’t rely that much on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or airships.

“Boeing’s proposal relied heavily on a network of 1,800 towers, most of which would need to be erected along the borders with Mexico and Canada. Each tower would be equipped with a variety of sensors, including cameras and heat and motion detectors,” the Washington Post notes.

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2006/09/20/drones-blimps-lose-out-in-border-war/#ixzz2JJu4PDgW
Defense.org