Free Republic

Reporting from Washington — The Department of Homeland Security, positioning itself to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.- Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar project involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors.

AUSTIN — Texas is seeking bids for a video camera network on the Mexican border, similar to an earlier state pilot program that allowed the public to help spot illegal activity on the Internet. Gov. Rick Perry's emergency management division calls it a "virtual border neighborhood watch" designed to help crack down on drug running, human trafficking and other crime along the 1,200-mile border between the state and Mexico. A request for private companies to submit bids was posted March 7 by the Texas Department of Public Safety on behalf of the governor's division. Proposals are due April 7. "The...

EL PASO — Gov. Rick Perry's proposal to broadcast live video footage from the border over the Internet should be up and running again by January now that new funding has been secured, a spokesman said. Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said the governor has found $3 million in federal grants to install about 200 mobile cameras along the Texas-Mexico border. The cameras were pitched during Perry's 2006 re-election campaign as a way for anyone via the Internet to become a border patroller and help root out border crime and illegal crossings. A $200,000 test run that lasted about a month...

Locals with a vested interest in the immigration issue spoke ill of Perry's proposal. "I think it's a joke," said Kim Fromme, a Goliad resident and member of Texas Minutemen, a civilian border watch organization. "There's going to be too many false calls, false alarms. You're going to run the border patrol ragged, and they're ragged enough already." Similar sentiments were expressed by Benny Martinez, a Goliad resident and a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens for more than 50 years. "You don't know by looking at them sometime if they are illegal or not. You can't...