Posted on 08/09/2005 9:33:05 AM PDT by ForGod'sSake
Border officials are testing new radio identification tags at five crossings into Canada and Mexico.
The radio tags will be part of the standard registration process for entering the United States. The wireless technology is nearly identical to that already being used to speed up passage at toll booths on many of the nation's highways - such as New York's E-Z Pass.
I don't understand. Tagging cars is going to cut down on immigration? Or is it actually believed that the actual immigrants are going to submit to being "chipped"?
Instead of wasting time and tax dollars, how about blocking the entire border and kicking those out who are already here?
ping
Starting a "tag and release" program to chart migration?
"You're not going to see much change, and that's the key message," said Wright, who joined U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to demonstrate the new system at the Thousand Islands Bridge crossing from Canada into the United States. Testing of the radio frequency identification tags is also being done at the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway crossings in Blaine, Wash., and two crossings in Nogales, Ariz. The testing will run through next summer.
If successful, RFID technology could help relieve congestion for travelers at border crossings, while also helping authorities weed out potential terrorists, drug dealers and other criminals.
"We want to push the border back so that individuals we don't want in this country are not only prevented from entering, but so that they can't even receive a visa," Wright said.
This is the second phase of US-VISIT, the federal government's new screening system launched in 2004 at 115 airports, 15 sea ports and 50 of the nation's busiest land crossings into Canada and Mexico. The system requires scanning fingerprints and photographs of the visitor's face into a computer. The radio tags are the next step in the process.
All foreign travelers using visas will obtain their radio tag from U.S. Customs officials when they first register to enter the United States. The tag is embedded into a document, which the traveler carries with them and presents each time they enter or leave the United States.
About 35,000 vehicles a week use the Alexandria Bay crossing during peak periods, but only about a third of that during the winter months, said Port Director Alan Whitcomb. Alexandria Bay customs officials issued about 300 radio tags over the last week, he said.
The crossing points are equipped with special antennas that read the tags for a secured and coded serial number linked to a database with the biometric and biographic information provided by the traveler. Before a traveler even pulls up to a checkpoint booth, the guard will know who they are.
The antennas can read the tags up to 30 feet away and recognize as many as 55 different tags simultaneously, Wright said. Ideally, travelers will be able to flash them going by at highway speeds, he said.
The first phase of testing will have a simple focus _ to make sure the antennas can read each chip, that the system correctly relays that information and successfully matches it with the government's databases.
In the second phase, which will begin next spring, border agents will use the system at their checkpoints to identify travelers. If successful, the radio identification tags could eventually be used as a more secure replacement for paper passports, Wright said.
It appears to have more to do with vehicular traffic than say, foot traffic.
Thanks for finding that. I just happened across the small article I posted while looking for something entirely different.
Why not just bring Mexico in as the 51st state?
Why not? It's proved successful with microchipped salmon.
Waaaaaay too logical an approach, my friend.
LOL
You're welcome. Yes it does appear to focus on vehicular traffic.
Sure seems like we're going down that road, doesn't it?
If nothing else, Mexico's Southern Border is smaller than it's northern border...Make mexico a state and we have less border to patrol
Why the USA/Canadian border in Maine is safer than the US/Mexican border in Arizona.
A special CNIM on the scene report.
As you look at both borders, Arizona/Mexico with it's wide open barren spaces and Maine/Canada with it's trees, valleys, mountains, hidden trails and deep forest, it would only be logical to assume that the US/Canadian border would be harder to protect than the open barren border between the US and Mexico.
But, that is not the case, the border between USA/Canadian border in Maine is amongst the most secure in the world, the question is why? And that question, we are about to answer for you.
Now, we could go into a long protracted bull session to explain, but we won't. The long and short of it is that the border between Maine and Canada is full of poachers and smugglers. These men have no desire to see the feds swarming all over the woods, so they pretty much have made is so that anyone coming into the USA would rather use the border crossing points than take a chance of meeting these not to friendly men in the woods.
The baldacci/fascist tax on cigarettes has created a new boom in smuggling cigarettes ... Click the tuesday update, it is the second article down
"The antennas can read the tags up to 30 feet away and recognize as many as 55 different tags simultaneously, Wright said. Ideally, travelers will be able to flash them going by at highway speeds, he said."
How do you verify the holder of the passport is the one actually issued it when travelling at highway speeds?
Seems it could be good for tracking vehicles especially if suspected in crimes.
(I worry though this logic could be used to place such chips in ever car sold in America)
Good point. I was also wondering if the ID didn't "match", how did they plan to stop a car going 60+ mph? Throw up a big metal gate that it'd crash into? LOL
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.