Posted on 02/22/2008 12:37:26 AM PST by Froufrou
A 28-mile "virtual fence" that will use radars and surveillance cameras along the Mexican border to try to catch people entering the country illegally has gotten final government approval.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Friday was to announce approval of the fence, which was built by the Boeing Co. and which uses technology the Bush administration plans to extend to other parts of the Arizona border as well as in Texas. These projects could get under way as early as this summer, officials said.
The virtual fence is part of a national plan to secure the southwest border with physical barriers and technological detection capabilities intended to stop illegal immigrants on foot and drug smugglers in vehicles. As of Feb. 8, 295 miles of fencing had been constructed.
The virtual fence already is working.
On Feb. 13, an officer in a Tucson command center — 70 miles from the border — noticed a group of about 100 people gathered at the border. The officer notified agents on the ground and in the air near the border. Border Patrol caught 38 of the 100 people who tried to cross illegally, and the rest of the people went back into Mexico, a Homeland Security official said.
The virtual fence system includes 98-foot unmanned surveillance towers that are equipped with an array of sophisticated technology including radar, sensor devices and cameras capable of distinguishing people from cattle at a distance of about 10 miles. The cameras are powerful enough to tell group sizes and whether people are carrying backpacks that may contain weapons or drugs.
Last year the government withheld some of Boeing's payments for the system because technology the company used in the test project did not work properly. Boeing also was late in delivering the final product.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I thought there was already a physical fence approved for construction (not that the gubmint is building that either), so now we are to believe that a pseudo-fence will now be built...???
Our government is betraying us.
Check out Sandia enterprises. I’ll see if I can find the link again. It’s a ‘nuclear’ fence.
Cool, now we can watch them as the sneak across the border and get some video souvenirs and pictures to show to our irate citizens!
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NAH! ,, no pictures ... the camera locations will be well known and marked ,, the Mex gov’t will start including brown paper bags for the re-conquista’s to place over the cameras in their standard hiking supply kit along with the shoes, canteens and maps.
I'm just wandering how long before some enterprising Mexicans scamper up those towers and loot all the sophisticated surveillance equipment and then list it on eBay?
Can they use some of my virtual tax dollars to do this instead of my actual ones?
The virtual fence system includes 98-foot unmanned surveillance towers that are equipped with an array of sophisticated technology including radar, sensor devices and cameras capable of distinguishing people from cattle at a distance of about 10 miles
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I’d love to have the contract repairing the towers ,, especially the power generation parts... I bet these don’t work very well without power.
Let me introduce ya’ll. You seem to be on the same track!
Transparent aluminum?
I wonder if the virtual fence will work virtually and if we can pay for it with virtual dollars instead of wasting real money on it....
I was thinking about a Million Minuteman March in Washington this summer myself.
So, I guess we now have virtual national security. I feel so much better now.
I'm a hawk on border security but you have to ackowledge the problems with that. Stupid ones, but real. You cross wetlands, you cross habitats for endangered species, you cross Indian reservations, you put a big wall across peoples back yards, etc. Lawsuits for every one of these things. The government would have to have to will to stamp those out somehow, and I dont see how they do that constitutionally (the judicial branch has usurped too much power but I am not in favor of it being ignored either). I think to build a big border wall or even a real live fence, you'd almost need a constitutional ammendment to block the endless court cases.
If only real illigal aliens were only “virtual”: this would work! What liberal idiots! Build the real barrier.
If it’s ‘virtual’ how can we be sure they aren’t just making it up? Ya know?
BOEING: we’re not just airplanes anymore!
**fzzzt**. Is that how "FENCE" is pronounced in Washington, Dense City?
I suppose so. I was trying to write in the way a bug-zapper sounds.
Can we pay ‘virtual’ taxes?
DHS under the ailing Chertoff will stop at nothing to avoid fencing off Mexico and securing America’s borders.
“I was thinking about a Million Minuteman March in Washington this summer myself.”
Now that is my kind of plan!
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