DHS's Border Surveillance Program: Does it Work? Is it Big Brother? Or are we again allowing a Contractor to serve as Big Brother?

Recent news reports suggest the US Border Patrol has secured new technology that has the ability to "see" for up to 10 miles away and scan 180 degrees in about 10 seconds." The hype says "the system detected about 40,000 potential undocumented immigrants in the last three months of 2008." The key word here is "potential." In reality, the system has many bugs. Reports indicate it cannot tell the difference between a human vs a prairie dog. For $500,000 a tower, you would think the technology would better serve the Department of Homeland Security.

On the other hand, many on the ANTI side are opposing the new technology, especially the unmanned drones. They are saying this type of technology is one step away from "Big Brother." Who is to stop DHS from spying on good ole US neighborhoods they wonder.

I am a bit torn on the subject.

I agree that in this age of potential terroristic threats, we do need security on all borders, ports and terminals. I say ALL because we should not focus on just the southern border, but all borders, ports and terminals!

I also agree that we should use technology vs a 2000 mile border fence. I don't believe we should give our civil liberties away, however. So, who is to say what is the right answer?

The other down side of the story is that we are allowing one vendor, Boeing - as SBInet, to manage the project. This raises the question, are we contracting away our nation's security to the highest bidding contractor? Remember the bad experiences we've had with Blackwater and Halliburton.

My only hope is the new DHS, under Janet Napolitano, will be open enough to let us every day Americans know what is going on and have the ability to provide our input on whether policies are working or not working. Additionally, she should prevent this program from turning into "Big Brother."

Since it appears this program is well underway, all we can do at this point is wait and see.

References:

40,000 Undocumented Immigrants Detected By New Border System (hype)

Proposed SBInet Texas Mobile Project

Why “Open-Borders” makes for bad neighbors

SBInet , Boeing wikipedia

National ID Cards: Should we have them? Should they contain Biometric Data? Will they Violate our Civil Liberties?

Britain is unveiling a new National ID card. This card includes an electronic chip containing biometric data of the holder, including fingerprints and digital facial images.

Question to viewers: Should we have a new National ID card in America for all Americans, Immigrants and Guest Workers containing fingerprints and digitial facial images? What about DNA? What do you think? Would these cards have a down side? Example: Infringe on our Civil Liberties? Make us a Police State? What do you think?
Britain unveils ID cards for foreign nationals
2008-09-26 05:59:46
LONDON-- Britain's Home Office unveiled on Thursday the identity cards to be issued to foreign residents in the country. The plastic wallet card shows the holder's photograph, name, date of birth, nationality and immigration status. A secure electronic chip holds their biometric details, including fingerprints, and a digital facial image, said a Home Office press release. The first cards are scheduled to be issued in November 25. Within three years all foreign nationals applying to enter or remain in Britain will be required to have a card. And by 2014, 90percent of foreign residents in Britain should have identity cards. The introduction of national identity cards for foreign residents will be followed by the first ID cards for British citizens from 2009, targeting workers in sensitive roles such as airports. One year after that, ID cards will be available to young people who want them, and from 2011, cards will be available to the general opulation. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the announcement of the cards for foreign residents shows the government is fulfilling its commitment to protect identity.

Blackwater Commandos Sneak in Plans to Patrol our Borders!

As I reported here and here, last year, Blackwater International bought a defunct chicken ranch in the mountains about 40 miles east of San Diego with plans for converting it into a training camp for local and federal (military) law enforcement, including Border Patrol. Local advocates protested Blackwaters´presence. The company dropped those plans this March.

signon SanDiego reports: The same month, Blackwater, sneakingly using the name "Raven Development Co", applied and city inspectors approved permit applications for a 61,000 square-foot indoor facility in Otay Mesa, an industrial warehouse park along the U.S.-Mexico border, just several miles away. They applied for routine inspection permits under the name Raven Development Group, a name its lawyers said the company had used for other projects, and never explicitly sought permission to convert a warehouse into a school in part because the area is already zoned for vocational facilities.
Opponents against Blackwater say, “This whole process flunks the smell test. They don't ever give us the whole picture of what they're here for. Blackwater can't start using its new facility in the industrial Otay Mesa area until the project is approved by the city planning commission."
Blackwater lawyers told Huff they had been honest in their dealings with city inspection agencies. They argued it was too late for the city to demand they go to the planning commission because inspectors had already approved the required permits.
Attorney Michael Neil said the company risked losing part of a $400 million Navy contract if it could not begin training sailors in counterterrorist defense tactics by next week. The program is part of a firearms training initiative launched after the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port by terrorists in a small boat.
“Blackwater will suffer, the Department of the Navy will suffer and to some extent the security of our country will suffer if sailors aren't fully trained,” Neil said. Blackwater has argued in court filings that elected officials moved to block the project for political reasons ahead of next week's primary election.

About Blackwater Worldwide: founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark, is a private military company and one of the GOP´s largest PAC Contributors. The company recieves multi millions in government contracts. It has been referred to as a security contractor or a mercenary organization by numerous reports in the international media. The company trains more than 40,000 people a year, from U.S. or foreign military and police services, as well as other U.S. government agencies. The training consists of military offensive and defensive operations, as well as smaller scale personnel security. Technologies used and techniques trained are not limited by U.S. domestic law, although it is unclear what legal status Blackwater operates under in the U.S. and other countries, or what protection the U.S. extends to Blackwater operations globally.

Blackwater, the largest private security firm in Iraq, has been under scrutiny as a federal grand jury in Washington investigates the company's involvement in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. The firm is also under investigation for possible weapons smuggling allegations – violations the firm strongly denies.

What is the Real ID Act? And why are so many Freedom Loving Americans opposing it? (including more and more ANTI sites)

More and more ANTI sites are opposing the SAVE ACT due to its e-Verify-RealID provisions. The latest site defines the details of the RealID Act. Click here and then on "What Is ´Real ID´for the details.

Let us sum up the provisions of the Real ID Act:

1. All state-issued driver's licenses and non-driver ID shall include a "biometric parameter," commonly understood to mean fingerprints, from at least two of the identified person's fingers. This will result in a dramatic increase in the number of people fingerprinted and in the size of computerized fingerprint databases. Currently, fingerprinting is common in conjunction with arrests, as well as for certain forms of employment, but is not usually required for a driver's license.
2. All of the above-mentioned documents are to include a "common machine-readable technology," understood to mean that the cards will be swipe-able like a credit card, and that all of the information encoded on the card would be available to the owner of the card-reading machine. The legislation itself does not specify whether only government agencies or private persons such as bar owners checking the age of patrons would have access to the encoded data, but "common" does imply that the authorities in California would be able to read licenses from New York, so the card-reading machines would have to be pretty generic. The Department of Homeland Security is pushing for the introduction of RFID chips, also known as "proximity chips," into licenses and ID cards, which enable anyone with the right instrument to read the card while it is still in its owner's pocket. The Digimarc Corporation has already sold systems for "contactless" smart card driver's licenses to North Carolina and other states. Digimarc touts the smart card licenses for their ability to be scanned by border authorities on the Mexican and Canadian side, more or less the way tolls are paid via Easy Pass at bridges and tunnels, at quite a distance.

3. In order to obtain a driver's license, a real geographical address will have to be provided, not a post office box. This will essentially bar homeless people (or people whose home is their car) from obtaining licenses.

4. The Real ID Act requires states to link the databases of information on their issued IDs into a national database and to share this data with Federal law enforcement officials, as well as those from other states, and from Canada and Mexico.
5. Real ID includes several provisions that do not pertain to identification at all, but to immigration policy. One of these deprives state and local authorities of the right to use their own zoning or eminent domain provisions to interfere with the building of the border fence that is intended to hinder illegal immigration. Another allows the Department of Homeland Security to arbitrarily define the meaning of the word "terrorist" when deciding who shall and shall not be allowed to enter the country. This provision will probably be used to restrict the ability of non-citizens opposed to U.S. policies on a whole range of issues to travel in and out of the country, effectively cutting off the free exchange of information on those issues.

USID LEGEND: 1. USID number = SS #; 2. Optical Memory Strip (like small CD) for digitized fingerprints and personal information; 3. Photograph; 4. Smart Card Technology (the card can perform data manipulation and run cryptographic algorithms, include medical history but could include travel history, education, work histories, other histories); 5. Internal Memory Strip (A high-capacity device could store rich biometric data such as several fingerprints, iris scans, face scans, heartbeat characteristics, or DNA sequences); 6. 2-D Bar Code: This low-tech info coding could be used by officials who don't have more sophisticated optical reading devices.