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One-Third of DHS's Border Surveillance Cameras Are Broken, Memo Says (nbcnews.com) 121

Posted by BeauHD from the technical-difficulties dept.
According to an internal Border Patrol memo, nearly one-third of the surveillance cameras along the U.S.-Mexico border don't work. "The nationwide issue is having significant impacts on [Border Patrol] operations," reads the memo. NBC News reports: The large-scale outage affects roughly 150 of the 500 cameras perched on surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border. It was due to "several technical problems," according to the memo. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, blamed outdated equipment and outstanding repair issues.

The camera systems, known as Remote Video Surveillance Systems, have been used since 2011 to "survey large areas without having to commit hundreds of agents in vehicles to perform the same function." But according to the internal memo, 30% were inoperable. It is not clear when the cameras stopped working.Two Customs and Border Protections officials said that some repairs have been made this month but that there are still over 150 outstanding requests for camera repairs. The officials said there are some areas that are not visible to Border Patrol because of broken cameras.

A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said the agency has installed roughly 300 new towers that use more advanced technology. "CBP continues to install newer, more advanced technology that embrace artificial intelligence and machine learning to replace outdated systems, reducing the need to have agents working non-interdiction functions," the spokesperson said. The agency points the finger at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for servicing the systems and repairing the cameras. "The FAA, which services the systems and repairs the cameras, has had internal problems meeting the needs of the Border Patrol, the memo says, without elaborating on what those problems are," reports NBC News. While the FAA is sending personnel to work on the cameras, Border Patrol leaders are considering replacing them with a contractor that can provide "adequate technical support for the cameras."

Further reading: U.S. Border Surveillance Towers Have Always Been Broken (EFF)

One-Third of DHS's Border Surveillance Cameras Are Broken, Memo Says More | Reply

One-Third of DHS's Border Surveillance Cameras Are Broken, Memo Says

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  • So what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @09:37PM (#64882981)

    In a catch and release system, does it really matter if they catch anyone?

    No one is vetted, no one is turned away, no one is prevented from entering.

    Why have any cameras at all? Why have a border patrol?

    • Re: So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @10:02PM (#64883003)
      Youre basically correct. The leadership in both parties are engaging in theatrical histrionics in order to placate their voters, but they also know that our leaky southern border is providing the labor that our country doesnt want, but absolutely needs. Without that southern border influx, our population would be cratering like Russia, China and Europe. So, the dems talk about amnesty, and the repubs talk about a beeeaauuuttttiful wall and mass deportations, and when either party proposes actually doing anything about the border, the other party torpedos it.

      Immigrant vigor is real. The people who make it here basically had to navigate a crocodile-infested triathlon. On the average, theyre healthier, hardier, younger, harder working, and more motivated than the average citizen. Theyre exactly the sort of people a country needs to thrive. So both parties yell and scream, and do nothing to stop them. They get here, and they pay for the privilege by living for decades at the bottom of the heap. They get the jobs that citizens dont want. If they do a crime, they know that its a jail term and then straight back to the home country, so most of them are really damn law-abiding. The payoff is a better life than back home and their kids get to be US citizens. Its pretty much a total win-win for the US, unless you dont like brown-skinned people. We try to filter out the very small number of actual criminals and spies, but otherwise everyone whistles and looks the other way. All the way to the bank.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Before: "The great replacement is a crazy conspiracy theory!"
        Now: "Well, okay, it's real. But it's a good thing!"

        • Exactly.

        • So many people want to reduce everything to a single sentence. It's neither good nor bad, it just is.

          Americans don't have enough babies to maintain their population, aren't willing to even attempt to install social support to encourage more children, and have an economy built on eternal expansion. Americans think some jobs are beneath them and other Americans aren't willing to pay enough to get people to do them anyway.

          Immigration is the solution that generates the least resistance. The result is a gradu

          • And if it replaces the population over time, so what? Is there something special about "white"? People up in arms about mixing of races lost that battle with Columbus. Whites will be a minority eventually and nothing can stop that even with 0% immigration. It's 2024, nobody not already addled by excessive inbreeding should be applauding the white nationalists, and yet some politicians are courting them and repeating their myths and dog whistles.

            • You said the quite part out loud. It's white supremacy that drives this fear.

              Ironically, what counts as "whiteness" has changed over time. When the Irish showed up in the mid 19th century they weren't white enough because they were Catholic, and the earlier wave of English speaking Protestants felt threatened. As for Italians, they were also Catholic and "too dark". (See the film Gangs of New York.) Now many of their decedents are MAGA-heads screaming about "Mexicans".

              • And for Christian Nationlism (despite America NOT being founded on Christianity), most of these central and south Americans are more religious on average than the average "whites" in America. And they often have more European ancestry than a large fraction of descendants of slavery!

                It's all stupid though, melanin based politics just does not make sense.

      • I think the Republican party will do one thing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @10:56PM (#64883073)
        I think they will build the camps they're talking about. And I think they will round up immigrants and toss them in those camps.

        But deport them? Hell no. They will lease them out just like we lease out prisoners and they will work for nothing but enough food to make it through the next day and that's if they're lucky.

        And you will be competing with all that slave labor. One of the things that held back the Southern United States was they could never transition to a consumer economy because there was too much slave labor driving wages down.

        The Democrats meanwhile do actually have a plan to stop the flow of migrants. Specifically they plan on giving foreign aid to the countries they're coming from and stop letting the CIA destabilize them.

        We have a major problem with automation. If you do a bit of googling you will find that 70% of the middle class jobs lost since the '80s were taken by automation. And we have another major automation boom coming from machine learning and LLMs (what the media keeps calling AI).

        The manufacturing job your granddad used to put your dad through college is never coming back. Robots have been doing it for quite some time and even if they don't do every single step they do so many of them that the factory hires 1/10 the labor. The only reason China uses as much human labor as it does is because of slavery or borderline slavery.

        It's a problem the Democrats have seen coming for a long time going all the way back to Bill Clinton. Their initial solution to it was dumb as a blade of grass, their plan was we were all going to go to college and get advanced degrees and we would be the managers of the world with all the dirty jobs being done by either immigrants if they had to be done in the States or by the Chinese over in China, maybe Africa once China had modernized a bit

        It was a stupid idea because the Democrats overestimated how many people could get advanced degrees and they underestimated how much the Republican party was willing to sabotage our education system. Fun fact in the 1960s public University tuition was free and it was basically free right up until the early 2000s.

        Anyway Biden and Harris have figured out that didn't work and they pivoted to unions as their solution. It's a short-term solution because automation will eventually come for us all but the idea is that by then we'll have enough solidarity and a voting blocks to do something about it.

        So to bring it back to immigration they'll spend a few years stopping the flow of migrants and if everything goes well that'll be just about the time we don't want or need them anymore to drive our economy.

        But holy living fuck is that a lot to explain to somebody. Too much really. Build the wall is so much easier to say

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You are such a poor depressed soul, so sad! Get professional help please and try to stop posting here 20 times daily for at least a couple days to see if you can manage it. I find your posts in every FA I read!

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 )

          I think they will build the camps they're talking about. And I think they will round up immigrants and toss them in those camps.

          But deport them? Hell no. They will lease them out just like we lease out prisoners and they will work for nothing but enough food to make it through the next day and that's if they're lucky.

          I actually do believe that you believe that. Your brain is fevered enough, and the propaganda that you are exposed to is that relentless.

          Meanwhile, in the real world, where real things happen, Biden opened the floodgates.

      • On the average, they're healthier, hardier, younger, harder working, and more motivated than the average citizen.

        Like every other immigrant group that built America and faced the same resentment. But that was then. We are now an aging country whose population is interested in protecting what we have, not building a new one.

        The idea of having to compete with "healthier, hardier, younger, harder working" immigrants is a real threat, not just an imagined one. Especially when you can see the opportunities for people like you slowly shrinking and your children's opportunities diminishing even further. There are a lot of f

      • they also know that our leaky southern border is providing the labor that our country doesnt want, but absolutely needs

        I wonder how big a problem illegal immigration is for people who aren't just racists?

        They apparently do a lot of back-breaking agricultural work that no one else wants. And you merely need to look around to see that Hispanics - legal or not - get stuck with a lot of the other shit jobs no one wants. And how many times have we learned that an immigration hard-liner has an illegal immigrant for their servant^W nanny?

        I would agree that it's not good to have unenforced laws on the books, but sometimes that mi

        • Yet the folks who are the most racist are the left constantly saying 'they're doing the jobs nobody wants.' Well if nobody wants them perhaps we need to alter how they are done so they aren't absolutely terrible jobs - but nobody is interested in that.
          • I agree that idea has some merit. If there are jobs nobody is willing to do, capitalism says that the price of labor (wages) will increase until the supply of labor meets the need. Yet if agricultural products got more expensive, a lot of consumers would blame "the government" and vote them out of office. So there are complaints about immigration and complaints about high prices, and a reluctance to enforce minimum-wage laws fully, which then depresses wages for legal residents. An alternative in some cases

            • In practice the solution is to secretly hire undocumented workers, on both the left and the right. In the home, in the fields, in construction, in factories. Donald Jeebus Trump hired undocumented workers, you don't do real estate in New York or run a hotel without them. They often just do it with a wink and a nod to a middle man, which is why Trump always used subcontractors to keep the hypocrisy at arm's length. Dems do it too.

              States without mandatory e-verify absolutely are doing this in spades (poin

          • Well, given the older generations are the loudest against immigration, then who do they expect to be helping when they get old, wiping their butts and getting them back into their beds when they fall?

        • So, you're ok with sticking "brown people" in dead end, low paid, essentially slave jobs then.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Youre basically correct. The leadership in both parties are engaging in theatrical histrionics in order to placate their voters, but they also know that our leaky southern border is providing the labor that our country doesnt want, but absolutely needs.

        What in the cotton-picking’ fuck are you talking about? Can you stop pretending America wasn’t even capable of growing fruit before 2020? Can you stop pretending we didn’t have plenty of illegal immigration before it got sponsored by our own corrupt government? Can you stop pretending American leaders don’t want a border secured? We now have State legislators being forced to ignore Federal orders in order to TRY and do so.

        Rest assured. America will have plenty of insufferable

      • Re: So what? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2024 @08:24AM (#64883699)

        Some things people dont like is the free handouts. Giving something free to someone who has been here all of 5 min at the expense of homeless disabled veterans living on streets is not exactly a good optic. If they came here through crocodile infested waters, not deported, but also given nothing free, would there be as much influx? Open boarders but zero handouts. It doesnt need to be structured like The Amazing Race. You were miserable in Agentina, congratulations, youre now miserable here too.

          What I find interesting is 1/3rd of the border cameras magically aren’t working. When was the last time you heard a bunch or surveillance sensors at Area51, or Groom Lake as a whole, stopped working? They have smell sensors that can detect you a quarter mile before you approach. If they really wanted to secure the boarder they sure as hell could. All this shit is intentional.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          Some things people dont like is the free handouts. Giving something free to someone who has been here all of 5 min at the expense of homeless disabled veterans living on streets is not exactly a good optic.

          Turns out that we don't give illegal immigrants free handouts, so not sure what the rest of your post is about.

          Or, are you talking about the churches that minister to refugees? They have to; it's required by their religion. ("When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.")

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by e3m4n ( 947977 )

            $1.4B spent by FEMA says otherwise.

            https://nypost.com/2024/10/03/... [nypost.com]

            https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]

            how about state subsidized home loans to illegals? https://apnews.com/article/cal... [apnews.com]

            • how about state subsidized home loans to illegals? https://apnews.com/article/cal... [apnews.com]

              That article says, "Undocumented immigrants in California could be eligible for state assistance in buying a home under a bill the state Legislature sent to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday." Note the phrase "could be eligible". In fact, the thing you're complaining about never actually happened [ca.gov], because it was vetoed by the governor on September 6.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by e3m4n ( 947977 )

                do you know WHY it got vetoed? Newsome himself said it would help Trump win. Your legislation in Sacramento is so far off the deep end that they passed the goddamn thing in the middle of an election cycle even after being warned by Newsom. Dont worry, it will get passed next year right after the election is over and this time will get signed into law. It did not get vetoed because of any practical reason. Only political reason. Come here legally and want government subsidy getting a home lone? Shit out of

            • $1.4B spent by FEMA says otherwise.

              Did not happen.

              nypost.com/2024/10/03/us-news/feds-say-theres-no-money-left-to-respond-to-hurricanes-after-fema-used-640-9m-this-year-on-migrants

              Proven to be a lie spread by Republicans ala "They're eating the pets!"

              politico.com/news/2024/09/11/california-phone-bill-discounts-undocumented-immigrants

              California offers discounted phone service to all low income people.

              how about state subsidized home loans to illegals? apnews.com/article/california-housing-loans-undocumented-immigrants-legislature-newsom

              Newsom VETOED the legislation proposing to do this.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )

        ... our country doesnt want, but absolutely needs.

        I respectfully disagree. The world's population needs to shrink, not grow. Our resources are limited and getting more expensive all the time. What does their presence do to my family's manual labor workers' salaries? And manual-labor-replacing-automation strides are boasted on this website weekly. Americans did all of the jobs here for centuries, when they paid well enough. If they aren't paying well enough, then capitalism should correct this, not a leak in the border. It's already been demonstra

        • I think one thing that frustrates peope about the immigration debate is that they all know that there's an implicit ending to that sentence you're quoting: ... our country doesnt want, but absolutely needs [if we're to avoid having to raise wages for low-skilled workers].

          As it happens I'm British, and this has been a constant debate here since we left the EU. Would it force wages up for jobs like care-work, farm-labour, cleaning, etc, as employers had to bid to attract domestic labour?

          Of course, it was neve

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kackle ( 910159 )
            The other overlooked issue is that immigration is not a panacea. Not all are looking to work; that's clear when you see the mother dragging along her kids--how can she? And will each be able to earn his keep with a low skill job when the average home is now $400k (up from $160k in 2000)? People only see bodies, not true, long-term costs.

            • wNot all are looking to work; that's clear when you see the mother dragging along her kids--how can she

              There are millions of mothers with kids in the United States who work.

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by silentbozo ( 542534 )

      Smuggling of drugs and other contraband... like turtles.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/1... [nytimes.com]

      "A woman pleaded guilty on Friday to attempting to smuggle 29 Eastern box turtles, a protected species, that were individually wrapped in socks inside a duffle bag as she tried to paddle in an inflatable kayak across a lake from Vermont to Canada over the summer, officials said."

      Catch and release (if my understanding is correct) mainly applies to people taking advantage of the massive backlog of asylum applications to g

    • As always, my favorite reply is this.

      *Citation needed.

    • So, walls dont work - install cameras. Cameras dont work, build walls. Make America a Walled Garden Again - MAWGA!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      In a catch and release system, does it really matter if they catch anyone? No one is vetted, no one is turned away, no one is prevented from entering.
      Why have any cameras at all? Why have a border patrol?

      Because pretty much everything you say is a misinterpretation. It's not true that no one is vetted, it's not true that no one is turned away, and it's not true that no one is prevented from entering. The immigration system is overloaded, underfunded, and broken, but it's not so broken that nobody is turned away.

      However, it is true that our immigration system is broken. The last comprehensive immigration reform was four decades ago, and the landscape has changed. Unfortunately, the bipartisan agreement to

    • I agree. One out of three is a GOOD START! Don't stop now.

    • In a catch and release system, does it really matter if they catch anyone?

      No one is vetted, no one is turned away, no one is prevented from entering.

      Why have any cameras at all? Why have a border patrol?

      Citation needed. "No one" is clearly an exaggeration. Are you saying that all these numbers [ice.gov] are lies? They seem to say that hundreds of thousands of people have either been detained or removed.

      Debate policy and disagree with it if you like, but at least base your opinions on reality.

    • Is it really catch and release, or is that just more misdirected campaign sloganing? Remember, we had a border bill to provide more funding but it was nixed because it might make the president look good.

      Functionally though, many many conservatives and conservative industries rely upon undocumented labor, and they have for my entire life. It used to be mostly farmers who would rant about the problems of the border then pay cheap wages under the table later. Now more industries take advantage of this, espec

  • Then you have no record of the illegals coming over. So you can't really perjure yourself when a Congressman asks you how many illegals have been coming through and you say "we have no records showing any came through."

    I mean...er...anybody get any good pictures of the comet? I got a nice one with my DSLR last night.

  • FAA?? (Score:3)

    by cciechad ( 602504 ) <<chad.simmons> <at> <member.fsf.org>> on Monday October 21, 2024 @10:23PM (#64883025)
    Why would the FAA be responsible for these cameras? Are they looking up at the sky for planes/drones or something like that?

  • Theatre (Score:3)

    by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @10:46PM (#64883051)
    I think this quote from the EFF link pretty much summarizes the problem:

    It was only a matter of years before the DHS Inspector General concluded that ISIS was a flop: "ISIS remote surveillance technology yielded few apprehensions as a percentage of detection, resulted in needless investigations of legitimate activity, and consumed valuable staff time to perform video analysis or investigate sensor alerts."

    The camera's not working isn't really the problem. The camera's are a distraction when they do work. The folks on the front lines know they are a waste of time. Which may explain why no great effort goes into fixing them. We are in the "silly season" where everything in government is political.

    • Yeah but immergrunts is eatin' our pets!!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by unrtst ( 777550 )

      We are in the "silly season" where everything in government is political.

      And, regardless of whether or not the cameras are any actual benefit or net-negative impact, one can't allow a budgetary item to lapse. Those are more dollars into someones budget, and that person/group is likely to be out for themselves / their group.

  • If anyone wants to stop the flow of migrants (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @10:49PM (#64883059)
    You could do it almost overnight by just sending some freaking foreign aid to the two or three countries that are coming from, and hint it's not Mexico.

    Joe Biden and by extension Kamala Harris are planning to do just that. With a solid Democrat Congress they could fully fund it too. Within a few years those countries would stabilize and we would stop seeing migrants at the border.

    On the other hand if you just need something to rage about and you don't want to take the risk of actually solving problems then well, you know what to do...

    • Re:If anyone wants to stop the flow of migrants (Score:5, Insightful)

      by imunfair ( 877689 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @11:04PM (#64883089) Homepage

      If anyone wants to stop the flow of migrants....

      You could do it almost overnight by just sending some freaking foreign aid to the two or three countries that are coming from, and hint it's not Mexico.
       

      You could do it instantly by making the E-Verify system that already exists and is in use by US businesses a mandatory requirement to check all employees against. Unfortunately no one ever asks the politicians why they don't use this simple tool that already exists rather than trying to physically stop people. People who wouldn't come if E-Verify was mandatory because they wouldn't be able to get a job, as they do currently with fraudulent documents that are accepted by employers who intentionally turn a blind eye for cheap labor, and won't use the government database unless forced to do so.

      And no that isn't a conspiracy theory, I speak from experience in the manufacturing industry. Using illegal labor is fairly common throughout the US, not just in the border states. If we need the labor then so be it, but do it properly and hand out quotas of temporary work visas for migrant workers and low paid work that can't be filled by American workers, don't just turn a blind eye and use it as a bipartisan campaign slogan that never gets fixed.

      • And good luck getting that. Foreign aid is a much better solution because it's something that might actually happen. Having criminal penalties for CEOs and business leaders is a pipe dream. If we had that kind of political backbone you wouldn't need to worry about illegal immigration because we wouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves for scraps.

        Remember there is plenty of food, shelter medicine and entertainment. But not if we are going to give 60 to 70% of everything we output to 1% of the population be
      • You're half right. Illegal labour practices are easier to regulate & prosecute if you go after the employers rather than the workers. You know, the people who responsible for implementing the employment policies in the first place? Often the workers have been deceived, duped, conned, & trafficked by organised crime. Sometimes, the employers participate in the trafficking. They have little choice because they have little control over their lives or anyone to reach out to for help. The USA never fully

      • You could do it instantly by making the E-Verify system that already exists and is in use by US businesses a mandatory requirement to check all employees against.

        If you did that then food prices would double over whatever period you did it over. You would need literally twice as many workers, and they wouldn't work for minimum wage, and they would expect overtime, and you couldn't call up INS and have them deported before they collected their final checks.

        If we need the labor then so be it, but do it properly and hand out quotas of temporary work visas for migrant workers and low paid work that can't be filled by American workers

        There are no such jobs, really. Instead there is a culture of permitting megacorporations to run off with all the money, which is an inevitable consequence of permitting corporate lawyers to write laws and then han

    • You could do it almost overnight by just sending some freaking foreign aid to the two or three countries that are coming from, and hint it's not Mexico. Joe Biden and by extension Kamala Harris are planning to do just that. With a solid Democrat Congress they could fully fund it too. Within a few years those countries would stabilize and we would stop seeing migrants at the border.

      If you assume America could somehow stop and/or prevent the corruption that prevents countries from self-sustainment with financial aid, I’ve got an ex-Ukrainian energy expert to sell to your corporate board. Also known as where all your “aid” is now being sent to/laundered through. Clearly THAT foreign aid, was the “plan” Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were talking about.

      Look at Cuba right now. Or Mexico. Or Canada in a few years. You think America goes out of their way to h

    • Not simply "immigrants," many of the people who cross the USA's southern border are fleeing for their lives & apply for asylum. If the USA did a little less "uncle Sam's back-yard" f**kery & stopped funding radical, extremist politicians, backing coups, assassinations, & training death squads, maybe they'd have few refugees at the border?
    • That foreign aid would never make it to the citizens of the country. That's why the citizens are leaving the countries.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      You could do it almost overnight by just sending some freaking foreign aid to the two or three countries that are coming from, and hint it's not Mexico.

      Joe Biden and by extension Kamala Harris are planning to do just that. With a solid Democrat Congress they could fully fund it too. Within a few years those countries would stabilize and we would stop seeing migrants at the border.

      On the other hand if you just need something to rage about and you don't want to take the risk of actually solving problems then well, you know what to do...

      That is a good start but it's only really half the problem. That's the supply side of the equation.

      You've still got demand. The US still wants cheap labour, as much as Republicans love hating immigrants, they're not about to go do immigrant jobs for immigrant money. Not when they're getting a decent welfare cheque off those dirty, corrupt, do-nothing Democrats.

    • You could do it almost overnight by just sending some freaking foreign aid to the two or three countries that are coming from, and hint it's not Mexico. Joe Biden and by extension Kamala Harris are planning to do just that. With a solid Democrat Congress they could fully fund it too. Within a few years those countries would stabilize and we would stop seeing migrants at the border. On the other hand if you just need something to rage about and you don't want to take the risk of actually solving problems then well, you know what to do...

      This all boils down to a very simple premise that Republicans don't just fight, they rail against it as if it were forbidden by their imaginary sky daddy, instead of enshrined in his doctrine by his 'only begotten son.' Lift up the least of us, and you raise us all. Treat others with decency and kindness, and shock of all shocks, decency and kindness is reflected back at us. Holy hells. Instead, the Republicans, claiming to be staunch Christians, treat others with hate, anger, and fear, and shock of all sho

    • You could do it almost overnight by just sending some freaking foreign aid to the two or three countries that [the migrants] are coming from.

      Do you really believe that the aid would reach the people in need? It would be claimed by the tin-pot dictators and their cronies who are oppressing the population.

      This has happened every time it has been tried. The leaders get richer from the aid (keep the money, sell the food and medicine), and we proclaim "Problem solved!" while ignoring the continued suffering.

      Throwing money at a problem is not a solution.

  • DHS is too dumb for tech (Score:3)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Monday October 21, 2024 @11:12PM (#64883101)
    About a decade ago when they first started putting up cameras along the border they quickly got months behind in looking at the footage. What blew my mind was rather than taking a LIFO approach and looking at the most recent video and then working backwards as time allowed ... they were using a FIFO approach and insisting on looking at months-old footage first.
    • They wouldn't have this problem if they'd bought good-quality Dahua or Hikvision cameras instead of whatever locally-made crap the no-bid contract to the manufacturer in the senator's home state supplied them with.

      • They wouldn't have this problem if they'd bought good-quality Dahua or Hikvision cameras instead of whatever locally-made crap the no-bid contract to the manufacturer in the senator's home state supplied them with.

        We wouldn’t have this problem if those pretending to care about border security, actually cared about border security.

        If I found a border “security” department not only months behind looking at security footage, but also purposely taking a FIFO approach to look at the most outdated footage first, there’s no way in hell you’re convincing me that bullshit is not being done on purpose and by design.

        The problem isn’t tech. It’s corruption. Yeah, yeah. Hanlon. I kno

    • My idea since that galaxy id and that other protein folding thing would be to funnel all that footage into a system so literally anyone could "ID" questionable activity from random anon footage. Those hits, when multiply verified would be flagged to a person knowledgeable in it at the lower levels of ICE. Anyway, tech exists and there are plenty of people in the USA with plenty of time on their hands and would do it out of patriotism free of cost.

  • "The nationwide issue is having significant impacts on [Border Patrol] operations"

    The only operations going on at the border is that the illegals cross the border then the migrants go to the right and the drug mules go to the left. The migrants being bussed to swing-states so as then can vote Democrat.

    • "The migrants being bussed to swing-states so as then can vote Democrat."

      Insert meme of goose chasing person here. First caption, "who's busing migrants?" Second caption, "who's busing them motherfucker?"

      Thanks to their well publicized efforts we know it is Republicans... When they aren't flying them that is

  • The Chinese have the most advanced mass surveillance that work in snow and heat, with face recognition - efficient and it scales well - proven, nothing to spend. Now USA people may not know it, but these 'best' cameras are banned in the USA, and those that did get in, are being ripped out and replaced by inferior cameras claimed to be made in the USA, but often with Chinese firmware. Adding a case, power supply and cardboard box, I suppose gets past the claims issue. If you want results, get the best. It

  • In the current administration, nobody is allowed to watch them anyway.

  • Is anyone else completely confused as to why the FAA is in charge of maintenance on those cameras? That's not exactly their wheelhouse. I'm sure there's an incredibly bizarre story there.

  • are 87k more IRS agents! US government is basically a criminal enterprise at this point tbh.
  • They were shot broken by the people who want to cross.

  • That's funny because the entire border crisis is fake enough to be funny. Back when America was great, the border with Mexico was basically open and millions of Mexicans were crossing it, most of them at least twice a year. Came in for the harvest season and went back south for long vacations until the next harvest.

    That's another joke. You're never going to find any consensus on when or what or where was, is, or will be great. And Gawd save you if you ask why or who.

    But I can answer the how: "We can't get t

  • the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for servicing the systems and repairing the cameras

    ... have been re-purposed to watch Boeing.

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