GAO says border technology plan may be $700-million waste

[jsr]

Source: Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON -- A high-tech effort to boost border security has no evaluation system so the money may be wasted on cameras and sensors that don’t help Border Patrol agents, according to a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Investigators found that lack of reliable data makes it difficult to evaluate whether the new camera towers and motion detectors have assisted Border Patrol agents. The agents are not required to document when they use the technology to help catch drug smugglers and immigrants crossing the border illegally, so records are incomplete.

Agents didn’t record using surveillance technology for 87% of the apprehensions between October 2010 and June 2013 in the Yuma sector of the border in western Arizona, the study found. In the Tucson sector in central Arizona, about 69% of apprehensions during that time had no record of surveillance equipment being used.

Customs and Border Protection cannot “determine the contribution of surveillance technologies in the apprehension of illegal entrants and seizure of drugs and other contraband during the specified time frame,” the report concludes.




Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-nn-border-surveillance-20140312,0,6400843.story

[DeSwiss]

1. How much money......

...did the companies who won the border technology contracts ''contribute'' to the political campaigns of the most important Congresscritters who oversee it, is the question. That's the real way that you judge the value and effectiveness of legislation and technology.

- The politician need ask only one question: Does it keep me on the gravy train?

''The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.''

~George Bernard Shaw

[Turbineguy]

2. If the technology

has a small chance of resurrecting Ronald Reagan, the GOP will go for it.

[WhiteTara]

3. We cut food stamps and child health care

to waste 700 MILLION DOLLARS!!! to waste on something that can not and will not ever work. Their hatred for life is so obvious.

[Dem4ever27]

4. When is the US going to stop blocking progress?

Our neighbors to the south desperately need jobs. When are we going to stop obstructing their efforts to find a better life for themselves and their families? Americans who oppose undocumented immigration are just afraid of losing their jobs and privileged positions. If they can't compete with hard-working immigrants, they don't deserve to be in the workplace. It's downright cruel to set up all these barriers to human progress.

[Sunlei]

5. they spent billions on that part of the border and its not a fence at all. They let people cross &

then try to catch them after they cross.

It's a 'for profit' industry to grab undocumented and get them into their 'immigration'/prison system. They aren't much interested in totally stopping people at the border.