Webcams Allow Public to 'Patrol' the Border

Immigration and our Borders Forum

Ahh, technology replacing humans.

We will see much more of this in the future...much more than what is already in place.

Used to work for the company who designed this specific ablility.

Phone number is one way of communicating...another that will be used is paging a 2-way satellite pager. More efficient and response will be quicker that way.

It will be very interesting to see if this surveillance actually happens and gets posted on the web. I would not be surprised if it is prevented from happening. The proposal will really step on some toes merely by documenting and web casting the illegal entry even if it does nothing to limit it.

It will specifically document and quantify the illegal entry. I wonder if there will be any way to correlate those incidences of reported illegal entry with the follow-up capture and process of the individuals reported.

If there is a way to correlate the reports of illegal entry with the enforcement response, it will show whether or not promises to enforce the border are genuine.

I predict that there will be MUCH criticism of the proposal to make the surveillance public on the web. I would not be surprised if Mexico sues the U.S. over that issue, claiming that it is a human rights violation of the people caught on camera.

You may be surprised to know that this kind of surveillance is already being utilized at other locations throughout the U.S.

The knowledge of this technology was made public in 2004.

Yesterday's top news was about how they busted some illintentioned Muslims in Canada recently.

I am sure you know that border control in Canada is both nonexistent and virtually impossible to maintain. I mean come on, if someone wants into our country and are dead serious they wouldn't use the Mexican border anyway. If, and this is a big if, the reason for border control is for national security then yeah, I think bringing home the National Guard for an easy and safe job would be worth it. But somehow, I don't think that border control is about national security, I believe it is an issue of class and racism based on class.

India does the same thing with Bangladesh, they are building a wall, and Israel is helping them make it. In fact there are several walls placed all over the world for this very reason of class...

EUCLID: Mexicans have it easy to get here. All they have to do is walk across the land.

Actually, it really isn't easy. The trek that these people endure to come across the border has a fairly high attrition rate. Many have died of heatstroke and sunstroke in the process. That is why entire families do not normally migrate...only the strong survive.

E: If all of the people who wanted to come here could do so, we would not have a construction industry that paid $15-30 per hour, for example. The labor market is already brutal.

I mentioned before that unionized construction outfits do not have this problem. Even 9 years ago $16.00 an hour was normal for construction apprentices. And in Colorado because of unionization this dilemma has not affected our market. Some things like outdoor and indoor painting, yes I will admit there has been a high influx of illegals having employment in this field. But that is only because there is not a painters union in my state. I recommend folks who are in construction form unions and this would not be a problem.

E: Outsourcing sends jobs to low cost labor overseas. Guest worker plans bring low cost labor to the jobs that can't be sent somewhere else.

I work in the IT field. The IT field being all the way from helpdesk analysts, to systems designers. I wanted to clarify the parameters of IT because some are under the wrong assumption that the IT field is merely low level support. Not true. The outsourcing of jobs for my field is humongous. It has been a huge dilemma even from 10 years ago.

And I don't have a problem with outsourcing because I think that it requires more competition in the field. One job that I had outsourced their helpdesk to New Zealand, but that was not because of cheaper labor rates. It was because the subcontractor hired as helpdesk analysts did a lousy and I mean a lousy job!
Yes, people would complain that the accent was thick and they had a difficult job understanding the people on the line, but all in all they did a job far and beyond the quality that the original subcontractor performed.

Outsourcing of IT jobs has helped in many areas. There has been a flux of thousands and thousands of newbies trying to break into the field. Even workers who gave lousy performances for various reasons got jobs before year 2k. Outsourcing in my field is good because it weeds out those who cannot perform on the job. That used to happen with great frequency, people without skills getting a job. Not today. The ones with solid work experiences who have worked 10 years in the field like I have do not have a problem getting jobs.

For instance, I put my resume online today after a 2 year hiatus of not placing my resume online because I was fairly satisfied with my job. I put my resume up at 1pm and within three hours I got a call from a recruiter of an Indian based company in California. This job would be the same line of work the salary would be over $10,000 more per year than what I have made for the past 3 years. Guess what I am saying here is that outsourcing provides more competition. And in a capitalist economy, more competition really weeds out the deadbeats. This is because people want a quality product, not merely because of cheaper wages. And in this scenario, if the offshore companies do a lousy job, believe me the customers scream until they find a better company, be they internal U.S or offshore.

Yes, I want to get out of IT someday, but I have realized that I need to pay bills and need something that will tide me over until I can fulfill my dreams in another vocation. Much of what I have made in that other vocation is tied up in offshore accounts that I cannot touch.

And again I will reiterate. Who will do the landscaping, cooking, vegetable and fruit harvesting, and cleaning of the toilets if all the illegals are suddenly put in prison for felonies or deported? I doubt this work force will be miraculously filled by those Americans who are out of work.

[QUOTE]nikiTa said this in post #8 :
[B]EUCLID: Mexicans have it easy to get here. All they have to do is walk across the land.

Actually, it really isn't easy. The trek that these people endure to come across the border has a fairly high attrition rate. Many have died of heatstroke and sunstroke in the process. That is why entire families do not normally migrate...only the strong survive.

And I don't have a problem with outsourcing because I think that it requires more competition in the field. One job that I had outsourced their helpdesk to New Zealand, but that was not because of cheaper labor rates. It was because the subcontractor hired as helpdesk analysts did a lousy and I mean a lousy job!

Outsourcing in my field is good because it weeds out those who cannot perform on the job.
QUOTE]

When I said that Mexicans have it easy to get here, I only meant relative to others who are not connected by land or face greater barriers. I agree that getting here even from Mexico is no walk in the woods.

I also agree that competition is good, and if outsourcing leads to higher quality, it is working perfectly. But in engineering, I have never heard of a case where the quality of outsourced jobs is better. It is always worse, but it is only a fraction of the cost, so it pays to do it. The competition on price alone is simply not fair competition when you have such a large basic disparity between the economic basees of two countries.

Eventually the prices will equalize as the standard of living rises in the low wage country (and drops in the U.S.). However, due to the large difference in population between China and the U.S. for instance, for that equalization to occur, the standard of living in the U.S. will need to make a large decline as the standard of living in China coresspondingly rises a much smaller amount. So the inevitable outcome is a rising standard of living in the outsource countries and a declining standard of living in the U.S.

EUCLID, even though you're trying to qualify your statement, saying it's easy is a gross overstatement.

And if you're talking about the standard of living in China, you can't really make a comparison because, despite what you hear or read, the innermost workings of Chinese life and society aren't well known, except they're commies.

-HECK!

Does the remote webcam come with a paint ball gun option?
I'll sign up if that's the case