Border web cams back online

Houston Chronicle:

Keeping watch over the border may once again become as easy as logging onto the Internet.

Gov. Rick Perry has identified $3 million in federal funding to restore a short-lived but highly publicized "virtual border watch" program that allows Internet users to access video feeds from cameras set up along the border.

As early as January, viewers might have access to feeds from some of the 200 cameras strategically located along the Texas-Mexico border. They'll be able to alert authorities if they think they see immigrants illegally crossing the border.

Perry sought out more funding after seeing the benefits of a monthlong, $200,000 pilot of the program in late 2006, said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for the governor's office.

"We know these cameras secured our borders," she said. "We want to get them up and running as soon as possible."

The governor first mentioned the program during his 2006 re-election bid but failed to win approval from lawmakers during the last session.

The project, one of several measures intended to curb the flow of illegal immigration in Texas, is the first of its kind to be sponsored by a state government.

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During the Web-based pilot program, more than 220,000 people registered to view images from cameras placed primarily on private land and displayed at www.texasborder- watch.com. They clicked on individual cameras nearly 28 million times and sent more than 13,000 e-mails to state officials, which helped lead to the arrests of at least 10 illegal immigrants and to the seizure of drugs, according to the Web site.

Supporters say this type of "virtual wall" might be more practical and less costly than a 700-mile border fence.

"It's great to use technology to try to enforce our immigration laws rather than a fence that costs up to $3 million a mile," said El Paso Mayor John Cook. "You can put up a whole lot more cameras for $3 million."

Border patrol agents in El Paso already use cameras to help keep tabs on illegal crossing sites, Cook said. The federal government's slow response and a shortage of border patrol agents, he said, may have prompted Perry to take the issue into his own hands.

Some immigration and civil rights advocates fear the program may promote even more vigilantism and violence along the border.

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Cameras are pretty nonviolent and the program is designed to get more eyes on the problem and notify authorities. We do have a civil right to have our laws enforced. Without the rule of law, there are no civil rights.