Texas to get some virtual border fence

Houston Chronicle:

Sections of Texas' border with Mexico eventually could be secured by the same kind of high-tech "virtual fence" that's been deployed in Arizona, key legislators said Friday after touring the state-of-the-art surveillance network.

The comments by two subcommittee chairmen with the House Homeland Security Committee — Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and Christopher Carney, D-Pa.— followed an inspection tour Friday of the $20.6 million virtual fence near Sasabe, Ariz.

The project links high-tech surveillance towers, cameras, radar, ground sensors and unmanned aerial drones along a 28-mile section of the 1,947-mile international border.

"In Texas, there is an outcry and a great deal of conflict over installing physical barriers along the border," said Jackson Lee, chairman of the panel's subcommittee on transportation security and infrastructure protection. "What I have seen here today can be a very effective 21st century tool to secure our borders."

Carney, the chairman of the panel's oversight subcommittee, called the virtual fence "a tremendous concept" that's ready for eventual deployment elsewhere along the border "once we make sure the bugs are ironed out."

Carney, who toured the area with Jackson Lee and five other lawmakers, said the virtual fence was best suited for sparsely inhabited stretches along the border. "If we can ever get the technology to match the dedication of the Border Patrol personnel here, we'll have an impenetrable border," he said.

The Homeland Security Department certified the effectiveness of the blend of technologies by the Boeing Co. in February after a series of setbacks and over the objections of some members of the Democratic-led committee.

Investigators from Congress' Government Accountability Office had concluded that radar intercepts of people or vehicles crossing the border were too slow to appear on Border Patrol agents' monitors. The inspectors also found that cameras were unable to accurately detect targets beyond 3.1 miles.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, another member of the House committee, said that securing the border would require a variety of "strategically placed physical and virtual barriers in addition to electronic surveillance.

"No single type of barrier will provide appropriate border security," he added.

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I think McCaul should be described as R-Washington, Texas since he is my congressman. I am sure he does not want to be tied to all those liberals in Austin anyway. McCaul is a former prosecutor and a smart guy. Sheila Jackson-Lee is not that sharp, but at least she is on the side of border enforcement in this case. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has put up his own version of the virtual fence in the form of cameras with an internet feed. I am not sure how many people watch the show. I don't think it will steal many viewers from Lost.