Texans are taking their cues from Londoners these days with the establishment of a CCTV-based surveillance program for monitoring the US-Mexico border. A public-private initiative between the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition and the digital surveillance program Blue Servo, the program has erected cameras in areas along the Rio Grande known for drug smuggling and human trafficking. Explaining the need for the cameras to France 24, Donald L. Reay, the executive director of the Texas Virtual Border Watch Program, noted, “We have a pretty open border with our neighbors to the south and bad people could take advantage of that.” Internet users are the eyes of the program. When a user logs on Blue Servo as a “Virtual Texas Deputy” they may select from 11 cameras at various stations along the Rio Grande. At this point they may sit back and let their civic duty take over. When they notice bad people, they can file a report at Blue Servo which will alert the local authorities.
Reay anticipated criticism of program but said, “Of course there are people who will talk about the Big Brother thing, others who will talk about immigration, and others who will say it’s voyeuristic.” The potential for voyeurism had not dawned on us here at Big Think, but it certainly seems plausible that some citizens of south Texas may engage with BlueServo in this manner. Always abreast of transboundary issues, we monitored Camera 830 for about fifteen minutes this morning. It overlooks a placid stretch of the Rio Grande where some peckish waterfowl swam by on the dawn waters, but criminals and terrorists were nowhere to be seen.
Big Think has interviewed a host of immigration experts and our questions have hit the issue from all angles. What is the immigrant experience in America? How do we decide who gets to be an American? How will a nation founded, built and continually refueled by immigrants broach the issue under the country’s first biracial president? To frame our discussion of an online border patrol, let’s turn to Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico and descendant of a long line of Mexican immigrants, on what steps can be taken to tackle the immigration dilemma.
