Border Stupidity

An “ungodly stupid” get-rich scheme: The real border security story - Salon.com:

...The Corker-Hoeven amendment spells out the kinds of equipment to be deployed in very specific terms. In the sector covering Yuma and Tucson, Ariz., for example, it calls for 50 fixed surveillance towers, 72 fixed camera towers with remote surveillance capabilities, 28 mobile surveillance systems, 685 unattended ground sensors and 22 hand-held night-vision and thermal imaging systems.

Reached by phone in Chihuahua, Mexico, Tom Barry, a senior analyst at the Center for International Policy and author of “Border Wars,” told Salon that the effort is simply “absurd.” “Border patrol agents are tripping over themselves now,” he said. “They have nothing to do. They’re reading magazines in their trucks. If they increase the force by the levels they’re talking about now, you’ll have measures of boredom and waste that are almost inconceivable...”