Modern Border Security Turns to Webs of High Tech Surveillance Systems, Not Walls

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Joe Biden stopped construction on Trump’s signature wall along the southern border, but he’s asking for more than a billion dollars in his proposed budget for border infrastructure including modern security technology to bolster a “smart wall” increasingly reliant on surveillance tech that backers in Congress have called an effective and humane approach. But critics say the use of facial recognition software, license plate readers, ground sensors and mobile surveillance towers that send alerts to border agents are part of an increasingly militarized border that drives migrants to deadlier paths and imperils the privacy rights of residents near the border. We’ll talk about the new approach to border security and the private defense surveillance tech industry that benefits from it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:47.3	Music From KQED. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Welcome to Forum.
0:49.3	For many Democrats, Donald Trump's border wall became a symbol for everything that they disliked about the man, his politics, and his administration.
0:57.0	Leaving aside the fact that there were fences or walls along big chunks of the border before Trump,
1:01.4	the Biden administration has not exactly dismantled Trump's immigration policies or procedures.
1:06.4	What Biden has done is move away from a physical barrier and towards a more virtual one,
1:11.6	including ever-heavy surveillance by drone, sensor, and smart camera.
1:15.6	Is that better? Is it worse? Does it work?
1:17.6	We'll talk with an investigative reporter who's been digging into the militarized border's digital defenses.
1:22.6	And then we'll talk about the ongoing construction of the beloved Bay and Bay Ridge trails.
1:29.9	That's all next on Forum after this news.
1:36.7	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
	...

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