US Virtual Border Fence Doesn't Work 337
lelitsch writes "The Washington Post reports that the initial pilot of the Virtual Border Fence planned by the DHS and subcontracted to Boeing has been a miserable failure. A lot of the points in the report have the hallmark of death-march software development projects. Some choice quotes include 'did not work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol,' 'DHS officials do not yet know the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed,' and 'the design will not be used as the basis for future... development.' The article notes that Boeing was forced to deliver 'something' early as President Bush pushed for immigration reform in Congress in 2006. That reform effort died last year in the Senate."
You joke, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
The chutzpah is unbelievable.
As the previous architect of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wide Area Surveillance is, like any real world 'enterprise' solution, complex. That is not to say it is not achievable, it is just not something you decide to do on a whim
This means that during the bidding process for these jobs, as with any $$$LARGE$$$ government contract, much of the sub-contracting can be political and very rarely results in a proffered solution that is 'best in breed' in all (or even most) areas.
This is all very normal. The real difficulty is in identifying which aspects of a WAS solution will kill your project. For example, the article claims that using off the shelf commercial software for dispatchers was a serious issue. I can tell you from experience, there's no way that this derailed the project. There are several companies (the one I used to work at is one for example) that specialize in integrating their 'command & control' (for lack of a more encompassing term) suites with 3rd party streaming video, network systems, hardware devices, et cetera. The relative cost of these systems varies from very low (with a fair amount of services work being entailed) to moderate (where you get far more C&C stuff than you plan to use but it's there if you need it in the future - but they fully integrate the things you do need off the bat.)
Usually the biggest problems are from poor planning at the start or 'mid course correction' by people who didn't make careful consideration of their options up front regarding the physical infrastructure required. A good example of this is 'pole placement.' One of the easiest, conceptually, methods of watching swathe of territory where there isn't supposed to be much activity is to use a high quality camera mounted (usually mounted on a Pan/Tilt/Zoom gimbal) on a tall pole. How tall? THAT is the question my friends. From a cost point of view you want to put them up as high as is feasible given the terrain and what the local survey should be. This means less poles, less cameras, and less overall costs to cover a wider area; HOWEVER, the higher you put that camera the more difficult the installation of the pole because I assure you that putting a camera 60 feet off the ground results in shaking, deflection, twisting, and all kinds of other frame stabilization nightmares. Usually what happens is that the project denotes the max camera heights, assigns what types of poles/towers will support the cameras, how they will be built in order to overcome problems like these and then 6 months later they change the camera heights (usually because they want to cut out a few poles and the neighboring cameras must take up the slack), bingo you're well thought out and budgeted pole no longer serves your needs.
It is at this point that the reader will think 'ok, then we need to redesign the poles right? No big deal...' Sadly this does not usually happen. The change request costs associated outweight the money saved on the pole changes but that doesn't mean they won't still use the wrong poles and save a hundred thousand on camera costs, they'll just try to hack some solution like putting a frame stabilizer black box on the back of the camera, because that should work, right?
The Fence (Score:1, Interesting)
much rather see all this money spent on something that "will" work like enforcement. If
you heavily fine, jail, imprison anyone employing and or providing services such as housing
etc to a illegal the problem will correct itself. In my opinion these employers, landlords
etc are harboring fugitives and should be punished just as any other criminal guilty of
the same thing.
Pump all this money into employment enforcement including bounties on information leading to arrest
of employers and or fugitives.
It was never meant to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You joke, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mexicans sending money home - surplus money.
Other Latin Americans illegally entering the country and sending money home - lose money.
This is also not just Mexico, but all over the world. In some places it is actually legal. Poland is exporting workforce to the UK and importing from Belorussia and Ukraine. Romania is exporting workforce to Italy and Spain and is importing from Moldova. And so on. And all of them try to restrict influx while very happily consuming money sent home by gastarbeihters.
Re:Stupid. (Score:4, Interesting)
How much money are you willing to sink into putting a goddamn WALL around the country? I frankly don't think it will ever work, and sure if we put as much money into it as we put into Iraq, I bet we could stop the immigration across the land, but I don't think that would be sufficient in the long run. If people want in, they'll get in.
It never ceases to make me laugh how hard people fight to keep immigrants from doing jobs that they would never do, not in a million years. If you're worried about their treatment, then make it legal, give them the right to sue over poor conditions and workplace injuries. Tax their salaries to help pay for the demographic hellhole that will be this country for the next 30 or so years...Worried about your job? In 10 years, as the boomers retire en masse the workforce is literally going to shrink. That means we will need those people; we will need their labor, and we will need the tax revenue to pay for services for the huge chunk of society that's going to be retired.
Re:Stupid. (Score:-1, Interesting)
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahh... so the best option for everyone is to ensure illegal aliens arrive en mass. If they complain about low wages, hazardous working conditions or exploitive management ( see: Company Store [wikipedia.org] ) then we deport them.
Right. Nice way to maintain a permanent underclass.
After all, it's not like if we required proof of citizenship and forced the agricultural industry to pay decent wages those workers would spend any money here in the US, right?
Or if we permitted those workers to come to the US on visas and bring their families with them the practice of sending remittances to their home country might dry up or significantly decrease thus keeping more money in the US?
Re:You joke, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
But she also talked about the utter lack of affordable housing for the workers, the huge crime problem that comes with (and between) them, the large camps of them that live under bridges, etc. But the Romanians (largely) she referred to come and do it, rack up the cash, and them take it or send it home. The main point was that this is as old as time (well, as old as relatively modern civilization, anyway). Sure, the Romans did it at the point of a spear, and the (ironically named) Romanians are doing it out of an interest in clawing their way back from the ravages of life under a typically nasty Socialist regime... but the notion of having "other people" do certain kinds of work is, literally, a classic.
Re:You joke, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd be more inclined to say "admirable." Given that it is estimated that more than 10% of Mexico's GDP comes from money sent back home from the US he's doing everything he can to improve his economy. Just think about his situation: he gets to govern a country with an income that goes up when people leave the country. People who are out of the country don't consume servives or materials and don't commit crimes. He should be doing everything he can to keep people coming across Mexico's southern border.
Well, it worked for us (Score:3, Interesting)
I am doubtful that the reverse will happen here, but the main reason why they come here is simple; MONEY. W's building a fence is a total joke. Whether physical or virtual, it will never succeed. The ONLY way to stop this is to remove the low end jobs from American AND/OR create jobs in Mexico. Considering that Mexico allows the peso to trade free against both Canadian and American dollars, it is in our best interest to allow jobs to flow to Mexico, and put the cabash on jobs going to China. In addition, we need to automate our agriculture AND construction jobs that we have here. Once we do that, the fence will be immaterial. Interestingly, once the tide nearly stops, then a virtual fence really does make sense.
Re:forced to deliver early, for political reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, but a troll that so closely matches the dimwitted, but frequently tossed-around memes that one sees here, whether a troll or not, requires that rebutal. Otherwise, the rest of the bunch that simply see a rant that dovetails with their world view say, "Yeah, man - tell it like is! The Man..." blah blah. If you're going to troll, you've got to do a much more nuanced job of it. At least invoke the Trilateral Commission, or fake up some money-making scheme that allows Dick Cheney to somehow end up owning the manufacturer of the video cameras that were used. Come on, you can do better than that. This is slashdot. There's no excuse for lame, so-mundane-it-sounds-like-most-of-the-local-demographic trolling. Where's the spice? Where's the theater? Where's the gold plated tinfoil?
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the reason is that you put someone through 12 years of school, and he doesn't want to work in a chicken processing plant anymore.
Nonsense. People don't want to do those jobs at the wages offered, and the work conditions present.
it doesn't make any economic sense to force a decently educated worker into a job that could be filled for much less cost by someone who has no education at all.
More pure nonsense. Are you trying to tell me the education system is that much different than it was 30 years ago? I'll be willing to bet those plants were filled with US citizens then. What's changed now other than a large influx of cheap labor from Mexico?
There's plenty of jobs that people with high school education do already that don't require much in the way of education. Auto plant workers make good wages. Do they need a higher level of education than other plant workers, or is it just the fact that they were unionized many years ago and the conditions and wages improved?
No, I'm not saying unions solve all problems. But treating the workplace as static, and unchanging with the available labor pool is just plain incorrect.
Re:No, we just think you're stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
What Germans are doing is penalizing children born to illegal immigrants.
These kids become criminals from birth, but you Enlightened Europeans probably see no problem with that either (since the kids should have chosen better parents, right?)
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, you're wrong. We were hemmoraging manufacturing long before 30 years ago. First it all fled the North, to the South, where the workers were cheap, and there were no unions. Then it fled to other countries...Little countries called "Japan" and "Taiwan" were gearing up to kick ass in the 70's.
And it's nonsense to say that its a waste to put a well educated person to work doing menial labor? The only reason PhDs aren't driving garbage trucks is because the garbage industry has bad wages? Come on! The conditions in a chicken packing plant are never going to be good...It's chicken packing. Same with fruit picking! It's terrible work, the kind of stuff no one would do if they had another choice.
Highly skilled workers are capable of doing jobs that unskilled workers are not capable of doing. While it is true that a PhD could drive a garbage truck, that person (probably) has skills that would allow him to do work that could only be done by the comparatively tiny portion of the world that has equal skills, and it makes sense for him to do that work, rather than drive a garbage truck, a level of work that can be done by many many more people.
But even driving the garbage truck is reasonably skilled work. Our society revolves around people who have what we consider "low skills," but these skills are much greater than the skills of people who don't have the advantages of our system. You don't need a high school education to pick fruit.
If they finally get good fruit picking robots in production, we can put the high school grads in charge of the robots, and pay them a salary that is commensurate with the work. Until that point, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to force someone to go to school for 12 years, and then tell them they have to pick fruit, because someone has to do it, and we can't let the dirty immigrants do it! And to tell the fruit growers that the only people they can hire are these surly people who are pissed off they can't get a better job, and who have to make eight bucks an hour even though there are people who would be glad to do it for less.
Re:No fence is needed (Score:3, Interesting)
It would only work if we let GM, Ford, and Chrysler use prison labor to build cars for free. Or if we let mining companies use prison labor down in the mines. Or some similar plan that lets US companies take advantage of the low cost labor they'd lose if we arrest and imprison all the illegal immigrants.
The sad thing is that some of the imprisoned would be better off under this system than they were in their home countries. At least they'll get fed three times a day and have a warm place to sleep.
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
To offset this, they hire more people than they need, so those people can pay into the pension fund, and keep the whole thing going, but it also perpetuates the problem, and causes tons of inefficiency. There are also union obligations...Remember a few years back when the auto companies were selling SUVs at cost? The problem was a supply glut, and the reason for the glut is that the company had contracted with the unions to make X number of SUVs, and it was cheaper for them to make the SUVs that no one wanted than it was to try and get out of the contract...That stuff is everywhere, so again, inefficiency.
I'm also in favor of legal immigration, and generally lowering the bar for entry, especially for seasonal work. There is nothing wrong with having a bunch of people who want to work in your country. I'd much rather be pro-active on the supply side; monitor the people who employ the workers, make sure conditions are acceptable, and that the workers aren't being mistreated. And give 'em the ability to sue for workplace injury, same as any other employee...There is no reason that should be restricted to only americans.
GLADLY! (Score:4, Interesting)
The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, etc all have physically demanding jobs that pay very well, thank you.
And I know what you meant. 'physically demanding jobs' would mean 'manual labor'.
Somehow, oil rigs are a good place to find physically demanding work that pays well. The key is that the product or output is valuable...
We don't want to spend as much on our landscaping as we do on our SAP implementation, because the 'product' of our landscaper is not as valuable. That never will change. And productivity of landscapers is not the issue. The value of the product is.
So answer me this,
In Downeast Maine, blueberries used to be picked by the Mic Mac Indians from Canada and Maine. recently, however, the growers started importing migrant and illegal workers from 'wherever', and most were indeed Mexican. Other workes such as high school kids and a fair amount of regulars used to pick as well. I could make $600 a week back in the 60s, which was a darned good sumemr job save for the literally backbreaking work of raking berries out of bushes a foot high at most. bending over, carrying the boxes to the truck, etc was hard, but damn the money was good for a few weeks. But no more, the growers claimed a labor shortage. Truth is, the illegals are even cheaper than the Mic Macs, which is cheap indeed.
This is not about our 'value' of labor, so much as it is the profit to be gained by reducing cost further.
Remember Sen. John McCain, also known down here in Arizona as "Senator Lettuce"? He spouted off a couple of years ago (2006?) about how we 'couldn't' do the jobs Mexican immigrants did. In particular he made this statement:
"If I offered you a job picking lettuce in Yuma for fifty dollars an hour, you couldn't do it, my friend".
The next day, more than a handful of people showed up with resumes in hand, looking for the $50 an hour lettuce picking job. They were ready. Of course there are no jobs like that. Lettuce isn't worth that much.
One of the lies is that this is about wages. It is about profits.
Nobody has a dog in this immigraiton fight except the ordinary citizen:
- Big Business likes cheaper labor, it equals both profits and lower costs of healthcare and such.
- Federal government doesn't want to rile Business.
- Democrats see Mexican immigrants as future Democrats.
- Republicans dare not offend them, lest they become Democrats.
- Labor unions see them as future members. Sooner or later.
- State governments don't want Business to move to another state or overseas, which they will do anyways.
Don't be surprised that the 'virtual fence' doesn't work. Ineffective measures will be a key component in the federal government's war on immigration. Reagan's '86 (or was it '87?) immigration reform had three main features:
- Amnesty. This worked, mostly.
- Securing the borders. No money, no securing the borders. This worked famously.
- Deportation of undesirables and future illegals. No money. This also worked famously.
The current plans will be more of the same. Amnesty is crucial, as it bring the Democratic Party new members, aids the labor unions, and gives Business the same workers at pretty much the same pay. Failing to secure the borders ensures continuing supplies of cheaper labor. Deportation is of course pointless if the border isn't secured. In fact, deportation is a free trip home to visit family and educate others on how to 'do it' in the U.S.
We need change, alright. Arizona's employer law is a start. But I'm not hopeful. We need to vote out the scoundrels. Sadly, all of our Presidential candidates seem to be drinking the same Kool-aid on this issue.
We also need to stop rewarding moving jobs offshore. We don't need to offer incentives for keeping jobs here, just not incentives for sending them overseas...
Re:No, we just think you're stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
an illegal immigrant brings in her 1 year old daughter to the US. The child grows up there, but remains illegal. Ok, so she isn't a criminal from birth, just a criminal from age 1. That doesn't strike me as a huge improvement.
I want to preface this statement by saying that we continually poop on Mexico and so the situation is inherently unbalanced, but the idea is to motivate people to fix the problems in their own countries instead of just coming here. But again, to be fair, in the case of Mexico (and some other countries, really) we have created their situation and so it's not fair to tell them to go and fix it. Just need that disclaimer there to complete my statement :P
consider some poor guy in his twenties - he flees from his homeland because he'd starve otherwise. His only viable choice is to enter a developed country illegally.
In some countries which are now desert largely due to human activities (deforestation, irrigation) people really can starve because there is no food and no means to support food. But in many other countries, people are starving because they won't work the land. In most countries there is land out in the boonies that no one wants where you can live as a farmer. Boring life, but it's a living.
People fleeing themselves, I have little compassion for (I need to apply the attitude to myself on occasion as well.) People fleeing someone else, okay, I feel sorry for them and am inclined to give them aid.
I can't feel bad about Mexicans etc. running up here to the US to get health care and education because let's face it, between NAFTA and the War On Some Drugs and supporting or preventing this or that coup we have crapped up Central America beyond belief. By the same token, anyone who comes over here from the mid-east (for peaceful reasons, anyway) is well-justified in my book. But immigration creates real social problems and it's unfortunate when that happens to people who don't deserve it. (Life, of course, is not fair.)
I my mind it makes a lot more sense to try and help that country they are trying to escape from, rather than handing out citizenship to a few of it's inhabitants, or it's inhabitants' children.
I agree wholeheartedly. But that's not the way to make money, so you're not going to convince any capitalistic society to get on board.
About the only country I think you might potentially get really interested in helping the world would be China - but they'd want to do it their way. And I don't think the results would be pretty. It's really never all that good when a whole country is on the same page, to be honest. (This is where I invoke Godwin's law, right?)
Really though it would probably be enough for the various industrialized nations of the world to stop defecating on everyone else.
For Americans it's very important to think that being born within a country constitutes a right to be there - because they know that they've immigrated a few generations back, at best. Europeans are more likely think of their country as something which belongs to their people.
Yeah well, they're both wrong. The "native" Americans (who migrated to the northwestern part of the area now known as the Estados Unidos Norteamericanos about 12,000 years ago) had it right; the land does not belong to us, we belong to the land. Not all of them felt that nobly about it of course but frankly, the idea of drawing lines on a map and suggesting that they have significance is folly. The only regions that make sense are ones with natural boundaries -- Or as they are sometimes called today, "bioregions."
Humans are destroying the land's ability to support humanity. I don't want to get in a full-on debate over the "noble savage" but around here people built temporary homes and burned them, starting fires that truly did manage the forests of the area. Suggesting that people with a strong oral tradition who lived here for 10
Re:Stop them.. why would we stop them? (Score:4, Interesting)
That and we have PLENTY of able bodied people on welfare, that could be put to work....if you want welfare help, get out and work some jobs like this too.
If we didn't have illegals driving down wages in manual labor markets, our welfare folks might could get off welfare and make living wages.
Re:forced to deliver early, for political reasons (Score:2, Interesting)
And we all know how good the United States government is at paying attention to treaties and UN resolutions! Or allowing them to get passed in the first place