Internet users to patrol US-Mexico border (Filed: 02/06/2006) The governor of Texas has unveiled plans to place hundreds of CCTV cameras along the US-Mexico border so internet users can "patrol" the frontier from their homes.
Rick Perry said that the surveillance cameras along the Rio Grande would allow armchair border guards to view streamed video online and call a toll-free number and report any illegal immigrants they spot trying to enter the country.
Texas authorities could then take whatever action they deemed appropriate.
"A stronger border is what Americans want and it's what our security demands and that is what Texas is going to deliver," Mr Perry told a gathering of sheriffs from border counties.
"I look at this as not different from the neighbourhood watches we have had in our communities for years and years."
The cameras would cost $5 million (£2.6 million) to install along the state's 1,000-mile border with Mexico and will be trained on "criminal hot spots and common routes used to enter this country," he said.
Mr Perry, a Republican running for re-election in November, did not say when the cameras would be put in place.
The proposal comes amid growing concern in some quarters about the number of illegal immigrants entering America via Mexico.
George W Bush, the American president, this month sent thousands of troops to the border in a gesture to tighten border security.
Every year hundreds of thousands of people from Latin America play hide and seek with the patrols in Texas as they try to slip across the border in search of a better life in America.
Poster Comment:
I can't wait for the open source client ICE@Home.