Virtual Fence?

President Bush plans to call for troops and a high-tech "virtual" fence to beef up the border with Mexico when he speaks to the nation on immigration Monday night, sources said yesterday.

Interestingly enough Texas has just brought there "virtual fence" online. Intrepid blogger FaultlineUSA signed up, downloaded the software and joined the "virtual" Minutemen. Here are his stories...

There are about 11 cameras up with small thumbnails. Pick a camera thumbnail and click on it and a wider blank box will appear. Unfortunately that box isn’t large enough for good viewing. Click on the box to activate it.

Out of the 11 cameras, only 4 were visible and that’s because they appeared to be placed in parking lots where there were overhead lights. The rest of the cameras appeared to be either out of service or it was too dark to register anything. Additionally, of those cameras that did appear to be working, they weren’t providing live streaming video – just still shots. Who knows when the shots were actually taken? *snip*

I watched the cameras for about 10 minutes early this morning during the dark. There are only nine camera thumbnails showing today. Two cameras are apparently down from yesterday.

Cameras placed in undeveloped areas are blank. Cameras placed in lighted areas or on a well-traveled road are apparently showing still photos, but there is no way of knowing how much time has actually passed since the photos were taken. There is no time stamp for the image or “refresh image” button to click for a new image. The cameras do not appear to refresh images very often. Perhaps photos are taken randomly? A new still image did appear while I was watching one of the cameras, but that same still image remained for almost 10 minutes. Not too helpful at all.

Thus endeth the lesson on "virtual Fences."

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