TMCnet News
Few illegal border crossings seen since Web site's border cameras go onlineAUSTIN, Dec 16, 2008 (El Paso Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Nearly 2 million hits on a Web site that allows anyone anywhere to become a virtual border deputy resulted in one drug bust and reports of about a half-dozen illegal border crossings in the last month, officials said Tuesday. "We still feel very strongly that the program is righteous, that it's doing the right thing and that as it grows it will make our communities even safer," said Donald Reay, executive director of the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition. The Coalition, along with the private online social networking company BlueServo, obtained a $2 million grant from Gov. Rick Perry to operate the border camera program. Perry promised in 2006 to line the Texas-Mexico with cameras and broadcast the footage online, and he has been working since then to get the program off the ground. The Web site, blueservo.net, launched last month and has since gotten about 1.89 million hits, Reay said. The hits, he said, led to one drug bust that netted three arrests and about 540 pounds of marijuana in South Texas. Reports from virtual deputies, he said, also led to the referral of about six undocumented immigrants to U.S. Border Patrol officials. Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman, said the goal of the border watch program is to deter criminals with the possibility of many thousands of eyes peering at them online. "The measurement of first success is not necessarily how many people are apprehended or the numbers so much as that goal of deterrence," she said. To see more of the El Paso Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.elpasotimes.com. Copyright (c) 2008, El Paso Times, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |