ghosts in the machine: SBInet

Showing posts with label SBInet. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Update on SBINet and the Arivaca Tower

The Arivaca Tower, part of the Secure Border Initiative or SBINet is getting some attention from U.S. national media. The New York Times , U.S. News and World Report and Washington Technology all have recent in-depth stories.

The launch of the high-tech virtual fence along Arizona's border with Mexico has been delayed due to technical problems. According to an Arizona Republic article:

Boeing has installed all nine portable 98-foot towers, cameras, radar and ground sensors. It has fitted 50 patrol vehicles with computer links. Mobile and central command bases have also been linked to the network. The idea is to give front-line agents and commanders up-to-the-second pictures of all the activity in their areas.But the cameras and sensors convey inconsistent information. Software glitches and integrating all the information have proved challenging.

Today the U.S. Senate voted to revive an immigration bill, supported by both Arizona's senators, that would tighten border security, create a temporary guest worker program and grant immediate legal status to millions of undocumented workers in the United States.

For background information, read my earlier posts about the Arivaca Tower.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

More Local Reaction to the Arivaca Tower

A tip of the hat to Otto at Otto's Random Thoughts, who alerted me to Southwind Dancer, a blog by local Arivacans about the Arivaca Tower. Along with Arivaca AZ Online , this blog provides good insight to the issues facing residents living in the shadow of the Tower. The image at right is a copy of a poster from the Arivaca AZ Online site, which I hope they won't mind me reproducing here. Arivacans appear to be well-organized in their protest against this Department of Homeland Security pilot project (click the "Secure Border Initiative" label at the end of this entry to see all of my previous posts on this topic).

As Otto is leaving Arivaca soon to take the post of Associate Professor of International and Comparative Politics at American University of Central Asia, I wanted to thank him for pointing me to these local resources and wish him all the very best in his exciting new role. I'll be continuing to follow developments on the Arivaca Tower in future posts.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Biometrics and DNA-enabled passports

About 10 years ago, a large brown envelope arrived in my mailbox from my old alma mater. It contained a request for me to participate in a long-term research study that the university was undertaking on the effects of drinking water from Lake Ontario, which I had been drinking for most of my life. The large brown envelope also contained a much tinier brown envelope into which I was to deposit the clippings of all ten of my toenails. Once I got past the "ew…gross" factor, I began to ponder the implications of sending away little pieces of my DNA that were to go on file for a decades-long study. Despite the assurances from this well-respected university that my toenail clippings would be kept secure and not used for any other purpose, I opted not to participate, as I just did not feel comfortable with the prospect.

Fast-forward a decade and it appears that our governments will eventually be forcing us to provide DNA samples, if we ever want to travel outside the country, that is. According to a CanWest News report:

Canadians will inevitably have to carry travel documents with their DNA,
biometrics or other biological identifiers in order to ensure secure border
travel to the United States, according to a new white paper to be revealed to
government officials in Ottawa Monday.

Although some technology, such as DNA-enabled passports or driver's
licences, may be a long way off, terror threats and other looming risks mean
governments must begin to seriously consider how they will introduce those
measures in the future, [said Michael Hawes, executive director of the
Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States of
America.]

The white paper will outline the implications of the U.S.’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which earlier this year required Canadians flying into the U.S. to carry a passport and which will require all Canadians driving or walking across the border to have a passport by 2008.

A few toenail clippings in a university researcher’s file cabinet are a minor concern compared to a DNA profile being available in electronic format to my own government, let alone a foreign government. While the purpose is to guarantee that I am who I say I am when traveling in and out of my country, what would happen if the electronic representation of my DNA were stolen? Just ask someone who shares a similar name to someone on the U.S. "no-fly" list how easy it is to prove who they are: how much more difficult and dangerous will it be if your DNA profile is stolen or altered?

It raises the question of ownership of the data and informed consent to citizens about how it will be used. Citizens should have assurances that their DNA profile will not be collected or saved by foreign governments and that the information will not be made available to other government agencies or third parties. Genetic information from DNA and other biometric information can be dangerous not only if it is used to assume someone’s identity, but also if it reveals health or social information that could be used in a negative way against the owner.

The use of biometrics and DNA seems inevitable in an increasingly security-obsessed world. As citizens we need to pay very close attention to these initiatives and the laws in place to protect our identity.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Photos of the new Arivaca Tower

J. Otto Pohl at Otto's Random Thoughts has a link to photos of the Arivaca Tower, which was constructed in just a few days this week. (For the background on this story, please read the following series of posts: SBI#1, SBI#2, and SBI#3.)

The tower is not yet operational, but local citizens are planning to thwart all of the cameras, radar and GPS technology by making full use of recreational land in the immediate vicinity of the tower.

Just a mile and a half from Main Street, it's a perfect place to hike, bike, birdwatch, target practice, picnic, and hold drumming ceremonies on the sacred space it abuts. Let's have some fun!

It will be interesting to see what impact this form of protest will have on the tower's effectiveness in preventing illegal border crossing.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Unmanned drones secure U.S. borders

It seems the more I read about the U.S. Secure Border Initiative, the less I want to know.

In addition to the networks of towers with radar, video cameras and GPS tracking, Homeland Security will be patrolling sections of the Canadian border with unmanned drones. The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), known as the MQ-9 Predator "B" or the "Reaper," is a significantly improved version of a variation of the MQ-1 Predator used by the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first will be deployed along the border between North Dakota and Manitoba before the end of 2007.

While fewer than 10,000 people were detained for entering the U.S. illegally via Canada in 2004, U.S. officials are concerned about drug smuggling, terrorist risks and the smuggling of Asian migrants via the northern border.

"What we are looking to build is a virtual fence, a 21st-century virtual fence,"
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and admonished Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. Thirty years later, a virtual wall of surveillance is being constructed along the 49th parallel.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Local Reaction to the Arivaca Tower and SBInet

Imagine the government is planning to build a 98 foot (30 metre) tower on the edge of your small town, where guards monitoring the adjacent national border will use radar and live video streaming to transmit the images and GPS locations of people crossing the border illegally to the laptops of guards waiting on the ground. At any time in this rural area, a 130 decibel "hailer-horn" could sound, disrupting the peace of your day, startling horses and their riders and scattering local birds and wildlife. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

This is the reality facing the residents of Arivaca, Arizona, the town which will serve as the pilot project for U.S. Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative or SBInet. The tower is scheduled to be erected this week. I wrote a few days ago about the privacy concerns this may raise for Canadian and Mexican citizens living near the U.S. borders and the proposed network of 10,000 kilometres (6,213 miles) of towers. J. Otto Pohl, a resident of Arivaca who has been writing about the tower in his blog Otto’s Random Thoughts pointed me to several local articles about the tower and the reaction of local residents. This is an enormous intrusion in their lives and they have been given very little notice and no real consultation by Homeland Security or Boeing.

What is more discouraging is the tremendous cost and apparent failure of this kind of technology in securing the borders. One year ago, The Washington Post wrote about SBI net and the checkered record of similar kinds of multi-billion dollar surveillance technologies:

If the military could seal a 6,000-mile border for $2 billion, Iraq's borders would have been sealed two years ago," said Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank.

The small town of Arivaca will serve as the proving ground for SBInet and local residents appear to have an uphill battle in ensuring their concerns are heard. Hopefully the amount of international attention given this story will not disappear once the tower goes up.

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Meanwhile, under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), Canadians are facing huge line-ups at Passport Offices, as under the new American law every Canadian is now expected to produce a passport when flying across the border and a year from now, in order to cross the border by land. Until recently, a driver’s licence was adequate, particularly for a daytrip of cross-border shopping or visiting family and friends. The United States is implementing the WHTI to increase border security. The initiative stems from the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which is based on the 9/11 Commission Report.

Politicians in Canada and the U.S. have often boasted about sharing the longest, undefended border; those days are about to become a distant memory as a vast network of towers and surveillance equipment is erected along the border over the next few years.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

U.S. Border Surveillance Goes High Tech

A high-tech network of nine surveillance towers in Arizona is the first of many more like it to be erected as part of the U.S.’s Secure Border Initiative, the National Post reported today. Residents of the small town with the dubious distinction of serving as a pilot for this initiative are up in arms about the government’s ability to observe and record every public activity in their ordinary lives.

"It's like Big Brother. It will place the whole town under surveillance," said C Hues, a community activist, as residents gathered for a meeting late Tuesday with customs and border patrol representatives.

"The government will be able to watch and record every movement we make, 24 hours a day. It will be like living in a prison yard," she added.

In 2006, over 1 million people were arrested for illegally attempting to cross the Mexican border into the United States. One of the towers to be constructed just south of the town will be 30-metres (98 feet) high and topped with cameras and radar. Images and video captured at the tower will be streamed live to troupers on the ground, along with GPS coordinates.

The ability to monitor the activities of the residents of one town of 1500 may not be a big concern to many people. But the Secure Border Initiative isn’t limited to the little town of Arivaca, Arizona. Over the next few years, similar networks of towers, with cameras and radar will be constructed along over 10,000 kilometres (6,213 miles) of the Mexican and Canadian borders. Conceivably, hundreds of thousands of residents along the borders of all three countries may come under the scrutiny of these cameras.

It isn’t a stretch to be concerned about how this recorded information could be used, given the recent experience of Andrew Feldmar who was barred from entering the U.S. after a border guard googled his name and didn’t like what he read. The residents of Arivaca, Arizona are fighting the construction of the massive surveillance network in their town and I hope that other Americans will be just as alarmed about this attack on privacy.

In the meantime, how will the Mexican and Canadian governments respond to cross-border surveillance of their citizens? Will our right to privacy be traded away in the name of U.S. national security?