Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama will today (Friday) authorize the most sweeping overhaul of Canada-U.S. border and security cooperation in decades; the agreement gives Washington a much bigger say in Canada’s border security, immigration controls, and information-sharing with American law agencies; the agreement could pose the biggest challenge to Canadian sovereignty since the free-trade negotiations of the 1980s

With the growing number of deportations of illegal aliens from the United States, federal officials expect demand for space to rise within coming years; Newark county officials are awaiting approval by federal authorities to upgrade and expand the Essex County Correctional Facility, significantly increasing its detainee capacity. The county’s proposal would provide a less punitive setting for detainees along with improved medical care, amenities, and federal oversight

Mexican drug smugglers have tried different methods to smuggle drugs into the United States — double-walled cargo containers, light planes, semi-submersibles, human mules, tunnels, and more; now, there is a new method: U.S. National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station in Arizona observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the International Border fence last Friday evening; Mexican troops dispatched to the scene found a 3-yard tall catapult stationed about twenty yards from the U.S. border on a flatbed towed by a sports utility vehicle; the catapult was capable of launching 4.4 pounds of marijuana at a time

Mississippi estimates it has 90,000 illegal aliens in the state, and that it spends $24 million in education and $35 million a year in health care on them; An Arizona-style bill has passed through the Mississippi state senate and now heads to the state house

DHS has begun the process of contracting to replace the SBInet system it scrapped last week by issuing a request for information (RFI) on interconnected surveillance towers; the department’s plan calls for acquiring proven, ready-made technology tailored to the terrain of each border region, as opposed to the now-defunct $1 billion SBInet; DHS is looking for tools that will offer automatic, continuous wide-area surveillance that are largely open, or not tied to any one brand’s proprietary technology

New iPhone app allows users to share their experiences at airport security checkpoints; the app, released by Elguji Software, is called TSAzr — Share Your TSA Experience; users can rate, review, and comment on every U.S TSA-staffed airport

The United States has spent millions of dollars — the barrier costs taxpayers on average about $4 million per mile — to build a fence along portions of the U.S.-Mexico border; a new video shows two women climbing the fence’s concrete-filled steel pipes in less than eighteen seconds

DHS has cancelled the ambitious SBInet border security project; the project aimed to erect a virtual fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, consisting of a system of cameras and sensors which would allow officers to monitor crossings and dispatch Border Patrol agents to catch anyone entering the United States illegally; Boeing, the primary contractor, was hobbled by technical problems involving the effectiveness of video cameras and other elements, resulting in the project falling far off schedule; a year ago, after DHS had spent $672 million on the project and Boeing had little to show for the money, the project was put on hold; DHS will now look at an alternative system which is likely to rely more on UAVs and thermal imaging

Home Office joins Eurodac fingerprint database, which collects the fingerprints of asylum seekers and some illegal entrants to the European Union; Eurodac consists of a Central Unit within the European Commission, equipped with a computerized central database for comparing fingerprints, and a system for electronic data transmission between EU countries and the database