SURVEILLANCEMapping CBP’s Expansion of Its Surveillance Tower Program at the U.S.-Mexico Border
EFF is releasing a new map and dataset of more than 290 surveillance towers installed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the border with Mexico. The tower systems are able to automatically detect and track objects up to 7.5 miles away and assist agents in classifying objects 3 miles away.
To provide researchers with the tools they need to analyze the impact of U.S. border security policy, EFF is releasing a new map and dataset of more than 290 surveillance towers installed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the border with Mexico. Compiled using public records, satellite imagery, road trips, and even exploration in virtual reality, EFF’s data serves as a living snapshot of the so-called “virtual wall,” from the California coast to the lower tip of Texas. We’ve also included roughly 50 locations CBP has proposed for its next round of towers, as well as automated license plate readers (ALPRs) placed at Border Patrol checkpoints.
Surveillance towers along the border have had a troubled history. In the mid-2000s, the Secure Border Initiative aimed to place “SBInet” towers along the border, but only got as far as installing a few dozen in Arizona before bipartisan outcry over technical problems, cost, delays, and ineffectiveness resulted in it being shut down. Throughout the 2010s, CBP took another run at a tower-based system, resulting in disparate tower systems–the Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT) and Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS)–provided by different vendors that could not interact with another. Despite spending more than a billion dollars since 2005, the Government Accountability Office concluded in 2017, CBP was “not yet positioned to fully quantify the impact these technologies have on its mission.”
Now CBP (and its sub-division, U.S. Border Patrol) is planning yet another massive expansion of surveillance towers at the U.S.-Mexico border. Referred to as the “Integrated Surveillance Tower” (IST) or “Consolidated Tower and Surveillance Equipment” (CTSE) program, CBP intends to bring the RVSS and IFT systems under one program and, over the next decade, begin upgrading 135 existing towers with new capabilities, technologies and sensors, while also installing 307 new towers along the Southern border. CBP has indicated these towers would help fill in surveillance gaps caused by the planned conclusion of its tactical aerostat program.
The tower systems are able to automatically detect and track objects up to 7.5 miles away and assist agents in classifying objects 3 miles away, depending on regional requirements.
