Virtual border system ineffective, out of cash

in the reporting process, she said.

Despite the small number of arrests, the few cameras installed and the failure of the program to become self-sustaining, Cesinger said, Perry was convinced the program deterred crime and should be funded again. “The bad guys know there are an extra pair eyes on the border,” she said.

Modest performance
In his re-election campaign three years ago, Perry made border security a keystone of his platform. He promised then to spend $5 million to line the Texas-Mexico border with hundreds of cameras so that anyone, anywhere could troll for undocumented immigrants and drug traffickers trying to sneak into the United States.

Several starts and stops later, Perry launched a $200,000 month-long border camera test in November 2006. An El Paso Times review of documents from the test showed that, despite 28 million hits on the test Web site, the cameras helped border law enforcement apprehend only 10 undocumented immigrants, make one drug bust and interrupt one smuggling route.

Lawmakers in 2007 panned the program as ineffective, and declined Perry’s request to fund more cameras and resume the online offensive.

Determined to see the program through, Perry secured $2 million in federal grant money to get the cameras online. When his office sought a vendor, none would do the job for that price. So Perry turned to the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition, a group he has given tens of millions of dollars for border-security operations.

The sheriffs contracted with BlueServo, which had worked on the November 2006 test program, to set up the cameras and operate the Web site.

Virtual deputy reports. Although law enforcement results from the Web program have been underwhelming, the amount of online traffic the site generated has been substantial. Grissom writes that the El Paso Times requested and received about a week’s worth of e-mail that came in through the site in February after a spate of national and international news stories about the program.

Viewers sent approximately 3,900 reports and comments to the site from 2 February to 8 February. Many had questions about just what they were supposed to be looking for. Dozens said they were confused about which images were humans and which were animals. Some, such as Phyllis Waller of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, reported precisely what they saw. “Cow or deer walked by; now out of screen,” she wrote. Another activity report simply read, “armadillo by the water.”

One border watcher offered some advice: “Just a