Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, who left Facebook in March, wants to build a wall... with LIDAR sensors:
Palmer Freeman Luckey was the kind of wunderkind Silicon Valley venerates. When he was just 21, he made an overnight fortune selling his start-up, a company called Oculus VR that made virtual-reality gear, to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.
But the success story took a sideways turn this year when Mr. Luckey was pressured to leave Facebook months after news spread that he had secretly donated to an organization dedicated to spreading anti-Hillary Clinton internet memes.
[...] And he has a new start-up in the works, a company that is developing surveillance technology that could be deployed on borders between countries and around military bases, according to three people familiar with the plan who asked for anonymity because it's still confidential. They said the investment fund run by Peter Thiel, a technology adviser to Mr. Trump, planned to support the effort.
In an emailed statement, Mr. Luckey confirmed that he was working on a defense-related start-up. "We are spending more than ever on defense technology, yet the pace of innovation has been slowing for decades," he wrote. "We need a new kind of defense company, one that will save taxpayer dollars while creating superior technology to keep our troops and citizens safer."
Also at BBC, CNET, Boing Boing, PCMag, and Engadget.
Related Stories
Palmer Luckey has left Facebook:
Palmer Luckey, a founder of the virtual-reality technology company Oculus, has left Facebook three years after the social network acquired his company for close to $3 billion. Mr. Luckey's departure was announced two months after a trial in federal court over allegations that he and several colleagues had stolen trade secrets from a video-game publisher, ZeniMax Media, to create the Oculus technology. A jury found Facebook liable for $500 million in damages, in part for Mr. Luckey's violation of a confidentiality agreement.
"Palmer will be dearly missed," Tera Randall, an Oculus spokeswoman, said in a statement. "His inventive spirit helped kick-start the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry." Ms. Randall declined to disclose the terms of Mr. Luckey's departure. [...] In January, Facebook appointed a new leader, Hugo Barra, to head up the company's virtual-reality efforts, including Oculus.
Will the first Palmer Luckey documentary be compatible with the next Oculus headset?
Also at TechCrunch, CNBC, and UploadVR.
Ex-Facebook exec ousted from company sparked controversy with pro-Trump views: report
A former top executive at Facebook who was ousted from the company may have been fired over his support for Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal reported Sunday that Palmer Luckey has recently told people that he was fired for supporting Trump before that year's presidential election. Luckey's donation in September 2016 to NimbleAmerica, a group that funded ads attacking Hillary Clinton, reportedly sparked backlash within Facebook.
Six months after making that donation, Luckey was no longer at the company. The Journal noted that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of Congress this year that Luckey's departure had nothing to do with his political beliefs.
According to the Journal, Luckey was first put on leave and later fired. In the fall of 2016, Zuckerberg pressured Luckey to voice support publicly for Gary Johnson, the libertarian nominee in that year's election, the Journal reported, citing internal emails and sources familiar with the conversations.
"Zuckerberg lied to Congress" could become a bipartisan statement.
Also at NBC.
Previously: Founder of Oculus VR, Palmer Luckey, Departs Facebook
Oculus Co-Founder Pitches Virtual Border Wall
Related: Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey on the Need for "Unlimited Graphics Horsepower"
Facebook/Oculus Ordered to pay $500 Million to ZeniMax
Palmer Luckey Donates to CrossVR Patreon
Oculus Co-Founder Brendan Iribe Leaves Facebook
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:06AM (1 child)
... Virtual Border Wall.
Will Mexicans program it?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:49AM
Waiting for realdonaltrump to rant, errrr, comment.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:27AM (24 children)
So human ( or AI ) monitoring of alarms will be necessary.
.
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Rumor has it that the sensors which surround Area 51 have some sort of "sniffer" technology which is able to distinguish between wild animals and humans. Such tech may be needed along with the LIDAR sensors. I've personally witnessed seagulls setting off laser perimeter alarms at a secure facility, and it drives the human guards bonkers and wastes a lot of time.
.
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It's a shame this stuff is necessary, but I've seen enough bad behavior by illegal Mexicans in the US that I would like to see all illegal Mexican immigrants returned to Mexico in a manner which would discourage them from returning. Sure, some of the Mexicans are good, but the law doesn't provide a means of sorting "good" illegals from "bad" illegals. And if they are illegal, then until that law is changed, they have NO LEGAL RIGHT to remain in the US, period. Spare me any SJW liberal bullshit, I've heard it all and my answer to every bit of it is : You cannot cherry-pick which laws you want to obey. End of discussion.
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(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:51AM
": You cannot cherry-pick which laws you want to obey. End of discussion."
Unless you're rich.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:56AM (1 child)
One of the articles or comments I read about it mentioned animals triggering the LIDAR. It seems like an easy machine learning problem, something already being considered with autonomous vehicles, and not something that needs Area 51 grade expertise. Obviously, autonomous vehicles need to be able to identify what kinds of objects they are detecting.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:06PM
Area 51 is easier. They have enough security to check those things out any time there's a question about it. Plus, they use multiple kinds of sensors, so they can correlate those together to figure out what it is.
The point of the virtual wall is that there's too much border to secure and much of it is literally in the middle of nowhere where the only thing there is the border. Just getting out there to check is rather challenging.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:57AM (5 children)
Anyone else feel that someone who ends their opening arguement with "End of discussion", both doesn't understand how a thread works and is a bit of a cunt?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:33AM (4 children)
"Anyone else feel that someone who ends their opening arguement with "End of discussion", both doesn't understand how a thread works and is a bit of a cunt?"
OP here.
I've been using computers and network for longer than you've been alive. So your fantasy that "I don't know how a thread works" is not accurate. I don't give a fuck if you and others want to disagree with what I wrote, and that's why I wrote "End of discussion", because I don't engage in debate with anyone when I know I am correct, which is true in this case. Go ahead and debate amongst yourselves all you like, but I have made it clear I will not discuss this, so your debate will have to rage on without my participation.
As for you thinking I am a "bit of a cunt", I quit caring what other people think about me decades ago. You can say whatever you like about me, I don't care.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:14AM (3 children)
Now I'm confused. Could you break this down for me?
You'd like us to know what you think?
But, you don't care what we think about what you think?
However it's very important to you that we know that you don't care what we think about what you think?
Do you see where I'm getting lost?
At least you're not angry about it all, that's good to know
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:21PM (2 children)
"But, you don't care what we think about what you think?"
To clarify, I know it is pointless to debate things on web forums. No one ever changes his or her mind after such debates. It's just a form of amusement or a way to waste time. And with that in mind, I have more important things to do now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:54AM
So, more important things to do now, but not so important that you can't not spare the time to tell us they are important.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:48AM
I've changed my mind after such. But it takes someone who competent at reasoning, knows something, and spends some time to actually try to convince someone. And I have to be in error somehow in the first place.
That's good to know. Some of us were giving strong indications that we were concerned why you were posting all this crap instead of an intelligent conversation. But it makes sense now and our concerns are safely put to rest.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:40AM (8 children)
Aaaaand that's why slavery was perfectly okay! Because it was the law!
End of discussion, right? Your reasoning is so awesome...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:52AM (2 children)
Slavery has nothing to do with this discussion.
Perhaps you are intoxicated on drugs or alcohol ? That could explain your impaired thinking.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:18AM
Easy there old chap, you have to read the quote at the top of the post for some context.
Take it step by step, you'll be caught up in no time
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:32PM
The grandparent might have skipped a couple of logic steps, but the point is that in the US, prior to 1863 or so, not only was slavery legal, but helping escaped slaves escape was very illegal. Yet people did that [wikipedia.org] anyway at considerable risk to themselves. So in rebuttal to the original assertion that one can't cherry pick laws to obey, we have a fine example of people refusing to obey what they considered immoral law. They successfully "cherry picked" which laws they would obey, which helped a lot of people, contrary to the original poster's assertion otherwise.
The problem with that analogy is that I don't buy that there is a similarly great moral cause furthered by allowing illegal immigration. Instead, I think it's a variety of parties undermining this law for selfish reasons, such as pandering to immigrant votes (and in the long term creating more immigrant votes to pander to in a dynamic with positive feedback - probably the number one reason that there is and has ever been a backlash against illegal immigration in the US in the first place), cheap legally unprotected labor, or merely being cheaper and faster than legally applying for immigration to the US (and other parts of the developed world).
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:27AM (4 children)
Why the fuck is this drivel modded insightful?
Advocacy for adherence to the law is in no way expressing support for every law that ever has existed. It is a perfectly reasonable position to obey the law to the best of your abilities and reject the law all the same. There are a number of legitimate methods to challenge bad laws, such as writing to your representatives, informing your fellow citizens of the downsides of such laws and protesting against them. None of these actions require violating the law in any way. Disobeying the laws just because your personal moral code says otherwise is not a justifiable position. After all, what makes YOU more morally upstanding than the rapist who claims that rape is okay in their personal moral code? The fact that your fee-fees make you feel fuzzy inside when you are doing it and not so fuzzy when they are doing it? Ridiculous.
If you cannot enact your desired social change, you will just have to suck it up and live with it just as all other groups who claim moral high ground on illegal issues. You can always go live somewhere else if you don't like it. Should you choose to ignore the law however, you will rightfully be treated just as any other criminal.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:34PM (1 child)
Actually, yes, it is. The number one way to express opposition to a law is to break it. If you take that choice off the table, then you've greatly weakened your opposition to the law in question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:01PM
"We are benevolent and tolerant masters. We allow anyone to say whatever they want as long as they don't break the rules. Anyone who breaks the rules is immoral scum and will be sent to federal 'pound me in the ass' prison. Just don't break the laws! Otherwise do whatever you want. We love freedom here."
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:06PM
No. It isn't. Often, when the law is immoral, obeying it is immoral. If the law says that it is illegal to escape from slavery (it did), yet a slave tries anyway, this is (a) not in any way unreasonable, and (b) a thoroughly moral thing to do. Further, if the law required one to return a runaway slave (it did; see the The Fugitive Slave Act, ca. 1850), then the law required others to do something immoral; doing so puts compliant individuals irretrievably in the wrong. When the law is wrong, not only is there no imperative (other than fear and coercion) to obey it, there is a bombproof moral case to disobey it should the issue arise.
The only moral move is to follow moral laws: If the government wants the citizens to obey the laws, it must make only moral laws, and impose only moral consequences. This is (obviously) a goal that should be among the topmost when crafting legislation. Since it isn't, the duty to triage toxic law falls upon the public.
There are many such immoral and toxic laws on the books today, and they make for interesting discussion, albeit a different one and one that certainly includes debate as to the various cases for morality, and what that means. I generally use the slavery laws because the dust has long since settled – any moderately sane person with two wet neurons to rub together can see that coercive slavery is inherently wrong.
I wrote a more extended discussion of this 9/2016 in a (slightly) different context. You can read it here [fyngyrz.com] if you wish.
The bottom line is that strict/rote compliance with the law can result in definitively evil and toxic acts. Don't use the law verbatim. Learn about the law, learn about ethics, develop an understanding of what informed, personal and consensual choice is, carefully devise a relevant morality you can defend, and then use your brain.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Roger Murdock on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:01PM
Not obeying bad laws is another way of challenging them.
Disobeying laws that the vast majority of reasonable people consider to be unjust, and that have no safety implications, can be pretty easy to justify.
Only in simpleton-land do all laws deserve the same level of adherence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:13AM
Sure you can cherry pick the laws to obey, just look at all the highway speeders (nearly every driver) who are otherwise law-abiding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:21AM
but I've seen more than enough bad behavior by white skinned folk in the US, where are you going to also deport them/us?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:17PM
>You cannot cherry-pick which laws you want to obey.
Then why aren't you in prison? These days it's pretty much impossible to even walk around the block without breaking a few laws. Seriously - there used to be a show where to win the prize you had to walk around the block without breaking any laws, I can't remember if anyone actually succeeded. And that was decades ago, the legal thicket has gotten even more overgrown since then.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:39PM
Trump does. And hell, he married an illegal immigrant.
If it's good enough for our President, and we allow him to get away with it in broad daylight, then yes you clearly CAN cherry-pick.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:42PM (1 child)
If you were conservative, and not just anti-strawman-justice-warrior, you might be concerned about the massive expansion of federal government power required to set up a deportation force capable of tracking down and deporting 11 million people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:39PM
That horse has left the barn. We might as well use the capability to secure our homeland.
Truth is, freedom is a luxury that we have squandered. We have failed to resist invasion by hostile cultures. We're on our way to genocide within the century, and the only thing in question is the winner. I prefer that my descendants not be slaughtered, as they will be if they aren't on the winning team.
For all of known civilization, distinct cultures in close proximity has led to violence. It is absurd to think that human nature has suddenly changed, post-WWII or whatever, or that it really isn't violent. You may not seek war, but war seeks you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by terrab0t on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:02AM (12 children)
The first thing I looked for when I saw this story shared elsewhere was some detail on the technology. I read the entire article and a source it linked and found nothing.
All I found were extensive back stories and gossip about the company’s founder. He supports US President Donald Trump and on the internet only a diabolical villain would do such a thing so he is now another ongoing villain story and everything he does is either evil or ridiculous.
The technology sounds interesting, but there is no technology story here yet. We have no details. This is nothing but another villain story used to get attention. It’s rage bait.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:37AM (2 children)
If they actually want to solve this, I don't know why they just don't loft a high-resolution geostationary satellite or several, if need be, with image subtraction, visible and IR, and set up a monitoring center that directs a few teams here and there. I've done this kind of software; it's incredibly good at catching movement. Add some neural nets, bing, no one gets by. The border is long, but it's very narrow - you can pack a lot of linear imaging into one (admittedly complex) lens system and sensor.
If crossing means you're going to get caught 100% of the time, people will stop trying to cross. At a fraction of the cost.
Oh. Wait.
Building a wall will funnel huge amounts of money to cronies, it won't stop border crossers, the border "guards" get to keep their phony-balony jobs...
Yeah, I get it now. They're not actually trying to address the issue. It's just more pork. Never mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:40PM (1 child)
"long but very narrow" - doesn't it now extend 100 miles into the USA?
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:09PM
That's the extend of the zone within which the feds have declared they can ignore the 4th amendment. But it's not the actual border. Crossing the actual border is the trigger for this issue.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:52AM (7 children)
Rage bait maybe, but the tech already exists. I'm a huge proponent of secured borders for the U.S, but a wall is impossible. I have a really long comment somewhere else where I broke it down, but there are 9 different borders for the U.S including physical and cyberspace as well as space space. All 9 need to be addressed simultaneously.
Environmental concerns alone negate a physical wall, and some practical issues like rivers and existing homes make a wall super impractical. Sensors are the only way to go that solve all those issues. Once you have that, then it is purely an issue of personnel and response times. Ideally, border information would be shared, so both Canada and Mexico will know at the same time that somebody from their country was attempting to cross a border, and THEY can also respond.
There was a guy who had a TED talk about his squirrel turret. It was able to tell the difference between a pigeon and a squirrel, and only shoot the squirrel with a high pressured stream of water. That was only from a camera image. The U.S border could have audio, video in several spectrums, IR, LIDAR, sonar, radar, satellite, seismic, chemical, etc. Their processing could be orders of magnitude more powerful, and the algorithms would beat these squirrel turrets for accurately identifying targets.
Add transport and medical drones capable of 13k ft and a couple hundred MPH, and anyone at the border will either not be happy with two soldiers being deployed near them, or fairly happy that an EMT is now on site. I'm betting the soldiers are deployed instead. That, and I know that some places on the border are used for U.S sniper training. No reason that snipers wouldn't be deployed into problem areas.
The real problem with discussing border security is that it gets so political, so very quickly. Almost impossible to discuss it, without also discussing illegal immigration, and I think that is sad and hurtful to America. We're less safe, and not better off as a people.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:32AM (6 children)
So I'm riding my bike om Boundary Rd, in Whatcom County, Washington. You&re telling me that your tech would be able to signal ICE were I to get off my bike, quite literally jump across the ditch to the road just north of the ditch, and jump back into Washington, and to come arrest me for that illegal border crossong?
What uf I'm up hiking in North Cascades National Park, say, by Boundary Peak, and happen to do the same? We going to put a surveillance box at at north terminus of Pacific Crest Trail to take pics of people who continue on north into BC (nearest road is in BC) so you can bust them when they come back into US?
Jeaus what a fucking zombie paranoid freakzone we're becoming.
the "illegals"? we cant even deal with all the illegal shit us legitimate people do. Jyst look at our President...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:31AM (5 children)
There are some exception areas, but I did not list them. What you said is nothing. There is a town on the U.S-Canadian border where the border literally goes through some books in a library. How the fuck do you handle that with sensors? The answer is you don't It's a special area, a small town, and you can handle it much differently. Plus, whoever comes in will be known by their library card otherwise they ain't getting in ;) That you can leave up to that town on how to handle, and all the government may do is simply watch the roads in and out around that town and record sensor data. Obviously not performing a military intercept of granny delivering chicken soup on the road.
We also get to benefit from the security of Canada and Mexico. They look for terrorists too. It's not like it's Syria right next door. Security is cumulative, and that is defense in depth. Which is why, sensor data is shared. Plus, Canada is part of the Five Eyes. So both Canada and the U.S have you by the short and fucking curlies with pervasive and comprehensive mass surveillance. Reality check. The government can just ask Verizon where your ass is, and where they (the marketing research dept) think it will be. It's never as simple as fly in, cross the border, and then scream your falafel. Every 9/11 terrorist got into the U.S legally and trained for months.
Plus, the border can be sized appropriately, and is not necessarily as thick as a wall. The sensors could extend out for 5-10 miles in all directions. Parks that you mention could just have a very nice walkway with two paths side by side to let people know where the border is, and to perhaps better enjoy the park. There is nuance and degrees of response. Let people do what they want, and if they cross the path, walk up to a kiosk, or just be on the way to one, and the system lets you do it. Some dude in a little photo booth can waive hi while you wave your smartphone at him and your passport is verified on a blockchain while the biometric cameras that see in the dark check out your face. No ball groping required. It can be treated as simple as a line on the ground. You jumping across it back and forth don't mean shit. The system knows what you are doing and will only care once you stay on the other side and keep moving inward. It's not a laser field that instantly dispatches the hounds.
The War on Drugs is fucking over. What do we need to worry about from Canada? The scourge of smuggled poutine and cheap pharma pills? Same with Mexico. Other than people, just what do we need to be concerned about? Cheaper parts and economic competition? That's more likely than a real threat to national security.
The system could be programmed to recognize distress and act accordingly. People in the forest having an issue just need to get to the border to be guaranteed a way to communicate to rescuers. Perhaps there would even be environmental monitoring of sharing of data for scientific purposes to better steward the environment. Our borders already cause ecological damage in some areas. Removing them and going to pure sensor data is environmentally sound.
Lastly, there is a Native American Indian tribe that will be handling border security. Period. They've never budged on that, and they consider themselves stewards of the land. John McCain has said how hard it is to deal with them and border security. I don't think they would begrudge us some sensor poles that don't harm the land, and don't stop their people from moving back and forth across the border. That's not unreasonable or impossible to allow them to do it.
If we are going to have border security, let's not fuck around, and have actual levels of security. Not security theater, but real layered security. You're right about one thing. The border is relatively quiet, which means the current level of Border Patrol is just fine. Especially when they know there is no way to move without being seen. Nothing can hide. That is an effective deterrent and I look forward to seeing the technological responses to it :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)
You have a point in that the vast majority of the US-Mexico border is pretty desolate scrubland with minimal appeal and could be efficiently "patrolled" electronically. In fact you'd have to do the same thing with a wall anyway, since ladders exist. (Yeah, you can't drive across a wall so well, but cross-border coordination by human traffickers is trivial)
Parks, etc - not so much. Detecting a border breach is useless unless you can also intercept the trespasser, which is pretty much impossible in a potentially crowded area, it's just too easy to blend in with the crowd. Unless the whole area is contained with "border checkpoints" etc, in which case you haven't so much eliminated the wall, as included a courtyard within it.
As for the Natives not begrudging some sensor poles, I'm not so sure. I could see some really pointed objections to having a bunch of surveillance equipment installed in their front yard. Though if the equipment were entirely under their control (and you could convince them of that), it might indeed be a viable option.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:23PM
The idea is a strong military response to human traffickers. If the sensors are good enough, you would detect that many people moving in a group across a stretch of the border. Single people moving across you can still respond to in the same fashion, but I doubt that they would. Not when the U.S might have a 5-10 minute response time, and it is military.
I don't think it's impossible. The kind of sensor technology I'm talking about can track individual people within a crowd. Yes, the whole are is pretty much a courtyard, and the wall is largely eliminated. There is no wall. At most there would be sidewalks, paths, railings, and more or less infrastructure to support pedestrian use.
If the system is tracking people, and it cannot identify someone, and they move outside of the courtyard before checking in, that's when personnel are dispatched to process them. Meaning, they can be nice about it. However, it would be a crime to leave this "DMZ" so to speak without being processed. I think most people will be processed just fine, perhaps even in an automated fashion for people that move back and forth often.
It's not a wall. It's a sensor grid that people and objects move across. We can design special areas like courtyards to process them efficiently, ports to process goods, and then designate other areas as do-not-pass-unless-you-want-the-Area-51 treatment. Where people currently drive across is already sufficient to process with sensors and could get an efficiency boost. My idea is to create a path of least resistance. If the checkpoints are nice and easy, law abiding citizens will use them. If the ports are quick and efficient, then businesses will not complain. At that point, you can start treating unexpected border crossings as military incursions. Which brings up something I find funny, and that is that so many people on the far right in the U.S are convinced Mexicans come in daily in hordes, while the truth is that Mexican immigration has been going the over way. America became a very difficult and toxic placed to be after the Great Depression II: The Fuckening. 10 years of great hardship has solved the immigration problem for everyone except the people that need there to be an immigration problem. You know, for reasons. My own personal belief is that those 11 million illegal immigrants that are here, are in fact Americans. It was our failure to recognize it, and if I interpret the American spirit and soul the way that I do, those people have already suffered enough exploitation and been fucked deeply to the point they really are just like every other American. Fucked :)
They absolutely have control over it. The whole idea is to also aid in proper stewardship of the environment, and to share data. Mexico and Canada both benefit from the sensor technology as their border security is more or less integrated with ours at that point. The Native American Indians have access to the sensor data, as they are a recognized sovereign territory by U.S treaty. I'm perfectly fine with them protecting their lands and using their own personnel to do it. Obviously military intercepts will not happen on their territory, but you can see their territory as one big courtyard from the Mexican/U.S government point of view.
Security is cumulative and works best in depth. Canada is fairly secure (maybe more so than the U.S), and I don't think Mexico is a 3rd world country or anything. The problems there largely stem from the U.S War on Drugs anyways. I'm comfortable with the security that they both provide, and are more worried about the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans being used to access us.
Ohhhh, this gets rid of the Constitutional Free zones too. The border is greatly reduced in size legally and the sensor data largely becomes public. If you stay 5 miles away from any border or checkpoint, you are not being scanned.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:11PM
You missed the point. The US has become a paranoid country ruled by fear. Gone are the days of freedom, and things like this are trying to stop the symptoms instead of curing the disease. More reactionary imperialism is not the answer. Can it be done? Yes. Will it stop illegals? Somewhat. Is it worth it? No.
But hey, you can manipulate 20-40% of the US public almost entirely through this one issue, and that is the real point.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:48PM (1 child)
The 1% and global elites thank you, because that's exactly what they want. They and their massive wealth can freely move, they can freely move production facilities from country to country chasing cheap labor and keep the products and profits flowing, while screwing over the serfs working for them because some fucking chunk of plastic has more rights and freedom of movement than the human beings producing it.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:16PM
Uh, huh. Not so fast.
This is why I don't like talking about border security, because the conversation instantly gets fucked with border usage. Immigration and trade tariffs are separate issues. I have the opinion, that if everyone coming into the country were tracked and given a visa of some kind, then it would be impossible to have cheap illegal labor. Meaning, that our guests could not be abused in such a fashion. I'm also of the opinion to open up immigration and the quotas more to allow people to move back and forth more, not less. I don't care if they come here, I actually want them to come here, and I don't want them abused. How do you have illegal labor when that illegal isn't illegal, can stand up and give them the finger, and is legally entitled to find work and pay taxes? As it stands right now, they are the perfect abused work force that creates pressure from below the American worker that reduces wages overall. You're wrong. The elites cannot chase cheap labor with the border I'm proposing, and that more freedom and movement and rights exist for people, not less.
That's all that it is. Proper competition. With a border like I am talking about, everything that matters is redirected towards choke points. Goods will be funneled towards ports that have the staffing and technology to be analyzed and have tariffs assessed. Tariffs only need to be designed to bring all goods and services within reasonable competition of local goods and services. How do they elites go from country to country fucking it up when they bring back a widget and find that it is instantly assessed tariffs designed to bring it to 101% of the local cost? We still have competition, and local manufacturers are not competing with the business environments found elsewhere in the world. It doesn't matter what the elites do with outside goods, as long as local manufacturers and mom and pop businesses are healthy again. 11 million illegals are not killing our economy and way of life, but the elites ARE. One is a bigger threat.
As for the security, it's not draconian or anything. If you want to cross the border you will see signs telling you to check-in at a checkpoint, or will direct you to a safe place to cross the border. Anybody trying to cross the border surreptitiously at a "deserted" area, probably either needs help, or a military intercept. There are plenty of safe and nice places to cross the border. Everywhere else can get a military response, and should. Which is not to imply an ass-whooping by overzealous Border Patrol, but a quick and decisive intercept of who and whatever it is that is crossing outside of the approved areas. Since I envision a border capable of checking people in with the appropriate technology anyways, and immigration from Mexico is in actuality going the other way, border crossings that need to be investigated are greatly lessened.
The border I speak of is to provide security and assessment of tariffs, so you're wrong about who would say thank you.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @09:16AM
Helping Carmack defect and taking proprietary information from Bethesda/Zenimax to improve their financial bargaining with Facebook during the buyout?
Crooks beget crooks and all that.
Far more successful crook than Carmack was at 2x his age btw.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:09AM (5 children)
I'm really getting tired of this idea that supporting the wrong political position is a firing offense..... but only for SOME. I'd like to see snowflakes fired for being snowflakes. And when they raise Hell, which of course they would, slap the shit outta them and point to the list of people on the other side fired for believing the wrong thing. Alinsky's Rulebook applies here, we simply MUST make the Enemy play by their own book of rules. Only then will there be a serious effort to change the rule.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:22AM
It's all a game to you, isn't it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:56AM (3 children)
Why? supporting LGBT causes while working at Michael's, Chick-filleh, Deseret Industries, etc. will not help one move into management roles in those companies...
Questioning the anti-abortion and birth controls at the Catholic hospital you work at isnt going to bode well for you, either...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:37PM (2 children)
It shouldn't help anyone anywhere to move into a work position where the cause is irrelevant to the duties of the position.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:13PM (1 child)
Moron, they were highlighting the fact that conservatives aren't the only ones who face such discrimination. But you and your butt buddy jmo are too busy with your rage boners to think clearly.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:11AM
Funny how I couldn't find such examples of discrimination by Chick-Fil-A or Michael's. And Deseret Industries is an organization of the Mormon Church which views support for LGBT issues as antithetical to their religion - that is legal, but very limited discrimination since there is no field in which Deseret Industries dominates employment. In comparison, most colleges show strong discrimination against conservatives - if a conservative is employed in the academic sector, they have to deal with this problem and its hindrance to their careers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:20AM (5 children)
There's no wall Trump could build big enough to hide the "Help Wanted" sign American businesses have put up behind it.
If Republicans were serious about stopping illegal immigration they'd focus on punishing business owners who employ them. But the secret is, they actually want a permanent class of undocumented workers who will work for below minimum wage and can't raise a fuss about health and safety conditions on the job. Ideally, to them, this population churns through new people all the time. This stops immigrant communities from getting too prosperous or amassing inter-generational wealth, and looks good on the news when the rubes see, "ICE raid catches and deports 100 illegal aliens" on FNC.
There's never going to be a wall. No LIDAR, no solar panels, no big beautiful door. And it wouldn't matter if there was one. We could magically deport every illegal immigrant and the material conditions of the white working class would not improve one bit. Might as well build a giant, solid gold, statue of Trump giving the middle finger facing South. That's all this is about for most of his supporters; petulant, ignorant, spiteful, rage.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:48AM (3 children)
"And it wouldn't matter if there was one. We could magically deport every illegal immigrant and the material conditions of the white working class would not improve one bit."
You seem to believe your above claim about the white working class is the only reason some American citizens would like to see all illegal aliens deported. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but for many Americans there are other reasons you have not mentioned. The Mexicans come to the US and the majority of them do not assimilate into American culture. They don't even bother to learn English and instead expect Americans to learn Spanish. They drive cars without insurance, they drive drunk, they have way too many children because they are Catholic and birth control is proscribed by those idiots, and in general unless you personally profit from making use of cheap Mexican labor they add nothing to American society. Millions of American citizens are tired of this and would like to see them go back to Mexico. I haven't mentioned the extreme violence which the MS-13 ( Mara Salvatrucha ) gang is known for in several areas of the US. Like I said, many Americans want the illegals to go back where they came from and we will hold that opinion regardless of what some SJW twerp says. Bye now.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:58AM (2 children)
Your knowledge of Mexicans in America comes from racist diatribes, movies, gang populated areas. Gang activity goes across all demographics. Hells Angels? Triads? Yakuza? MS-13? Cosa Nostra? PETA?
I'm so glad I exposed myself to other people and cultures. Having spent many nights in a Mexican household invited to dinner with a family that was fun, warm, and filled with extremely fucking tasty food, I know how utterly full of shit you are. They are just as "normal" as any other American family once you embrace them, and they are a friendly people IMHO.
Even in the toughest barrios, you still have family dinners, families that have pride in what they do, and are just as American as you are. They don't just assume from Republicans and White Nationalists, that all white people are like you.
Thank God. I wouldn't have been invited to dinner.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Immerman on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:38PM
>They are just as "normal" as any other American family...
>and they are a friendly people
Contradiction detected...
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:27PM
My experiences have been similar. They are good people, friends, and neighbors.
In my favorite Mexican restaurant there's a handwritten sign up on the wall, in English and Spanish, offering free English lessons. Most of them want to learn, try, and achieve here and work hard to do so. They're better Americans than any of the white nationalist trolls who post here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:13AM
The white working class? The black working class has a big amount of skin in the game too, as they were doing many of the jobs the illegals took.
(Score: 2) by pgc on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:29AM (2 children)
Silicon valley is so liberal, unless you are supporting the wrong political party/candidate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:06AM (1 child)
There is a big difference between:
Stating support for political candidate X.
or
Secretly donating to an organization dedicated to spreading anti-candidate-Y internet memes.
One of these actions is an plain and direct statement. I respect a person for voicing that statement even if that statement might not be popular among a large segment of the population. Even better if there is properly argumented rationale behind it.
The other action is a simple mud-slinging technique, and instantly reduces my respect for you to rock-bottom. In addition, you are money to dis-proportionally increase you own personal influence on the democratic process, which I feel undermines the democratic process.
If you are an important public figure for a large organisation, then your public views and actions will reflect on that organisation. It is obvious that the organisation may want to distance itself from you once their reputation (and indirectly their revenue) is getting damaged as a result of your actions.
All that is without even considering the actual contents of the political views of the candidate that you support, which also may provide reasons for people or organisations to disassociate themselves from you if their views differ strongly from yours. As another poster put it, you may find it difficult to make career or even keep your job in a catholic hospital if you are openly pro-abortion. A gay bar will likely not want to hire you if you are prejudiced against those people. Similarly some tech startups with a liberal culture may not want anything to do with you if you openly support Trumps policies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:21PM
And as always if your personal choices can be kept secret then such problems are usually swept under the rug. Only when it becomes public and reflect on the business do you have a real problem.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:32AM (1 child)
How did that leak? only his bank ought to know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:51AM
someone digging around in federal donation disclosure documents? someone connecting dots in 4chan, Reddit, or perhaps bragadoccio on Breitbart noticed by others? or even Facebook postings by himself?
(Score: 4, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:00AM
Folks, I promised you that as your President I would build a wall on our Mexican border. And that Mexico would pay for it. One of my biggest promises to you. You elected me, with a huge majority, to build that wall. Because I'm a great, great builder. The only guy who could build the wall. And I'm very proud to say, that wall is being built. Finally, finally we're going to control our border, our Mexican border. Which is very important, because the people Mexico has been sending us, a lot of their people they've been sending us, are not great people. They're bringing drugs, they're doing crimes, they're rapists. Doing terrible things to our women, our beautiful, beautiful American women. To our women's pussies, to their faces, even to their butts. Getting them pregnant and even doing butt stuff. Sad! But I've given out the contracts for the wall and construction has started. Started within my first 100 days. A promise kept, a very big promise kept. But since you've elected me, I've been getting briefed. And one thing, one important thing, I've been briefed about is that there's an even bigger problem than our Mexican border. I'm talking about our Canadian border. It's a huge, huge problem. I've spoken to their Prime Minister, to Justin. Great guy, good looking young fellow. Handsome. He could do daytime TV, the soaps. I think he'd get good ratings, because he has the looks. Or The View, he could host The View. They need someone because they fired Rosie O'Donnell. Very smart move, firing her. She's disgusting! But what Justin is doing is not great for us, it's not great for the U.S.A. And frankly, it's not great for Canada either. Because he's totally lost control over their immigration. Folks, the people they're sending us are a huge, huge problem. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing Islam. They're bringing softwood lumber. They're destroying our industry, totally killing our economy. I promised the American people that I would cancel NAFTA, which is a big part of our Canadian problem. But another big part is the border. We've got to control our Canadian border. But to do it with a wall, it has to be a big, big wall. And we might not be able to, because there are glaciers. Very hard to engineer, because of the glaciers. My advisors tell me that it's very difficult to melt those glaciers. And very difficult to build a wall with those glaciers around. Because the glaciers could knock it over. I asked if we can use our nuclear weapons, our terrific nuclear weapons, to melt the glaciers. They said it would work, but it would be bad for my ratings. I'm the most popular President ever, and I don't want to lose that. So we might have to do the virtual wall. But we have to do it right. So my staff are looking into it. We might do it with huge lasers, we might do it with electricity, we might do it with land mines, or maybe machine guns. But we have to get control of our border -- of all our borders. Get control over who goes in and out. Build a kill zone. Like the bug zappers at Mar-a-Lago. Not necessarily an electric zapper, but we need a zapper. And this virtual wall, the great thing about it, one of the great things about it, is it's got cameras. When we zap, we can get footage of that, and make a show out of it. Or license the footage. Like The Running Man. Not a very bad movie, even though it had Arnold in it. I like movies without Arnold, but he didn't completely ruin The Running Man. Like that, but better because it's real. #TrumpTV
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:47AM (2 children)
Let's say that you created such a LIDAR-based [or sophisticated movement sensor] wall of say, half a mile, depth. Try the following: take your group of immigrants onto a part of the border where border guards are only passing every 2 hours or so. Cross into the United States, then return. Do this a couple of nights. The well-educated guards will decide that there's something wrong with the sensors on that part of the border. The next time you cross into the US, guards won't even call in the drone/satellite anymore to track you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @09:36AM
The point is not to stop anybody from crossing but to extract preferably hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars for building this boondoggle.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:43PM
Or they'll decide someone is deliberately doing that and be waiting. Cat and mouse has all sorts of exciting possibilities. But really, most of this would be shut down by punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants. They would after all be the ones with something to lose. Don't need a wall then.