Border watchdog group keeping tabs on government progress
Sep 10, 2007 06:20 PM
KVOA News
Tucson
With the start of an engine, a government watchdog group takes to the skies.
“We've heard all this talk about beefing up the border,” says Glenn Spencer with the American Border Patrol, a non profit group. “So we want the American people to know: where's the beef?”
It's called “Operation: BEEF”– Border Enforcement Evaluation First– and they watch the border from above.
“This allows us to get a fairly smooth video regardless of what our turbulence might be,” says American Border Patrol's Mike King, referring to an HD video camera.
Their plane is outfitted with high tech cameras, radios and GPS. It allows them to see what's happening on the border below.
“Where's the fence, what kind of fence, and what progress they're making,” according to Spencer.
From their surveillance they make maps and send video to members of Congress. Glenn says their work is already being noticed.
“It was used in the actual debate over the amnesty bill, to help defeat it, because the government wasn't making progress.”
It's all part of one group's effort to make the border more secure by keeping an eye and a camera on government progress.
Glenn and his crew try and fly the thousand miles between El Paso and San Diego about once a month to update their data.
