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This article is a little schizophrenic. It calls the cameras "wasteful" and "snake oil", yet the referenced NBC article calls them "a crucial tool". It quotes r

This article is a little schizophrenic. It calls the cameras "wasteful" and "snake oil", yet the referenced NBC article calls them "a crucial tool". It quotes reports about failures of old systems from Boeing and General Dynamics, then implies without evidence that the same criticisms apply to the newer Anduril "AST" systems. There is no allegation that the AST systems are broken at all.

refulgentis 2y ago
In the NBC article, "crucial tool" is a non-technical phrase by the article writer, it is not the memo. [1] The EFF article's expressed intent is first, that there's a history that goes beyond the NBC report. Then, that the history shows reports written by various governmental & non-governmental entities that the tools are not effective. I'm genuinely curious why that felt schizophrenic. ex. to me, even if "crucial tool" was in a government memo, I'm not sure why the EFF would be schizophrenic for disputing that. [1] "Nearly one-third of the cameras in the Border Patrol’s primary surveillance system along the southern U.S. border are not working, according to an internal agency memo sent in early October, depriving border agents of a crucial tool in combating illegal migrant crossings."
- vkou 2y ago
  One third of cameras not working might mean that there is no camera coverage (because the only working cameras are all pointed at a single storage shed), or it might mean that there is 100% coverage (because of redundancies in coverage.) Its a data point, but without further context, you can't draw meaningful conclusions. If I were to take a wild guess, one third of all security cameras in the world are probably not fit for purpose, and yet, the world keeps adding more and more of them. Smile, comrade.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    I'm replying to reinforce that I'm curious about the schizophrenic interpretation. I don't think working through this further conversations or sheds light. IMHO it creates the same problem as the initial comment, though the avenue is different ("its too confusing to discuss because the EFF says they're ineffective, but the NBC article contains 'crucial tool" vs. "its not worth discussing because the memo in the NBC article can't be trusted, broken could mean anything")
    - vkou 2y ago
      I think you just have to accept that without an actual deep dive into this, you're not going to get the information necessary to have anything more than a vague 'someone told me something about something once' opinion. It's one thing to argue about results, it's another thing to argue about the minutia of the process that gets those results, and who's at fault for what, and which parts of it need to be fixed up, and which are just not a large priority. You don't need to be a subject matter expert to know that your city had a power outage, and be pissed about it. You do need to be one, in order to have an informed opinion on how to best prevent the next one.
- throwme2024 2y ago
  > I'm not sure why the EFF would be schizophrenic for disputing that. They don't dispute that. That's what's so weird. The argument boils down to "historic border surveillance tools have been pork-barrel debacles, therefore all border surveillance tools are bad," but the article doesn't even manage to draw a line from the past, cancelled programs to the current program.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    (labelling people A and B, because 1) there'd be layers of >, 2) I want to signal I'm not curious about you and me or a verbal battle, just how someone else reads the article in a way where EFF does not discuss if they are crucial tools) A: "I'm not sure why the EFF would be schizophrenic for disputing [that the program is a crucial tool]" B: "They don't dispute that"..."the argument boils down to "historic border surveillance tools have been pork-barrel debacles" B's two clauses seemed to me to be in direct contradiction at first blush. Ex. "debacles", seems to indicate awareness that they were not "crucial tools" My steelmanning is that debacle is only meant to cover they were costly. There's numerous bits of the article that go beyond cost. The EFF article cites, inter alia, GAO[1], DHS[2], and RAND[3] saying it wasn't shown to be effective. [1] In 2017, the GAO complained the Border Patrol's poor data quality made the agency "limited in its ability to determine the mission benefits of its surveillance technologies. In one case, Border Patrol stations in the Rio Grande Valley claimed IFTs assisted in 500 cases in just six months. The problem with that assertion was there are no IFTs in Texas or, in fact, anywhere outside Arizona." [2] CBP is not well-equipped to assess its technology effectiveness to respond to these deficiencies. CBP has been aware of this challenge since at least 2017 but lacks a standard process and accurate data to overcome it. [3] RAND Corporation published a study funded by DHS that found "strong evidence" the IFT program was having no impact on apprehension levels at the border

refulgentis 2y ago

In the NBC article, "crucial tool" is a non-technical phrase by the article writer, it is not the memo. [1] The EFF article's expressed intent is first, that there's a history that goes beyond the NBC report. Then, that the history shows reports written by various governmental & non-governmental entities that the tools are not effective. I'm genuinely curious why that felt schizophrenic. ex. to me, even if "crucial tool" was in a government memo, I'm not sure why the EFF would be schizophrenic for disputing that. [1] "Nearly one-third of the cameras in the Border Patrol’s primary surveillance system along the southern U.S. border are not working, according to an internal agency memo sent in early October, depriving border agents of a crucial tool in combating illegal migrant crossings."

vkou 2y ago
One third of cameras not working might mean that there is no camera coverage (because the only working cameras are all pointed at a single storage shed), or it might mean that there is 100% coverage (because of redundancies in coverage.) Its a data point, but without further context, you can't draw meaningful conclusions. If I were to take a wild guess, one third of all security cameras in the world are probably not fit for purpose, and yet, the world keeps adding more and more of them. Smile, comrade.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I'm replying to reinforce that I'm curious about the schizophrenic interpretation. I don't think working through this further conversations or sheds light. IMHO it creates the same problem as the initial comment, though the avenue is different ("its too confusing to discuss because the EFF says they're ineffective, but the NBC article contains 'crucial tool" vs. "its not worth discussing because the memo in the NBC article can't be trusted, broken could mean anything")
  - vkou 2y ago
    I think you just have to accept that without an actual deep dive into this, you're not going to get the information necessary to have anything more than a vague 'someone told me something about something once' opinion. It's one thing to argue about results, it's another thing to argue about the minutia of the process that gets those results, and who's at fault for what, and which parts of it need to be fixed up, and which are just not a large priority. You don't need to be a subject matter expert to know that your city had a power outage, and be pissed about it. You do need to be one, in order to have an informed opinion on how to best prevent the next one.
throwme2024 2y ago
> I'm not sure why the EFF would be schizophrenic for disputing that. They don't dispute that. That's what's so weird. The argument boils down to "historic border surveillance tools have been pork-barrel debacles, therefore all border surveillance tools are bad," but the article doesn't even manage to draw a line from the past, cancelled programs to the current program.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  (labelling people A and B, because 1) there'd be layers of >, 2) I want to signal I'm not curious about you and me or a verbal battle, just how someone else reads the article in a way where EFF does not discuss if they are crucial tools) A: "I'm not sure why the EFF would be schizophrenic for disputing [that the program is a crucial tool]" B: "They don't dispute that"..."the argument boils down to "historic border surveillance tools have been pork-barrel debacles" B's two clauses seemed to me to be in direct contradiction at first blush. Ex. "debacles", seems to indicate awareness that they were not "crucial tools" My steelmanning is that debacle is only meant to cover they were costly. There's numerous bits of the article that go beyond cost. The EFF article cites, inter alia, GAO[1], DHS[2], and RAND[3] saying it wasn't shown to be effective. [1] In 2017, the GAO complained the Border Patrol's poor data quality made the agency "limited in its ability to determine the mission benefits of its surveillance technologies. In one case, Border Patrol stations in the Rio Grande Valley claimed IFTs assisted in 500 cases in just six months. The problem with that assertion was there are no IFTs in Texas or, in fact, anywhere outside Arizona." [2] CBP is not well-equipped to assess its technology effectiveness to respond to these deficiencies. CBP has been aware of this challenge since at least 2017 but lacks a standard process and accurate data to overcome it. [3] RAND Corporation published a study funded by DHS that found "strong evidence" the IFT program was having no impact on apprehension levels at the border