Tower Of Power

The Arivaca Spy Tower

"ARIVACA, Ariz.—C Hues has vowed to moon it. Phil Benoit calls it a "search without probable cause." Jim Chilton has demanded a written statement that the radar won't harm his health—or his cows. That's just a sampling of the reaction this quirky town of 2,500 has had to the surveillance tower the Department of Homeland Security has erected on Tres Bellotas Road on the southern edge of town;
It's part of a "virtual wall" of technology that DHS wants to extend across the entire southern border of Arizona by the end of next year."

It seems like a dry run for enhanced spying on US citizens down in the town of Arivaca, Arizona. It's billed as a tool for stopping the flow of illegals but it's twelve miles from the border, with mountains blocking it's view. It's only a mile away from Arivaca though, and at about a hundred feet tall is pointed straight at the town.

It's part of a dept. of a homeland security project:

"Boeing Co. will earn $67 million to administer the so-called "Project 28" in Arizona, which it will use to evaluate the SBInet and improve it for implementation along 6,000 miles of northern and southern border. The final costs of the project are unknown, but experts have predicted it could cost about $2 billion over six years.

Program managers arrived in Arizona last week to begin planning and are aiming for spring rollout of tower-mounted sensors, cameras, radars and satellite communication that officials believe will allow Border Patrol agents to cover more ground, said Robert Villanueva, Boeing Co. spokesman.
"We are going to arm them with data information they never really had before," Villanueva said."

It could be that the idea to actually build a fence or a wall along the border with Mexico was scrapped and they're going to go all high tech with facilities like this instead, and that's whats got concerned citizens very pissed off. Even though it's supposedly not operational yet, without consulting them the tower will use "radar, infrared, lasers, microwave, iris biometrics and facial biometrics." It's already disrupting the town's internet connection as it uses the same frequencies. No word yet if Aravica will be buzzed with low flying suveillance drones. The environmental assessment for the project turned out to be a sick joke that got rammed through in the dead of night.

Just a word about who's working on this thing. Boeing is co-contracting with Elbit Systems of Israel, the wonderful folks who are involved in building the 500 mile long apartheid wall in Palestine. And a subdidiary of Boeing - Jeppesen DataPlan - is involved with those rendition flights to ferry prisoners for torture in compliant countries. After years of deliberately ignoring the southern border and creating a tempest of resentment, these are the folks tasked with "providing security" for the United States. Don't you feel all warm and fuzzy? But that's probably just the microwave emissions.