Border Patrol Agent Lee Albee explains how the new Mobile Surveillance System works. Cameras are mounted on a pole that  extends 18 feet high and does an 180-degree sweep every ten seconds.

High-tech units allow areas to be scanned quickly

RYN GARGULINSKI

U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed off its high-tech tool Friday to combat smugglers, bandits and others looking to illegally hop the border.
The Mobile Surveillance System made its public debut Friday at a news conference at Tucson sector headquarters, 2430 S. Swan Road. It uses radar and cameras to scan the terrain for illegal activity.
"Before, it was like looking through a straw," Chief Patrol Agent Robert Gilbert said of sweeping a swath of the desert through telescopes or binoculars. "An agent would have limited distance."
"Now the radar can do a 180-degree sweep of an area every 10 seconds."
The front of the unit resembles a pickup, while the back is equipped with an adjustable 18-foot mast containing a radar detection device and a day and night vision camera.
The Border Patrol can position it anywhere it's needed to sweep terrain. The radar can pinpoint movement in a seven-mile range, while agents in the unit home can see what it is.
Once the activity is identified, Patrol units can be sent out to deal with it, Gilbert said.
A laser beam, invisible to the naked eye, can also be directed on any activity for agents with night vision goggles to pursue.
All radar activity can be viewed on a screen that can keep track of one individual or several groups at one time, he said.
The unit, which has been in use for about a year, has taken three years and a partnership with the U.S. Army to get to this advanced stage.
The Border Patrol has 23 of the units, 10 to 13 of which are deployed daily. The goal is to have 40 of these units, which cost $500,000 each, throughout the United States.
Several factors already indicate the unit is highly effective, Gilbert said.
Marijuana seizures for the first 15 days of 2009 have nearly doubled from the same period last year, the chief said. They were up to 48,000 pounds from 26,000 pounds.
Apprehensions are down, which Gilbert said shows it's a deterrent. For the first several months of fiscal year 2009, from Oct. 1 through Jan. 15, apprehensions dropped to just below 48,000, down from more than 60,000 for the same period the previous year, he said.
One more test of the unit's effectiveness came when agents hooked up a mock Mobile Surveillance System and placed it in San Rafael Valley.
"They took the oldest flatbed, a broken telescope, tubes off a space heater," Gilbert said.
When the mock unit was in place, he said, area activity decreased dramatically.
"It's a huge deterrent," Gilbert said. The surveillance system is not meant to replace the virtual fence, but rather fill in any gaps.
It also saves agents time. "We can spend more time interdicting illegal activity and less time looking for illegal activity," said Agent L.A. Albee.
"Back in the day, we would be following footprints," said Agent Michael Scioli. While that tactic is still used, it's no longer the sole means of tracking fugitives and others in the desert.
When Gilbert started with the Border Patrol 24 years ago, the most advanced equipment consisted of twilight scopes and other Vietnam-era military surplus.
"Is this the end-all to the border problems? No," he said. "But it's one more tool, a good tool."