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from the what-happens-underground-stays-underground dept.
girlwhowaspluggedout writes:
"The US Border Patrol has a new tool in its battle against the tunnels that are used to smuggle in drugs from Mexico. Since the cartels' diggers operate outside the range of the agency's cameras, motions detectors, and drones, and because filling the tunnels with concrete hasn't stopped the smugglers, the US Border Patrol now regularly employs robots to search through the underground drug trafficking routes.
The Border Patrol operates four remote-controlled robots along the US-Mexico border. Three of the four are assigned to its station in Nogales, Arizona, the final destination for most of the tunnels that have been discovered so far near the southern border. The agency's robots, which include Applied Research Associates' Pointman Tactical Robot and Inuktun Services' Versatrax 300, can easily fit in closed quarters. The tunnel that the Border Patrol shut down last month, for example though it was equipped with electric lighting, ventilation fans, and wood shoring was only 3 feet and high 2 feet wide. It spanned a whopping 481 feet, the largest tunnel discovered in Nogales by the Border Patrol.
The robots' ability to travel through areas where the air is unsafe to breath for extended periods is especially valuable in Nogales, AZ, whose popularity with drug smugglers is due to its sewer system, which is easily accessible from the adjacent city of Heroica Nogales, Mexico."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by elf on Tuesday February 25 2014, @09:19AM
Could they not just use Radar on their side of the border and just locate tunnel exits using sound waves? Its great that they re using robots to map out the tunnels but their main aim is just to find all the end points. If you had an array of sonar equipment spread over the border you could easily find out where the new tunnels are and shut them down.
Actually looks like they tried this in 2009
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/07/01/ border-patrol-agents-to-spot-tunnels-with-advanced -ground-penetrating-radar [usnews.com]
I guess it didn't work so well!
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday February 25 2014, @10:04AM
GPR is no joke technologically. The powers required are crazy, the antenna size to get decent resolution is crazy, the T/R switch speeds required are crazy. Its pretty cutting edge as it is so no great surprise that trying to "GI proof" and miniaturize it are not going well.
Better idea is use traditional geologist seismic detection. And if the explosions collapse a few tunnels, well, what of it?
The most effective, cheapest, and safest way to end smuggling and pyramids of severed heads and all that would just be to legalize it. Legalize it all. For the harmless stuff there's no harm so who cares, and for the harmful stuff speed Darwinism along its inevitable course. Too many people in power making too much money on both sides, of course.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TheLink on Tuesday February 25 2014, @12:01PM
They put small timers in jail for laundering magnitudes less (or for installing secret compartments into cars), but when it's billions, the banks just get fines they can bear. Who in HSBC, Wachovia, etc is in jail for laundering all that money?
Without those billions of laundered money the piles of severed heads would be much smaller - not as much money to pay for all the armies and wars. Those bankers and their friends really have blood on their hands.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:23PM
Of course they don't want to stop it, dry up their cash cow? The people who are vehemently against legalizing and regulating drugs are those who profit from their illegality. I wonder how much campaign cash has been funneled to US politicians by the cartels, who would be out of business if drugs were legal? Or by bankers who launder the drug money? Or owners of private prisons?
Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:30PM
and for the harmful stuff speed Darwinism along its inevitable course
http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/ christmas-carol/chapter-01.html [literature.org]
"If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
wow...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday February 25 2014, @11:00AM
Locating the exit points may be harder than it seems, since many of the tunnels mentioned in TFA have their exit points in a residential areas -- in houses and even in back yard sheds [ice.gov].
And what do you do with the tunnels once you discover their exit points? The Egyptians and the Israelis have been playing a never ending game of cat-and-mouse with Hamas's Gaza Strip tunnels for a number of years now. They, too, use ground penetrating radar and other such devices. But if they just destroy their exit points, Hamas simply "renovates" the tunnels starting from the middle areas [wikipedia.org]. Now, you can flood them with water, or pour concrete into them, but to make sure the tunnels are done for -- and empty of contraband, since they may also be used as temporary storage -- I guess you still need to send someone or something in.
Soylent is the best disinfectant.
(Score: 4, Funny) by anyanka on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:11PM
This is precisely the sort of case where you'd hire a merry band of adventurers to clear out the dungeons.
(Score: 5, Funny) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:18PM
And that is precisely the sort of case where you'd install falling spikes, bear traps, and giant spiders to guard your cocai... your treasure.
Usted ha sido comido por un grue.
Soylent is the best disinfectant.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:13PM
Mark all enterances to the tunnel easily once you find it, just by filling it full of smoke and pumping air into it. Either that or a single stick of dynamite.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday February 25 2014, @04:53PM
Soylent is the best disinfectant.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:09PM
And instead of filling the tunnels with concrete, why not just a couple sticks of dynamite. It will collapse the tunnel and mark both ends for you.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.