When Donald Trump signed the spending bill two weeks ago, he did so reluctantly. The bill did not include funding for his much-promised border wall, an oversight he said made him consider vetoing it. Yet, in the end, the $1.3 trillion spending bill was palatable to him because it did include a $1.6 billion increase to border security funding—money that will mostly go toward increased surveillance technology.
Most Americans probably do not think much about these technologies, but they have been increasingly a reality of life at the border since 9/11, when Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was folded into the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Border security used to be about undocumented immigration and drug smuggling. Now the border is a central theater of national security. But blurring the distinction between home and abroad does not erase the border—quite the opposite, it expands it.
Read Full Article »