ICE Has a Help Wanted Sign Out for Border Security

If one is a fan of a sure film franchise that includes a sure Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor, one may keep in mind that it was on this day in 1997 that Skynet attained self-awareness, began to be taught at a logarithmic charge, and ultimately determined to end humanity in what was called Judgment Day. 

Well, clearly, that never occurred. But robots are half of the future, and it appears no person is more conscious of that than Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a component, we realized on Saturday, is beginning the method to purchase Boston Dynamics’ four-legged SPOT robots to help with border security. Here’s what they’re proposing:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is accountable for eliminating vulnerabilities in the nation’s border, and with supporting financial, transportation and infrastructure security. DHS will secure the national border while welcoming lawful immigrants, guests, and commerce. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a requirement to buy Boston Dynamics SPOT Robots and equipment assist public security and law enforcement operations by offering a remotely operated robotic functionality for inspection, situational awareness, and hazard evaluation in environments that could pose dangers to personnel. This functionality helps improve officer security, helps informed operational decision-making, and enhances DHS’s capacity to reply to incidents involving harmful, confined, unstable, or difficult-to-access areas.

Note that an “Acquisition Planning Forecast,” as this doc is, is only a plan; these are routinely either revised or canceled as they proceed through the method.

A robot, one with good surveillance capabilities and the power to negotiate tough terrain, could also be just what the doctor ordered for the nation around our southern border, or the northern one, for that matter. These machines need only common upkeep; they do not take smoke breaks, they do not have to go to the lavatory, and they do not have households to go home to at the end of the day.  

These robots could show useful certainly.

Spot is a dog-sized robot that walks on 4 legs and might be fitted with cameras, sensors and an arm. Police and fire companies have used related machines to examine suspected explosive devices, enter buildings during standoffs and survey hazardous websites.

Boston Dynamics markets the robots to public security companies and says it’s “committed to partnering with first responders, police departments, fire brigades, military or government agencies charged with keeping the public safe.” Its phrases of use prohibit clients from utilizing its merchandise “as weapons, or to enable weapons, or to harm or intimidate any person or animal.” The company has also signed an industry pledge against weaponizing general-purpose robots.

That last half is a tad disappointing, but this is a police, not a navy, software.

So far, ICE has been very terse in what they intend to use these robots for, other than “inspection, situational awareness, and hazard assessment.” All that boils down to “reconnaissance,” actually, and that’s not an inappropriate use of a robot. While drones have the benefits of being quicker and having the aptitude of clean overhead imaging, they’re also fragile and susceptible to ground fire. A robot, suitably painted to mix into its environment, is more probably to have the opportunity to conduct an inconspicuous reconnaissance of a given space. Layered recons are always a good plan.

These also would appear to be useful in confrontations or arrests. Even if one of these machines have been uncovered to fire, that very probably means there’s an officer who was not uncovered to fire. Police departments are utilizing them to enter contested buildings, to examine doable improvised explosives or booby traps, and look over any other doable hazard. That’s one thing that could nicely in any other case have to be finished by an officer. Better or not it’s a robot that will get blown up if issues go unsuitable.

And maybe they may even be given radio capability, so that an officer may communicate to somebody through the machine, a function that’s routine enough already in tiny home and business security cameras. If they do, it could be inconceivable for an operator, at least once, to say to somebody, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Editor’s Note: ICE and CBP continue to put themselves in hurt’s means in order to defend America’s sovereignty and to keep our streets protected. 

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