MIT Technology Review Investigation Documents Hundreds of Deaths in Zones Watched by U.S. Border Surveillance Towers
An MIT Technology Review investigation documents hundreds of deaths in areas watched by U.S. border surveillance towers it says failed to intercept them.
The United States has spent billions of dollars over the past 25 years building the "virtual wall," a network of surveillance towers along its southern border, and has presented the system as a way to help detect and apprehend border crossers and to save lives. According to the publication, people moved through terrain covered by those towers and were neither reached nor apprehended, and some died in those same areas. Some were under the watch of newly installed AI-powered towers designed to spot people automatically, MIT Technology Review reported.
The publication said its findings point to repeated failures of the virtual wall's basic security promise. It also published an account of how it assembled the first comprehensive map of deaths along the U.S. border's "virtual wall," and a separate piece examining why billions of dollars spent on border surveillance have not allowed people to be caught before they die.
In another related article, MIT Technology Review set out four ways to address the failures it identified along the border's virtual wall.
The investigation is the subject of a roundtable held by the publication, with editor in chief Mat Honan in conversation with senior AI reporter James O'Donnell and senior reporter for features and investigations Eileen Guo. MIT Technology Review lists executive editor Niall Firth, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins as speakers.