Are we encouraging lawlessness? A group of University of California San Diego artists and instructors want to make it safer for illegal aliens to cross the border into the United States. They are developing GPS enabled cell phones that tell Mexicans and others coming from the south where to find water and other supplies while poetry, like the words of Emma Lazarus (give us your huddled masses) encourages their illegal actions as it plays over the cell phone application. It's called the Transborder Immigration Tool.

"It's about giving water to somebody who's dying in the desert of dehydration," said Micha Cardenas, 32, a UCSD lecturer.

If it’s so dangerous maybe you should encourage them to stay at home Ms. Cardenas. How would you like me to develop an application that hunts down professors and college instructors that encourage Mexicans to break the law and come into this country illegally? Something tells me you would challenge the laws and have me arrested for threatening you with such an application, wouldn’t you? Of course, it’s perfectly find for you to encourage other people to break the law.

Guess who is paying for this cell phone application? That’s right, the state of California, who pays the salaries of these instructors. The same state begging for billions in bailout money by the other 49. Of course part of their debt comes from the illegal alien problem. The designers also received $15,000 from a UCSD grant.

"There are many, many areas in which every American would say I don't like the way my tax dollars are being spent. Our answer to that is an in-your-face, so what?" says UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum, 33, a designer of the application. (I guess that's a big FU to every taxpayer in America, right Brett? All so you can break the law at the taxpayer's expense.)

The water stations that GPS will lead to are placed in the desert by John Hunter, who has been assisting illegal aliens across the border since the late 1990s. Why isn’t this man in jail? He sets up nearly 150 different watering stations for illegal aliens every year. If I conspire to commit a crime in this country, I am just as guilty as the person to commits the actual crime. Why is an exception made here?

"My concern is for people who arrive and find (the water) doesn't exist," Hunter says of the cell phone plan. He deals with the threat of American patriots who hope to secure the border destroying his water stations. Kudos to the people helping make crossing the border harder!

They hope to have their cell phone application to help illegal aliens across the border by the summer, and they are using the idea of academic and art freedom to defend their product. I am with Andrew Wilkow here. Why stop there? If this is what academic freedom is about why not iPhone applications for child molesters and rapists to help them break the law easier. You know, in the name of academic freedom.

My hope is the US Border Patrol is smarter than academia. If they are they will download this application and start arresting illegals as they drink.

http://bungalowbillscw.blogspot.com/2009/12/university-of-california-helping.html

Twisted brains. -- Twisted policies. -- Misuse of tax money. “Common sense is not so common,” but madness is.

its called anarchy . no one feels they have a need to comply with the laws of our country . in street language there RATS . but there is a law that if you could get a government to enforce it . its aiding and abetting . its a felony . but the government doesn't care what we want . that's the reason we are being over run by illegals . and the big lie they say is that they only take jobs we don't want . they are entrenched in our government taking very good jobs .

Can this tool also be used to sneak into the US from across the Atlantic? Is it for sale? Would love to have it

Why should they comply when Hussein won't even have the Laws enforced?

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I got one for you . $5000. cash up front and you pay all your own fees ..

Just get you a job on a cargo ship. When it gets here, jump ship. It's easy to get lost in a crowd.
I worked the docks on Ms. and Wa. State. Used to buy russian cigs when the crew debarked to go shopping in town.

Is that a rhetorical question?? We've been encouraging lawlessness for MANY, MANY years now.



They won't be allowed to. That would be considered ' profiling '.

The ACLU would be all OVER the Border patrol if they did that.

SAN DIEGO – A group of California artists wants Mexicans and Central Americans to have more than just a few cans of tuna and a jug of water for their illegal trek through the harsh desert into the U.S.

Faculty at University of California, San Diego are developing a GPS-enabled cell phone that tells dehydrated migrants where to find water and pipes in poetry from phone speakers, regaling them on their journey much like Emma Lazarus' words did a century ago to the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" on Ellis Island.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool is part technology endeavor, part art project. It introduces a high-tech twist to an old debate about how far activists can go to prevent migrants from dying on the border without breaking the law.

Immigration hardliners argue the activists are aiding illegal entry to the United States, a felony. Even migrants and their sympathizers question whether the device will make the treacherous journeys easier.

The designers — three visual artists on UCSD's faculty and an English professor at the University of Michigan — are undeterred as they criticize a U.S. policy they say embraces illegal immigrants for cheap labor while letting them die crossing the border.

"It's about giving water to somebody who's dying in the desert of dehydration," said Micha Cardenas, 32, a UCSD lecturer.

The effort is being done on the government's dime — an irony not lost on the designers whose salaries are paid by the state of California.

"There are many, many areas in which every American would say I don't like the way my tax dollars are being spent. Our answer to that is an in-your-face, so what?" says UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum, 33, a self-described news junkie who likens his role to chief technology officer.

Migrants walk for days in extreme heat, often eating tuna and crackers handed out at migrant shelters in Mexico. On Arizona ranches, they sip desperately from bins used by cows when their water runs out.

Hundreds have perished each year since heightened U.S. border enforcement pushed migrants out of large cities like San Diego and El Paso, Texas, in the 1990s. In response, migrant sympathizers put jugs or even barrels of water in the desert.

The designers want to load inexpensive phones with GPS software that takes signals from satellite, independent of phone networks. Pressing a menu button displays water stations, with the distance to each. A user selects one and follows an arrow on the screen.

Some worry the software could lead migrants to damaged or abandoned water stations. Others wonder if it would lull them into a false sense of security or alert the Border Patrol and anti-illegal immigration activists to their whereabouts.

John Hunter, who has planted water barrels in California's scorching Imperial Valley since the late 1990s, says vandals destroy about 40 of his 150 stations every year.

"My concern is for people who arrive and find (the water) doesn't exist," he says.

Luis Jimenez, 47, was abandoned by smugglers and rescued by the Border Patrol twice this year — once after hitting his head on a rock and again after being bit by a snake. The Salvadoran migrant, who hopes to reach family in Los Angeles, would try the GPS device but can't afford one.

"If it tells you where to find water, it's good," he said at a Tijuana, Mexico, migrant shelter.

The phone designers say they are addressing the concerns, with an eye toward having the phone ready by midsummer.

"We don't want to create a safety tool that actually puts people in more danger," Stalbaum says.

The water locations beamed to the phones will be updated constantly to ensure accuracy. If the distance is too far, they won't appear on the screen.

The designers, who have raised $15,000 from a UCSD grant and an art festival award, hope to hand out phones for free in Mexico. The phones sell used for about $30 apiece. It costs nothing to add the GPS software.

Distribution would be tightly controlled by migrant shelters and advocacy groups to keep them away from anti-illegal immigration activists. The migrants would need passwords to use them.

U.S. authorities are unfazed. The Border Patrol has begun a $6.7-billion plan to drape the border with whiz-bang cameras, sensors and other technology.

"It's nothing new," said Border Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott. "We've seen handheld GPS devices used by smugglers. ... We're just going to have to learn to adapt to any challenges."

Critics of illegal immigration say the device is misguided, at best.

"If it's not a crime, it's very close to committing a crime," said Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego. "Whether this constitutes aiding and abetting would depend on the details, but it certainly puts you in the discussion."

The software is being designed to direct migrants to water stations but Cardenas said they may add other "safety markers," like roads, towns and Border Patrol lookouts.

The group has published verses to be played on the phone's "Global Poetic System."

One poem reads, "May your tracks cut the shortest distance between points A and B."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091229/ap_on_re_us/us_border_gps;_ylt=
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No that would be good law enforcement!

One day California will break off and sink into the ocean.If I see it in my lifetime I will consider it a honor.California should be annexed from Sacramento to San diego and given to Mexico.California cares more about illegals then it does American citizens born and raised here so I would gladly give California the boot and banish it from the United states for treason.

Yes. Yes it would.

BUT....the ACLU < the anyone BUT American Civil Liberties Union > would say it's a " violation of their human rights " and file a lawsuit against the Border patrol.

the thought of suing to protect an illegal act boggles my mind

Pretty bizarre, eh??

But that is EXACTLY what would happen.

I know it would probably happen...I just don't see how. doesn't the coming to court with "clean hands" come into play there?

and how would it be a violation of their human rights? I'm confused on that one too

The basic idea would be < from the ACLU standpoint > that the " Human Rights " of the illegals would be violated by either denying them water, or by arresting them when they stop to drink.

It would be " inhumane " to stop them from illegally entering this country when " all they were looking for was a drink of water ".

I think it depends upon whether that 'water' is on American soil or Mexican.

What happened to aiding and abetting a criminal? Last time I looked it was against the law to help someone in the commission of a crime!!!!! They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law!!!!!!

The head of DHS is failing to enforce the law. Same as her boss.