Thread: CELL PHONE TOOL TO HELP ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

REGION: Cell phone tool could help illegal immigrants

UCSD professor says his device would avoid deaths at the border

By EDWARD SIFUENTES - esifuentes@nctimes.com |

Posted: Saturday, November 28, 2009 5:25 pm | (27) Comments

A UC San Diego professor said he has developed a cell phone tool that may help guide illegal immigrants safely across the border.

Similar to the way hungry drivers can find a restaurant through the global positioning system devices in their cars and cell phones, illegal immigrants soon may be able to plot their ways across the treacherous border between the United States and Mexico.

"It shares some aspects of the GPS systems that people have in cars," said Ricardo Dominguez, a professor of visual arts at UC San Diego. "It locates where you are in relation to where you want to go, what is the best way to get to that point and what you can expect when you reach the endpoint."

Dominguez, an activist and artist, said the reason for developing the technology, which he calls the Transborder Immigrant Tool, is to keep people safe.

Hundreds of people die each year trying to cross the border illegally, according to civil rights groups and authorities on both sides of the border. Many get lost or are abandoned by smugglers in the mountains and deserts east of San Diego.

An estimated 3,861 to 5,607 people have died trying to cross the border over the last 15 years, according to a report released in September and produced by the American Civil Liberties Union and Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights.

"The primary goal of the tool is to offer those crossing a way not to die," Dominguez said.

Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego who now teaches immigration policy at the University of San Diego, said people who distribute these kinds of devices could be committing a crime because they are helping people come into the country illegally.

"If I drive you over and show you where to cross, that's a crime," Nunez said. "If I'm standing at the border and help you climb over, that's a crime. Theoretically, if you could give them a map, whether it's hand-drawn or computerized, that would also be illegal."

However, authorities are unlikely to go after people who provide these devices because it would be a difficult case to prove in court, Nunez said. It is nevertheless wrong, he added.

"You have to wonder why anyone in the U.S. would want to help someone else break the law," Nunez said. "I find that unconscionable."

One prominent immigrant rights advocate said he sees it differently.

Enrique Morones, whose group the Border Angels places water in the desert for migrants to drink, said undocumented people will come across the border, regardless of the new electronic device or his water stations.

"No one has ever crossed the border for a drink of water," Morones said. "And no one will come because now there is this device out there."

Dominguez said he began developing the tool two years ago, when a fellow professor told him about a device he was working on that helps hikers find their way. Dominguez also began discussing the project with Morones.

Dominguez said he would like to include the location of Morones' water stations and other information that would help illegal immigrants stay safe.

Working with fellow academics, Dominguez said he has been able to install the application on inexpensive Motorola phones. Eventually, he said, he would like to distribute the application free through the Internet to be installed on different kinds of phones.

The phones also could be distributed through church groups and migrant rights organizations, he said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego said the use of GPS-type devices among smugglers is not new. Agents have seen smugglers use the machines to plot their routes across the border, said Border Patrol Agent Mark Endicott.

"It doesn't affect our enforcement posture," he said. "We have seen hand-held GPS devices that have smuggling routes in the memory. Our approach is to continue to be vigilant."

Jeff Schwilk, who heads the North County-based anti-illegal immigration group San Diego Minutemen, said he sees a potentially more dangerous use for the device.

"This cheap app can and will be used by Mexican drug cartels, drug and human smugglers and foreign criminals to commit their crimes on the American side of the border," Schwilk said. "When that happens, Dominguez may be subject to felony aiding and abetting charges."

Dominguez said he expects that kind of criticism from anti-illegal immigration groups.

"The Minutemen groups will criticize anyone or anything that attempts to create another view, another passage, about the border that is not one of hard borders and evil immigrants destroying the country," Dominguez said.

Call staff writer Edward Sifuentes at 760-740-3511 760-740-3511.

NORTH COUNTY TIMES

How nice ( sarcasm) that illegals have a new tool to help them better invade OUR country.

Over the past two decades, Ricardo Dominguez has been utilizing electronics and the internet to piss off just about every high-level administrative authority in the US. In the late 90s, his performance-art-cum-activist organization the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) set up a participatory website-jamming network called the FloodNet system, which allowed anyone with an internet connection to gum up the official sites of the US Border Patrol, White House, G8, Mexican embassy, and others, rendering them inaccessible. The Department of Justice retaliated with an electronic attack on the EDT that aimed to destabilize the group and interrupt their online meddling. As any conspiracy wonk can tell you, it’s illegal for the government to use military force against civilians without declaring martial law; that’s the job of cops and FBI agents.




Ricardo Dominguez is very happy that the Border Patrol considers him a nuisance. (Photo by Brett Stalbaum)

Dominguez, a Zapatista sympathizer and close friend of Subcomandante Marcos, claims the various forms of online mischief conducted by the EDT were experiments in electronic civil disobedience rather than true acts of sabotage. Their work led to massive virtual and physical sit-ins protesting the Mexican government between ’98 and ’99, attracting more than 100,000 participants. But his current project—the Transborder Immigrant Tool—is poised to enrage a much broader spectrum of the North American populace. By augmenting a low-cost Motorola phone with GPS and a battery of applications, Dominguez’s goal is to help illegal immigrants complete safe border crossings without being sent back by the Border Patrol or getting shot in the face by American “patriots.â€

Ricardo Dominguez is very happy that the Border Patrol considers him a nuisance

Let's put Dominguez' happy butt in jail and see if he still enjoys being a nuisance.

Appears the students are also breaking the law. And they are directing deproted people to the phone. Once they come across the border again,after being deported,isn't it then a felony?
They ought to throw his (Dominguez) smart $%^ in the brig. Again rewarded for breaking the laws!

Have noticed more in the media are suddenly reporting on this at various sources but we did put a similar story on the Homepage a couple weeks ago:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-178428-cell.html+phone

My, doesn't Domingez look like the smug little sphincter? He's soooo proud of himself isn't he??

BP needs a cell phone jammer.

Transborder immigrant tool: Illegal software of hare-brained scheme?

BY Michael M. Rosen
Friday, 04 December 2009 17:44

It’s nice to see the American entrepreneurial flame still burning bright, especially during dark economic times. But the invention of the Transborder Immigrant Tool by two UC San Diego professors raises serious questions of legality and safety.

Ricardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum, both visual arts professors and “activistsâ€