4 ways to address the failures we found along the US border’s “virtual wall”
4 ways to address the failures we found along the US border’s “virtual wall”
解决美国边境“虚拟墙”故障的四种方法
MIT Technology Review today published our investigation into how many people have died near the “virtual wall” of surveillance towers that the US government has installed along the US-Mexico border. We found cases of people who walked undetected through areas surveilled by advanced, AI-enabled towers and later died nearby, where their bodies remained unnoticed for weeks or months. These cases reflect systemic flaws in the virtual wall: broken towers, algorithms that failed to detect people, and agents who simply did not respond to alerts. 《麻省理工科技评论》今日发布了我们的调查报告，揭示了在美国政府沿美墨边境安装的“虚拟墙”监控塔附近，有多少人不幸丧生。我们发现，一些人穿过了由先进人工智能监控塔覆盖的区域却未被察觉，随后在附近死亡，尸体在数周甚至数月内都未被发现。这些案例反映了“虚拟墙”存在的系统性缺陷：监控塔损坏、算法无法识别人员，以及边境人员对警报置之不理。
This story is part of Dying on Camera, a collaboration between MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego. Journalists in both newsrooms spent the past year examining the failures of border surveillance technology and uncovering the stories of the people who die in the borderlands. Each of these deaths should have raised alarms inside US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) about the flaws in the agency’s surveillance network. This is particularly true for cases near the latest towers built by the defense company Anduril, which continues to win major contracts and is poised to benefit from the windfall of federal money slated for border security. The US is set to spend $1 billion to triple the size of the virtual wall by 2034. Here are four ideas for what CBP should do next to address these failures. 这篇报道是《麻省理工科技评论》与《圣地亚哥时报》合作项目“镜头下的死亡”（Dying on Camera）的一部分。两家新闻机构的记者在过去一年里深入调查了边境监控技术的失灵，并挖掘了在边境地区死亡者的故事。每一例死亡事件都应引起美国海关及边境保卫局（CBP）对其监控网络缺陷的警觉。对于国防承包商 Anduril 公司建造的最新型监控塔附近的案例尤其如此，该公司持续获得重大合同，并有望从联邦政府拨付的边境安全巨额资金中获益。美国计划在 2034 年前投入 10 亿美元，将“虚拟墙”的规模扩大三倍。以下是 CBP 为解决这些故障应采取的四项建议。
1. Conduct a comprehensive audit of deaths near the virtual wall
1. 对“虚拟墙”附近的死亡事件进行全面审计
“If I were the federal government, I would do an audit, because this feels like it’s not working.” That was New Mexico state representative Sarah Silva’s reaction when MIT Technology Review showed her that in 2024 alone, more than 18 people had died near surveillance towers in just one small stretch of desert near her district. An audit is necessary because, despite poring over thousands of pages of police reports and other documents about surveillance towers, we have only limited knowledge of how many towers are out there and where they’re located. “如果我是联邦政府，我会进行审计，因为这看起来根本没起作用。”当《麻省理工科技评论》向新墨西哥州众议员莎拉·席尔瓦（Sarah Silva）展示数据，指出仅在 2024 年，她选区附近的一小片沙漠中就有超过 18 人在监控塔附近死亡时，她做出了上述反应。审计是必要的，因为尽管我们查阅了数千页关于监控塔的警方报告和其他文件，但对于到底有多少监控塔以及它们位于何处，我们所知依然有限。
CBP does not publish a comprehensive map of its virtual wall. We instead relied on mapping work led by the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation and then used satellite imagery to verify where specific towers were and approximately when they were installed. We analyzed lots of towers—nearly 600. But that’s still far less than the 800 the government says operate today. And our estimates of when they went up are inexact. That means our tally of more than 1,050 people who have died near them is an undercount. And we don’t have a complete picture of where along the border the problem is worst. CBP 并未公布“虚拟墙”的完整地图。我们转而依赖非营利组织“电子前哨基金会”（Electronic Frontier Foundation）主导的测绘工作，并利用卫星图像来核实特定监控塔的位置及其大致安装时间。我们分析了近 600 座监控塔，但这远低于政府声称目前运行的 800 座。此外，我们对安装时间的估算也不够精确。这意味着我们统计的 1,050 多名在监控塔附近死亡的人数是被低估的，我们也无法全面掌握边境沿线哪些区域的问题最为严重。
2. Fix the way the agency tracks migrant deaths and remains
2. 改进机构追踪移民死亡和遗骸的方式
If CBP is to analyze instances where people have died near its surveillance technology, it needs to know when and where those deaths happen. And the current system for tracking that data is beyond broken. As we note in our methodology, there is no national agency that collects and publishes all available records on migrant deaths. We sifted through thousands of pages of records from dozens of agencies in Texas alone, and our picture is still incomplete owing to the lack of a shared protocol for documenting these deaths in public records. 如果 CBP 要分析人们在其监控技术附近死亡的案例，就必须了解这些死亡事件发生的时间和地点。而目前追踪这些数据的系统已经彻底瘫痪。正如我们在方法论中所述，目前没有一个国家级机构负责收集并发布所有关于移民死亡的记录。仅在德克萨斯州，我们就筛选了数十个机构的数千页记录，但由于缺乏记录这些死亡事件的统一公共协议，我们掌握的情况依然不完整。
3. Track cases when surveillance technology leads to an apprehension
3. 追踪监控技术促成逮捕的案例
In 2014, when the virtual wall was much smaller, the GAO suggested that Border Patrol agents log when a piece of technology helped them apprehend someone who was trying to enter the US illegally. It would take agents some extra time, but logging these assists would help Congress understand how often various surveillance technologies were leading to actual apprehensions. Once this data was collected, GAO added, the agency should measure whether its surveillance technologies were working. CBP agreed, and it started requiring agents to enter such information. 2014 年，当“虚拟墙”规模还很小时，美国政府问责局（GAO）建议边境巡逻人员记录下监控技术协助逮捕非法入境者的案例。虽然这会占用人员额外的时间，但记录这些协助情况有助于国会了解各种监控技术在多大程度上促成了实际逮捕。GAO 补充说，一旦收集到这些数据，该机构就应评估其监控技术是否有效。CBP 表示同意，并开始要求人员录入此类信息。