Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN - Nearly 2 million Web hits and a thousand e-mails from watchers of Texas' latest border camera project resulted in one drug bust and reports of about a half-dozen illegal border crossings in the past month, officials said Tuesday.

"We still feel very strongly that the program is righteous, that it's doing the right thing and that as it grows it will make our communities even safer," said Donald Reay, executive director of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition.

The coalition, along with the private online social networking company BlueServo, obtained a $2 million grant from Gov. Rick Perry to operate the border camera program. Perry promised in 2006 to line the Texas-Mexico border with cameras and broadcast the footage online, and he has been struggling since then to get the program off the ground.

Results from the first month of the latest border camera effort are paltrier than those from a test-run of the technology that Perry launched in November 2006, and critics say the numbers show that the surveillance program is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

"The camera program is designed around politics, not safety," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.

The Web site, www.blueservo.com, was launched last month and had gotten about 1.89 million hits by Tuesday, said Reay, of the Sheriff's Coalition.

The hits, he said, generated about 1,500 e-mails that led to one drug bust netting three arrests and about 540 pounds of marijuana in South Texas. Reports
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from virtual deputies, he said, also led to the referral of about six undocumented immigrants to U.S. Border Patrol officials.

After promising to spend $5 million to put hundreds of cameras on the border, Perry paid BlueServo associates who were operating with a different company at the time $200,000 to test about a dozen cameras two years ago.

The test site generated millions of hits and more than 14,800 e-mails. An El Paso Times analysis of reports obtained through open-records requests revealed that all that Web traffic resulted in 10 immigrant apprehensions, one drug bust and the interruption of one smuggling route.

Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman, said the goal of the border watch program is to deter criminals with the threat of many thousands of eyes peering at them online.

"The measurement of first success is not necessarily how many people are apprehended or the numbers so much as that goal of deterrence," she said.

Philip Midkiff, president of BlueServo, said people from all over the U.S. and from other countries, including Mexico and France, have logged on to watch the border footage.

"I'm impressed with the public level of concern about their community," Midkiff said.

The Sheriff's Coalition has agreed to pay BlueServo at least $625,000 to operate the camera program, and under the contract with the Sheriff's Coalition, Midkiff stands to make much more.

Using the border watch program as a launching pad, Midkiff plans to create a social networking site that will allow users to hook up their own cameras and let friends in the network watch the footage.

Once he has more volume, Midkiff said, he plans to start selling advertisements on the Web site.

Already, he said, a camera operator in South Texas has inquired about adding his 10 cameras to the program, and a neighborhood watch group has asked, too.

Potential advertisers are also calling, he said.

"I'm happy we're on the way," Midkiff said.

Under the contract with the Sheriff's Coalition, Midkiff will keep profits generated after the advertising pays for the cost of operating the border cameras.

Midkiff said his primary motive is to make the border community safer, and he's testing a ground radar detection system that would act as a sensor to aim the cameras in the direction of movement on the border. The sheriffs, though, have not agreed to add that to the program, he said.

"The crime, the terrorism does interest me on a family level," he said.

Luis Figueroa, legislative attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said taxpayer dollars would be better spent on prevention programs and law enforcement technology that have been proved to reduce crime.

"The first one (border camera test) I think by all measured reports was a failure, and we think the second round won't be much better," Figueroa said.

Shapleigh said the cameras were a political move by Perry, who is facing a 2010 challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, to woo conservative Republicans who want Texas to do more to fight illegal immigration.

"I hope that the governor will use his influence as a border state executive to push for comprehensive immigration reform, real safety measures on the border and needed infrastructure," Shapleigh said, "instead of pandering prior to an election campaign."