Yes, it’s in Texas. The Lone Star State, often called (behind its back) the Lone Brain Cell State, has a new, cybersavvy, distributed, astroturfy initiative designed to protect ‘Merkins from the dreaded Brown Plague.

Crittercams for Mexicans.

As part of the Virtual Neighborhood Border Watch Program, the State of Texas has been testing video surveillance cameras in different environments along the 1240 miles of Texas/Mexico border using the internet to transmit the images. The last stage of the test is to stress the system by providing public access to numerous surveillance cameras.

Thank you for helping test this important capability.

To be part of the program you will need to have a user account. To get a user account click in the blue box on the right side of the screen.

NOTICE: You must turn off any pop-up blockers for this site. You may be asked to update your computer with software that allows you to view the video.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is required to utilize this web site. Firefox is not supported.

You could sorta see that last bit coming, couldn’t you?

They certainly try to give the site a down-home feel with the lingo: “Frequenty-asked questions” just for one example. Is this the proper place to mention that I’ve been trying for two days to view a video off Webcameron, and that none of my free players (or, for that matter, the Windows Media Player) will play the damn thing? The only options are all commercial ones: iTunes, Quicktime, and Realplayer (no, I’m not joking, godforsaken Realplayer!). No, I don’t know why my computer won’t play Quicktime, but I’ve re-installed it seven times and it simply will not work on this box. None of my four working video players will touch this file with a ten foot pole. So it looks like I was right: while Cameron may wish to hug hoodies, he has no wish to empower them. Unless, that is, he’s working on a Right to iPod platform: that would definitely get him elected!