Says todd miller is next on book tv taking a critical look at the u. S. Border patrol and allied operates. Mr. Miller argues that the Border Patrol which does far more than just protect our borders with mexico and canada has become a bloated bureaucracy that caters to a private profit profithungry industry that is out of control. This is about an hour. Good evening. It is great to be here, but i remember i think it was the late 1990s, maybe even the mid1990s when i went to the one on the smell avenue. There was right before my first trip to mexico. I went looking for all kinds of books about mexico i remember sitting in that shares their reading and reading and writing and reading because i have always had a special affection for changing hands. Even though i live in tucson i was often here. It is great to be here. My book Border Patrol nation reminds me of dispatches from the front lines of Homeland Security. This is my version of it. It came out two months ago, but my book probably looks like it came out three years ago, already fallen on the ladder and is will travel around the southwest a bit, oregon, colorado. I have been getting around doing speaking events throughout the last couple of months, but is this still very new. I still consider it to be fresh off the presses, so to speak. The book is not only about the post 9 11 expansion of u. S. Border patrol. It is about the world of that represents. I looked at that expansion for many, many different angles, many different geographical angles and many different conceptual angles. And what the gist of it to there is lot of storytelling. It is a book of great port tosh, meaning that i tell lot of stories immobile with those stores i try to hit on big scenes. In that spirit i would like to begin tonight stock with a bit of storytelling. I help of the storytelling and i can explain the book well. I hope to talk for about 20 to 30 minutes and then give some time for question and answer after that, some discussion. So one of the places that to i focus on in the book among many because i dont only look at the southern u. S. Border with mexico but the northern border. As bad time in detroit commander falls, the Dominican Republic, pr. But one of the places is the mission just to the south of here in arizona. My people here has anybody been down here . Several people have been down to there. And the reservation, yes, just south of phoenix. I will explain a little bit about it in just a second. One of my Research Trips i went down with an elder of the nation named david garcia. About 60 years old. Long gray hair and wanted to show me the western side and what was happening there. So we went to committee and no, to this very isolated, desolate region, but in the middle of the sonora desert. And the people that dont know about the reservation, it is actually the second largest reservation in the United States it is the size of the state of connecticut, so its bake. The only one pair is the navajo nation. But one of the critical aspects was that it was when the border was gone there the u. S. Mexico border was drawn in 1862 there. It cut the Aboriginal Land in two. So much of their land is on the far north of phoenix and goes hundreds and hundreds of miles in to mexico. So we were we went to the actual Boundary Line, standing there. It is desolate, but it is such a beautiful landscape. Late june, about 110 degrees. One of those days in arizona where you can practically hear the heat. Am sure everyone here knows about that. We are looking at that beautiful landscape, mounds in the distance. We are right at the borderline. The border is there and demarcated by what are called vehicle barriers. These vehicle barriers are not in actual border war but it is actually post side by side by side of men to stop vehicles from crossing the border. The 70 miles that he shared with mexico, this is a wall of a barrier that is used there. And so were standing there. There are two places along this wall where theyre is a gate. This is one of the places. So we get to this place. We step out of the car into that heat. David garcia walked directly to the gate and opens up. He did not open it up because he wanted to go into mexico or because he was letting anyone in from mexico. He just opened up. This did not belong. So that is what i took from david when he did it, i was getting a sense of bewilderment and then to read because i knew by opening that kate or i figured or at least my paranoia was that that would attract the u. S. Border patrol. Because what could they must have seen it somehow, right . To of thousand motion sensors along that 2000mile mexico border, and planted sensors under the ground. Do we step on one of those . Who knows. Predators, whether a predator be thrown over had, powerful cameras capturing the fact that david opened up that date, i dont know. Maybe. The radar system but one of the drums have, is actually man hunting Radar Technology use from afghanistan to detect roadside bombers. One of the Surveillance Drones at the Border Patrol uses has one of those to look for border traffickers. Did one of those see us . At the Border Security expo, which is an exposition that sells Different Technology kroeber technology or surveillance, there is one technology that was a barrel head that was followed out and filled with surveillance camera. While. Loss of perils around us. So, you know, i was pretty convinced that whenever davids action might have been detected by something. But when he turned around and i will get to the Border Security expo in a second because i want to explain that. When he turned around low and behold well, first, we are near what is called a fork operating base. I dont know if anyone has heard of a fourth outbreak bears before. A Forward Operating base has been used in war scenarios. Theyre generally in isolated areas and areas in which the military wants to expand into. Now is being used in the southwest border lands. The Border Patrol has two of them. Several of them in arizona. Probably dozens of them along the u. S. Mexico boundary. So we are about 1 mile away from one of these for operating basis when we turn around we see it. It is just a rudimentary kind of station would just kind of an antenna that. And in front of that antenna there is vehicle coming at us. It looks pretty fast because there is dust. It is like a cloud of dust coming. David and i look at each other. Yet. We know whats about to happen. I will get to you what happens in the second prefers to want to ask her questions. Do you does anybody know how many Border Patrol agents there were in the early 1990s . Does anybody know when the Border Patrol was formed . The Border Patrol was formed in 1924. He think about a from 1776 in 1924 there was the Border Patrol. You know, there are different agencies that might have done a little patrolling of the border, but there was no Border Patrol. When the Border Patrol was born it was about 800 agents, a little under 1,000, most of them in the north. More than half of them in the north. From the 1924 to 1990 the growth of the Border Patrol was approximately from 1,000 to about 4,000. The growth of the Border Patrol from the early 1990s until now, does anyone know the number of nominee bork patrol agents there are now . 21,000, people are actually saying more like 22, approaching 23,000 agents. Its five times the size as it was in the early 1990s. Is what we see now is product of unprecedented growth. There has never been this many agents in the history of the United States. Not only that, Border Patrol is part of customs and Border Protection. Customs and Border Protection is part of department of Homeland Security, all this restructuring happened in the post 9 11 era. Customs and Border Protection is 60,000. Customs and protection by patrol and is also the Customs Agency see when you go across the border, but they also have an air marine division. 60,000 people, why is that significant . For one for example, it is double the size of the ecuadorean army. It is almost like a domestic forsterite domestic army. And it is huge. It is gigantic. We have never seen the likes of it before. The department of Common Security is 200,000 people. The budget if you look at the budget 18 billion. And why is that number significant . Welcome it is significant because that is double or that number, 18 billion, is more than all other federal lawenforcement agencies combined in fiscal year 2012. State agencies such as dea, the fbi, the u. S. Marshals, of those combined. Cb peak and the customs and Border Protection to mice, immigration and customs of force and a couple other agencies to 18 billion. That alone shows the kind of priority that this is given by the u. S. Government. This is these are the things im looking at, this expansion. One of the things that i mentioned i alluded to earlier is anybody to meyer with that . We have one person familiar with that. I think im mad you there actually. I remember Border Security expo happen to it is an annual event in phoenix every year. Next year you might want to think about heading out there. It is at the Phoenix Convention center usually in march. It brings in it is an exposition and conference that brings in high officials from the department of Homeland Security to my officials from customs and Border Protection, high officials from Border Patrol like the chief. Enron will over 120 Different Companies to private companies that are hoping to sell wares, technologies to the department of Homeland Security and other countries. It brings a lot of people from other countries who might want this technology for the intention of poppers security or border policing. Just to give you an example of what this might look like, i go there every year. You go into the Phoenix Convention center. Im sure everyone here has been there. You go into one of the Convention Halls with the high ceilings looked up and see a banner from Different Companies that probably most people familiar with like lockheed martin, may be racing out raytheon, one of the big sponsors. Boeing for example. You might look up and see its surveillance poland. It will be highpowered camera. Ive talked to the senators before. One said he pointed to the surveillance balloon across the room and said i can read the word and in that book. No way. You cant do that. Yes you can. You cant. He started manipulating camera. Sinden, work. And there it appeared that his monitor right next to me. That is the kind of technology were looking at. There was a tower in the middle of the convention hall, right in the middle, kind of like a masterpiece of the shell. Walkover just to go up to the top. A kind of a lookout area where you can see the entire convention center, over 100 vendors. Im walking up the stairs. To my left hand side their is a picture of this wall, this tower being engulfed by fire ball. It turns out it is an antiballistic tower. As i went up to the top five went, really . That is what is happening on the border . I mean, who has been to the border . Are there fireballs hitting the border . That is the kind of dance that you see. A while, you know, this could happen on the border. Thus we need this product. One of the vendors that talks to us for quite awhile was a vendor from a Small Company in tucson who was selling a product called freedom on the move. And he was very vivid in his description of what freedom on the move would be used for. A camera be put in the back of the truck bed and is attached. Within an xbox controller you can raise the mask, with a mask so that the camera can see around. And he described what it would be used for. It described the situation on the border in a very colorful way. He described, for example, the borderline as a line of scrimmage like a football game. The line of scrimmage, here is a line of scrimmage, a football game. Watercress is usually cross that undetected the mission of the u. S. Border patrol says the 1990s has been to concentrate agents, the expansion of agency we are talking about, the bigger and bigger budgets that are growing and the technologies in urban areas, places that were traditional cross and places for people. So the policy is called prevention by deterrent. The idea was that people on it across in traditional place such as san diego, el paso, brownsville color if they cannot cross in those traditional cross in places they will be funneled into places that were too dangerous, desolate or people would not dare to cross in these areas. It would be a natural barrier. Thus what has happened was that people still kept coming and finalround. They cross in places like where david garcia and i were standing in the tunnel, the very isolated regions. Months like the month that david garcia and i were standing their engine when its a hundred and 10 degrees. So what happens, people than as a vendor he said to my freedom on the move wheel come now when they cross the border but what he calls the last mile. He have a water bottle and he explained it this is freedom on the move. The freedom on the novel, when people have walked one, too, three, four, five, six, seven, eight to nine, ten, 12, 15, however many days people walk perry is impossible to carry enough water walking through the desert. People run out of food all the time. He said, yes. When people are at their weakest it will come as a root and linebacker, sweden and capture people when they are, you know, probably pretty easy to capture. And one of the interesting things as he talked to me was that he was talking to me as if i were, you know, somebody who might buy his product, pitching a product like i might buy it from him. Why would he . He was excited about it. He thought that i mean, this product this coming into a crisis. It is also looking at a market that is growing. Border Security Market is growing at a 5 clip. Theyre is a projection that has this market at a 544 billion Global Market by the year 2018. That is what some people there was a report with projections that came out three days ago that called the Border Security market one of unprecedented growth right now. Unprecedented growth time globally. Video cameras alone, video cameras in 2012, it was a 12 billion industry. In 2020 it is projected to be a 40 billion industry. In 2020 video cameras like the one on freedom on the move are expected to capture over 3 trillion video hours in one year. And i did the math on that. That equals 340 million years of video footage and one single year. 340 million years in one year. It is a booming market, so that is how he is talking to me about it. Even if i am a journalist i might write about it and get someone else interested. It makes sense. A growing market. At the end there is another really critical point that was made to me right at the tail end of our conversation, and this point was made to me over and over again by different vendors. One of the things that his company did, sold exclusively to the military in the 20056 range. But he read purpose to our technology for border surveillance. And then he told me he said we are bringing the battlefield to the border. We are bringing the battlefield to the border. And so that is kind of what maybe we saw when david garcia and i turned around and saw the four operating base, you know, and the vehicle with the best coming periods when he was going to happen to it turned out it was a Border Patrol vehicle. It came at us very fast. It came to a sliding stop. The sirens blaring. Two agents rushed out of the car. One went to the back, another came to the drivers side. And just to let you know, for this book i did interview says interview dozens and dozens of Border Patrol agents. I went to different stations were i talked to publican permission officers where i would get more of the official kind of Public Relations spaniel that different Public Relations officers would get, but also talks to agents on the side, agents that were willing to talk to me without being constrained by the Public Relations mission. Within those agents are taught to on the side their is a wide range of different opinions. Some very gungho. And these agents, of them took me into their homes at times, took me out to dinner, they sat with me in cafes, let me record them. All kinds of different banks. I mean one agent i interviewed multiple times he said if he was not going to retire soon, you know, he would write his own book. It would be as gaining one. So there is a wide range of viewpoints of different agents. The particular agent came to the drivers side. He seemed to be of a gungho side of those agents. He one thing, i suspected he might be in new agent because there was the hiring, we were talking about, the expansion of 4,023,000. Apart from 20052009 Border Patrol