Bill Nelson: “the sole intent of this amendment is to take what the committee bill provides in enhancing border security by utilizing…”

“the sole intent of this amendment is to take what the committee bill provides in enhancing border security by utilizing technology and enhancing and integrating and coordinating that technology, the use of electronic surveillance on the border to augment our border patrol, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, which are a much cheaper version than the military version, but you can see at night and can also see during all weather--to take that technology and integrate it and coordinate it is the intent of the amendment. The amendment was born out of an inspector general's report of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the GAO report on how we can use additional coordination of our technology to enhance our border security. It is as simple as that. I am assuming that the chairman of the committee will accept this amendment because it is just a commonsense amendment. We want to secure our borders. There are so many people we can hire; therefore, we ought to augment those Border Patrol personnel to secure the borders. Here are a couple of examples. Right now, under electronic surveillance, the signal will go off that somebody has penetrated the barrier. That signal will go to a DHS employee, who then has to activate a camera and search as to where that particular electronic sensor has gone off. That is inefficient use of personnel. We have the technology.…”