Angel Island exhibit explores border surveillance tech ...Middle East

The history of blimps, security towers, drones, ground cameras, experimental robots and other surveillance technologies used by U.S. authorities to watch the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border is on display in a new exhibit at Angel Island.

“Border Surveillance: Places, People and Technology” will be featured at the Angel Island Immigration Museum through Memorial Day weekend.

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The exhibit is in a former medical center across from the immigration station, where hundreds of thousands of mostly Chinese immigrants were processed or detained from 1910 to 1940.

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The exhibit was produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco civil liberties organization that focuses on technology issues, particularly electronic surveillance. The organization worked with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation on the exhibit.

“It is an one-on-one nutshell education about the reality of all the surveillance along the U.S.-Mexico border — how it functions, what type of equipment is there and how it’s impacting real people’s lives at the border,” said Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

He noted the significance of the Angel Island setting.

“If you’re looking at a place where the government has been able to show a history of throwing its power around in terms of restricting access to the United States, surveilling immigrants and denying entry into the country — Angel Island is your first stop for understanding the history of how the U.S. government has surveilled immigrants,” Guariglia said.

Edward Tepporn, executive director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, also noted the exhibit’s connection to the island’s history.

“Both immigrant detention and border surveillance are not recent developments, but instead trace their historical roots back over 100 years to the time when the U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island was in operation,” he said. “We hope that after experiencing EFF’s exhibit and all of our other exhibits at the museum, our visitors have a deeper understanding of these connections between the past and present.”

The exhibit includes photographs and descriptions of past, current and experimental border surveillance technologies on tall panels.

The exhibit mainly focuses on what the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the “virtual wall” or an elaborate system of surveillance towers, airborne cameras, ground cameras and devices that detect foot traffic at the Mexican border as well as nearby towns and neighborhoods.

Guariglia highlighted the decades-old use of airborne technologies like aerostats or blimps that carry surveillance cameras.

“Sometimes, they go over towns and people’s backyards,” he said. “A lot of them made the journey where they have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are now up surveilling the border and border communities.”

The exhibit includes a 1916 photograph of a U.S. military observation balloon in the border city of El Paso, Texas.

The exhibit also displays experimental technologies that were tested by U.S. border authorities such as devices that analyze a person’s eye movements to detect deception, and “robot dogs” that carry cameras or sensors. Artificial intelligence technology is also being tested to advise border patrol officers on whether to detain or interrogate a person, according to the exhibit.

Marilyn Loscech, a Sacramento resident visiting Angel Island, said she was impressed by the exhibit.

“I learned a lot. It’s very informative,” she said. “There are things I didn’t even know about with immigration at the border, and it opened my eyes to what happened back then.”

The exhibit was installed near the Angel Island museum’s permanent exhibits that tell the history of immigrant medical screenings at the island, and the experiences of immigrants who became U.S. citizens.

“When we created this museum space, we wanted a flexible space so we could tell additional stories, and the ever-changing story of immigration,” said Casey Dexter-Lee, a state park interpreter at Angel Island.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection could not be reached for comment on the exhibit.

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