[kiliki]

Good article in the NY Times about the dangers rangers are now facing in the 21st century. Registation may be required. Rangers take on Urban Woes in Wide Open Spaces

[Dante]

[sarcasm]Sounds like we'll have to close the National Forests to the public for their own safety or outsource their administration to Haliburton[/sarcasm] UPDATE: I found this after posting the above: Private firms proposed for border patrol Wednesday, July 26, 2006 MARY ORNDORFF News Washington correspondent WASHINGTON - The government would temporarily use private security contractors to help control the border with Mexico under a proposal to be introduced in Congress this week by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks. Rogers said the hiring would be a stopgap way of cracking down on illegal immigration until the government can hire and train thousands of new border patrol agents. "I'm trying to find a way to let the public know that we, in a meaningful way, are going to deal with border security immediately," Rogers said. Rogers, who is chairman of a homeland security subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives, is circulating the idea among his colleagues on Capitol Hill but it does not yet have widespread support. There are 12,500 people working on border security, and the Bush administration has said it needs between 18,500 and 20,000. But even with new funding and an accelerated training schedule, only 2,000 new agents can be added each year, Rogers said. "That means it would be at least 2009 or 2010 before we could get to those levels of personnel necessary to secure the border and that's not good enough for the public," Rogers said. Eligible companies would be professional security contractors, like those now working to protect U.S. embassies across the world, and not volunteer organizations such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Rogers said his plan would replace the deployment of National Guard troops to the border and would authorize the hiring of 8,000 people to perform more ministerial duties, such as watching video monitors, driving buses and fixing fences. The goal is to free up highly trained agents for the more crucial tasks of patrolling the border, apprehending those trying to cross illegally and gathering intelligence. His proposed legislation also would require that, as trained agents are added to the mix, contractors would be let go. Rogers announced the plan in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, where it was well received by advocates of privatizing government services. James Jay Carafano, a senior research fellow for homeland security issues, endorsed Rogers' plan as "strategically very sound" and a way to have a more immediate effect in tightening the border. "Speed is the essential component," Carafano said. But the organization that represents border patrol agents was skeptical. "Government has not had wild success using contractors," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council in San Diego. "I understand his frustration at the slow pace of getting the adequate number of full-time agents up and running, but Congress hasn't funded the number of agents they've been promising for years. That's like taking the Atlanta Braves, cutting their payroll in half, and saying, `Boy, this team is terrible.'" Bonner said the council supports Rogers' efforts to improve recruitment and retention of border patrol agents with incentives and bonuses, but that even bus drivers need to speak Spanish and dispatchers need to know the local terrain. "I'm not arguing that a trained agent should sit and watch a camera, but that should be a full-time civilian person, dedicated to the task, who has made it a career, not a hired gun looking to make a fast buck," Bonner said. Maybe private security is the future of the National Parks and Forests, too.

[Blue Dome]

From posted New York Times article--

[Backpacker Joe]

Why not give them a bounty for every illegal they catch! Now there you'd have some motivated border agents.....

[Blue Dome]

[Allison]