Social Media and Border Security

Over the past few weeks I've had a chance to dig into many issues associated with protecting the Southern border between Texas and Mexico.   There are many problems that need to be addressed to effectively conduct the LE mission in this area.  There are several types of problems that need to be addressed, the easiest ones deal with technology.  The more difficult problems deal with policy at the government/agency level, and more interpersonal communications issues such as building trust with ones peers in other agencies as well as other countries.

Social media technologies may be used to solve many of these problems including interpersonal communication.  As people build relationships with their peers the level of trust increases naturally.  As cross-agency collaboration is used more, the collective intelligence of the entire group is brought to bear on the actual problem of security along the border rather than wasting resources solving less important problems.  By changing policies where appropriate and using social media technology and media convergence the LE community can realize great successes in their day-to-day operations.