A Virtual Fence

Mickey Kaus writes:

Jim Pinkerton mocks Giuliani’s "virtual fence," including a particularly vicious–but not unfair–line:

Bricks, concrete, barbed wire, all that: overrated! We don’t need physical boundaries between us, only virtual boundaries. That’s why we’d never put up a real fence, for instance, if we wanted to keep our children or pets from wandering away. …[snip]

Some see weaknesses in this virtual approach. A headline in The Washington Post from Sept. 21, 2006, declared: "Plenty of Holes Seen in a ‘Virtual Fence’/Border Sensors Not Enough, Experts Say." … But President Giuliani can fix any technical challenge. After all, as mayor, he solved the problem of radio interoperability between the police and fire departments long before disaster struck on 9/11. [E.A.]