Cooperation is the key for U.S border security projects

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Israeli companies will have to partner with companies in the U.S to try and get chunks of the big border security market.

At last month’s Border Security Expo in Phoenix, both start-ups and established companies showed off their inventions in an effort to pitch projects to federal agencies. Two themes emerged in the show: the expo demonstrated that many of the systems and weapons systems that were used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are now becoming available to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies – and companies expressed concern about the impact the federal budget cuts will have on their pockets.

The Expo, which featured some 185 companies, gave both start-ups and established companies the chance to show off their inventions in an effort to pitch projects to federal agencies.

Among the displayed inventions, a license plate recognition system which would help police, but also ordinary businesses who want to catch people parking in unauthorized spaces; a video camera system that can be worn by law enforcement which can gather video and sound which could later be used in court; and ammunition rounds that flatten on impact in order to “obtain the proper amount of pain to enable target compliance.”

One example is the Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) software which gives law enforcement significant surveillance powers in urban or rural areas. PSIM makes it possible for several agencies to share information and make incident responses faster and more effective.