\n<\/p>\n
Anduril Industries is<\/span> a major beneficiary of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes a section that essentially grants the weapons firm a monopoly on new surveillance towers for U.S. Customs and Border Protection across the southern and northern borders.<\/p>\n The legislation, signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, provides significant spending increases to military and law enforcement projects, including over $6 billion for various border security technologies. Among these initiatives is expanding the ever-widening \u201cvirtual wall\u201d of sensor-laden surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border, where computers increasingly carry out the work of detecting and apprehending migrants.<\/p>\n Anduril, today a full-fledged military contractor, got its start selling software-augmented surveillance towers to CBP. Anduril has pitched its Sentry Tower line on the strength of its \u201cautonomous\u201d capabilities, which use machine learning software to perpetually scan the horizon for possible objects of interest \u2014\u00a0i.e. people attempting to cross the border \u2014 rather than requiring a human to monitor sensor feeds. Thanks to bipartisan support for the vision of a border locked down by computerized eyes, Anduril has become a dominant player in border surveillance, edging out incumbents like Elbit and General Dynamics.<\/p>\n Now, that position looks to be enshrined in law: A provision buried in the new mega-legislation stipulates that none of the $6 billion border tech payday can be spent on border towers unless they\u2019ve been \u201ctested and accepted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection\u00a0to deliver autonomous capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The bill defines \u201cautonomous\u201d\u00a0as \u201ca system designed to apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, or other algorithms to accurately detect, identify, classify, and track items of interest in real time such that the system can make operational adjustments without the active engagement of personnel or continuous human command or control.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anduril is now the country\u2019s only approved border tower vendor. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n That reads like a description of Anduril\u2019s product \u2014 because it might as well be. A CBP spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that under the new law, Anduril is now the country\u2019s only approved border tower vendor. Although CBP\u2019s plans for border surveillance tend to be in flux, Homeland Security presentation<\/a> documents<\/a> have cited the need for hundreds of new towers in the near future, money that for the time being will only be available to Anduril.<\/p>\n Anduril did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n In a statement to The Intercept, Dave Maass, investigations director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a longtime observer of border surveillance technologies, raised concerns about the apparent codification of militarized AI at the border. \u201cI was cynically expecting Trump\u2019s bill to quadruple-down on wasteful surveillance technology at the border, but I was not expecting language that appears to grant an exclusive license to Anduril to install AI-powered towers,\u201d he said. \u201cFor 25 years, surveillance towers have enriched influential contractors while delivering little security, and it appears this pattern isn\u2019t going to change anytime soon. Will this mean more towers in public parks and AI monitoring the everyday affairs of border neighborhoods? Most likely. Taxpayers will continue footing the bill while border communities will pay an additional price with their privacy and human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTaxpayers will continue footing the bill while border communities will pay an additional price with their privacy and human rights.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The law\u2019s stipulation<\/span> is not only a major boon to Anduril, but a blow to its competitors, now essentially locked out of a lucrative and burgeoning market until they can gain the same certification from CBP. In April, The Intercept reported<\/a> on a project to add machine learning surveillance capabilities to older towers manufactured by the Israeli military contractor Elbit, and General Dynamics\u2019 Information Technology division has spent years implementing an upgraded version of its Remote Video Surveillance System towers. The fate of these companies\u2019 border business is now unclear.<\/p>\n Elbit did not respond to a request for comment. General Dynamics Information Technology spokesperson Jay Srinivasan did not respond directly when asked about Anduril\u2019s border exclusivity deal, stating, \u201cWe can\u2019t speculate on the government\u2019s acquisition strategy and the different contracts it intends to use to exercise the funding,\u201d and pointed to the company\u2019s existing surveillance tower contracts.<\/p>\n Towers like Anduril\u2019s Sentry have proven controversial, hailed by advocates in Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill as a cheaper and more humane way of stopping illegal immigration than building a physical wall, but derided by critics as both ineffective and invasive. Although border towers are frequently marketed with imagery of a lone edifice in a barren desert, CBP has erected surveillance towers, which claim to offer detailed, 24\/7 visibility for miles, in populated residential areas. In 2024, the Government Accountability Office reported CBP\u2019s surveillance tower program failed<\/a> to address all six of the main privacy protections that were supposed to be in place, including a rule that \u201cDHS should collect only PII [Personally Identifiable Information] that is directly relevant and necessary to accomplish the specified purpose(s).\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n