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TUCSON - A non-profit group called American Border Patrol is ramping up efforts to show surveillance along the border can be done cheaper.

A.B.P. is using inexpensive trail cameras and aircraft equipped with thermal imaging to prove its point.

"These are drug smugglers," says A.B.P. president and founder Glenn Spencer pointing to trail camera images on his computer. "It's probably marijuana."

Spencer says American Border patrol employs a host of new technology to document illegal border crossings. "We have more information on the border than any organization in existence by far."

Still pointing to the screen, he says A.B.P's camouflaged trail cameras can count how many people cross illegally, and where. "That will show you they can't see these things. They can't see them! Look there. That is a Mack 10 machine pistol. Like a machine gun."

A.B.P is also using small airplanes mounted with video cameras to collect data, "You can fly this aircraft for $15 an hour as opposed to hundreds if not thousands."

Spencer says there's no hiding below from the high-def camera flying above.

Soon, a liquid helium sensor thermal camera will mount to the plane, "It can spot an individual at five miles plus this plane can handle four cameras simultaneously."

A.B.P says they are watchdogs for the public, to hold the government accountable for what's happening along the border. "And it's when the public begins to pull is when they listen," says Spencer.

He says tax dollars could be better spent by not buying million dollar helicopters and a billion dollar virtual fence. "This airplane that does all this costs $25,000. And you can't hear it and you can't see it. That is going to be lethal to the drug smugglers."

In response, the U.S. Border Patrol says in a statement: Funds to monitor border activity are determined by congressionally directed budgets. Chief Agents prioritize border surveillance with cost effect measures monitored by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

For more information visit http://www.americanborderpatrol.com.