Boeing eyes billion-dollar deal to watch border
From AP: Boeing eyes billion-dollar deal to watch border
WASHINGTON — Boeing wants to guard the nation's borders — for a couple of billion dollars.
Boeing's St. Louis-based defense division has developed a plan — combining radar and laser technology, sensors and cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, other surveillance equipment and rapid communications tools — to keep illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, potential terrorists and gun runners from entering the United States.
It's done so at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, which, seeking better ways to protect U.S. borders, a few months ago asked corporations with expertise in systems integration to supply ideas and technological know-how.
That started a process that has received scant public attention — partly because federal officials have been tight-lipped about it — despite the intense public debate over immigration and the role of border security in the war on terror.
The competition for the contract ends next month, when federal officials will choose Boeing or one of four rivals: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Ericsson of Sweden. The firms have devised a variety of ways to combine technology — existing or to be developed — with the government's border patrol and infrastructure.
An undetermined amount of the work, primarily systems engineering, would be done in St. Louis if Boeing gets the contract.
Because the government wants to benefit from the firms' high-tech experience and capability to innovate, it's given them a lot of leeway, noted Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank on defense and homeland security issues.
"This is a form of creeping privatization or at least of outsourcing," Thompson said. "With the traditional approaches of border patrols clearly not up to the challenge of securing the borders, the government seems more inclined to assign key responsibilities to industry. It is going outside of its traditional offices to pursue high-tech, imaginative alternatives."
The program is known as the Strategic Border Initiative network, or SBInet.
Geography is a challenge, says Robert Villanueva, Boeing's spokesman for the project.
"There's desert on the south and mountains on the north along with sections of the Great Lakes," he said. "There are different types of terrain that are not just not routinely monitored, where the technology will come in handy, so we can see what's going on 24/7 — and notify the officers that there's a border penetration they need to get to.
"Without building a hard fence, we're going to make the border a virtual system," he said. "We'll be able to detect who's crossing the border why and when and at what point, and hopefully identify whether they're terrorists or drug smugglers, weapons smugglers or people hoping to join the work force."
The field originally consisted of more than a dozen firms, and the survivors were notified within the past few days of their dates to undergo grilling from homeland security officials, set for later this month with one company per day.
The government is saying little, other than that it will award the winner-take-all contract by the end of the current fiscal year Sept. 30.
Each company is touting its own advantages:
Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, has unparalleled experience "as an honest broker, offering the best of industry ... in serving the customer as an integrator," said Wayne Esser, who is leading the project for Boeing.
Lockheed is the world's biggest defense contractor and spokeswoman Meredith Davis cited its "experience in managing large, complex and geographically dispersed programs."
Raytheon recently worked with Brazil, providing surveillance for the Amazon area to protect against deforestation, drug trafficking and illegal aliens, said spokesman David Albrighton.
Northrop Grumman cites its work with various law-enforcement agencies, and spokesman Randy Belote said technologies that would be used include "laser types of systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and radar."
Ericsson emphasizes its background providing security to European countries, and Douglas Smith, who runs its government business division in Plano, Texas, said Ericsson would rely on "networks of ground sensors and radar, very reliable in all weather."
The companies won't disclose much about their bids. Esser said one key is "to have an approach that will be very agile, very flexible, that will be very responsive to changes in the threat, in the political climate — including funding."
Thompson said because there are many options for combining technology and people, "what the competition involves is to convince the government that (bidders) understand what the optimum mix of features is and how to manage it."
The Department of Homeland Security has been deservedly criticized for poor management, but this program is likely to produce more dividends than congressional squabbling about border guards and security fences, says James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation.
"SBInet is actually something we really, really need — a system of systems approach to border security. We need to jump into the 21st century," Carafano said. That's a skill of defense companies, which have transformed themselves from manufacturers into systems integrators, he said.
P.J. Crowley of the Center for American Progress cautioned that, given the freedom the Homeland Security Department is providing the bidders, it has to scrutinize the work that's done.
"What is critical is that these contracts need proper oversight," he said. "That is a potential problem, because in its three years of existence, competence and oversight have not been strengths of this new department."
http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/296521768276162
