http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...b18border.html

U.S. is asking private companies for help in stopping illegal traffic
By Bruce V. Bigelow
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 18, 2006



NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune
The secure border initiative calls for extending high-tech "fences" in urban corridors, such as these surveillance cameras mounted atop towers just east of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
After years of fitful attempts, the Bush administration appears to be getting serious about improving security along America's famously porous borders.

The Department of Homeland Security is asking private industry for ideas for a comprehensive strategy to upgrade the technology used to detect and prevent illegal traffic across U.S. borders.

The request for proposals, which was issued by the department earlier this year, is part of the broader Secure Border Initiative that President Bush outlined in his address to the nation Monday evening.

The goal for the program, known as SBInet, is extraordinarily ambitious.

It calls for using computer networks, ground sensors, robotic aircraft, satellite imaging and other technologies to link together the hodgepodge of federal, state and local entities that operate with varying authority along the borders with Mexico and Canada.

The idea is to create a “virtual fence” that can detect border intrusions, enable different agencies to share information, and provide a command-and-control ability to interdict illegal crossings.

“It requires the right mix of personnel, technology and rapid response capability to secure our border,” said Michael Friel, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C.

Hundreds of companies have been asked to submit their proposals by May 30. The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, plans to award its first contracts by Sept. 30, Friel said.

“We are looking at technology to be a force multiplier, whether that's in surveillance or sensors or whatever,” Friel said.



General Atomics
The Department of Homeland Security wants to use the Predator B surveillance aircraft, which is made in San Diego by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
Once the DHS has awarded the umbrella contract for a comprehensive systems integrator, it's likely that smaller companies will flock to bid on a range of surveillance and sensor technologies.

In San Diego, that list could include companies such as Crossflo Systems, which specializes in data-sharing technologies; Airsis, which is marketing its wireless intruder detection systems; Kriegman-Belhumeur Vision Technologies, which is developing next-generation facial recognition systems; and Trex Enterprises, which is developing a thermal imaging camera for detecting contraband.

But the DHS is not interested in simply buying “gizmos,” Deputy Director Michael Jackson said at an industry conference in January.

“This is not about bleeding-edge technology,” Jackson said. “Time is short. Demand is big. The problem is large. We're impatient, and we're going to get on with this. We're putting a priority on things that work – with proven methods, techniques and technologies.”

DHS officials have said the Secure Border Initiative represents the government's latest bid in a series of efforts to gain operational control over U.S. borders. A paramount concern since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has focused on the implications of widespread illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

In fiscal 2005, the Border Patrol says, it arrested 1.2 million people for entering the United States illegally. The agency also seized 12,300 pounds of cocaine and 1.2 million pounds of marijuana.

While past efforts achieved limited success at best, Jackson said the DHS has taken a different approach this time.

“This is an unusual invitation,” Jackson told contractors at the industry briefing. “We're asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business.”

Yet Jackson is clearly hoping to capitalize on tactics and technologies that defense officials adopted in U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He even emulated the phrasing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by describing the program as a “truly transformational opportunity.”

One key element in the agency's plans appears to be the Predator B, a robotic surveillance plane made in San Diego by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.

In a $14.1 million contract awarded in September, DHS acquired its first Predator B to fly surveillance missions along the border with Mexico. The plane crashed in Arizona on April 25, about 10 miles north of Nogales. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, Friel said, but the department is eager to replace the aircraft as soon as possible.

Yet the DHS has not described the SBInet in much detail, and the kind of sensors and systems that would be used along the border remain largely undefined. Likewise, Friel said DHS has not estimated the costs.

That approach hasn't won strong support in Congress

“Unless the department can show us exactly what we're buying, we won't fund it,” Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said recently.

Nevertheless, the program has triggered high expectations in the defense industry, said Matthew Farr, a homeland security analyst with consultant Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio. He thinks the umbrella contract is worth many billions of dollars.

“All the big defense contractors have been jumping on board,” said Farr. The list includes companies known for their capabilities as systems integrators, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and SAIC, the San Diego contractor also known as Science Applications International Corp.

SAIC declined to discuss its plans for SBInet.

It represents the sort of massive contract that Chief Executive Kenneth Dahlberg alluded to when he consolidated the company's decentralized business units in 2004 so SAIC could “act big” when it needs to.

But SAIC's efforts to win such a big systems integration contract may be clouded by its much-publicized snafus developing a new computerized case management system for the FBI.

The Baltimore Sun reported earlier this year that SAIC met a similar dead end as the lead contractor for Trailblazer, a $1.2 billion computerized intelligence system.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and L-3 Communications may be more likely contenders for the comprehensive integration contract, according to Howard Rubel, an aerospace industry analyst with Jeffries & Co. in New York.

“Both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon already conduct a meaningful amount of business for DHS,” Rubel wrote in a research note yesterday. “L-3 also has a portfolio of products designed for specific needs.”

While the defense industry is excited about the prospects of the SBInet contract, Farr said many companies have also grown wary due to past missteps by the DHS.

“They thought after 9/11 that homeland security was going to be a gold mine,” Farr said. Many companies made big commitments to develop technologies for an Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System under a program called America's Shield Initiative that DHS announced in 2004.

Farr said inadequate funding and a series of procurement missteps forced DHS to kill the program.

“America's Shield Initiative is dead,” DHS' Jackson acknowledged in January. “But the spirit that animated the necessity for that initiative has been strengthened, magnified and renewed in what we're talking to you about today.”

The New York Times News Service contributed to this report.



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Bruce Bigelow: (619) 293-1314; bruce.bigelow@uniontrib.com





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