Thread: DHS to pull the plug on electronic border-monitor program

Homeland Security set to pull the plug on electronic border-monitor program

Posted: Friday, October 22, 2010 12:00 am
69 Comments


WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security, apparently ready to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar plan involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors.

The result, after an investment of more than $1 billion, may be a system with only 53 miles of unreliable coverage along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

The virtual fence was intended to link advanced monitoring technologies to command centers for the Border Patrol to identify and thwart human trafficking and drug smuggling. But from the beginning, the program has been plagued by missed deadlines and the limitations of existing electronics in rugged, unpredictable wilderness where high winds and a tumbleweed can be enough to trigger an alarm.

Homeland Security officials decided on Sept. 21 not to invoke the department's option with Boeing, the principal contractor on the project, and instead extended the deal only to mid-November, Boeing officials confirmed this week. Boeing has charged more than $850 million since the project began in 2006.

The government has not released an independent assessment of the program completed in July, but with the two-month Boeing extension about to run out, several members of Congress expect the DHS to rule soon on the fate of the invisible fence, the hi-tech portion of the $4.4 billion Secure Border Initiative.

DHS spokesman Matt Chandler would only say a new way forward for the program "is expected shortly."

But given that the virtual fence has yet to pass muster even in the 53-mile test area - two sections in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector that officials acknowledge won't be fully operational until 2013 - and the government's lack of interest in extending Boeing's contract, most do not expect the DHS to invest billions more in a project that has continually disappointed.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he hopes DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano acts soon.

"The program is headed in the wrong direction," Thompson said.

Even as scrutiny of the program increased in the past year, Boeing has not provided accurate information on the progress of the program, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday. The study found an unusually high number of errors in the data given to DHS by Boeing.

A spokeswoman for Boeing said the company has "worked closely with Customs and Border Protection to overcome past performance and management challenges."

She added that Boeing is committed to completing the testing and delivery of the system, called SBInet, at the Tucson and Ajo stations, which comprise the 53-mile test zones.

Some of the technology, such as remote cameras, night-vision video and mobile surveillance, is being used by agents in the Arizona test areas, which see a high level of cross-border traffic. But the effectiveness is far from what was requested by the DHS and promised by Boeing when the project began.

Daytime cameras are able to monitor only half the distance expected. Ground sensors can identify off-road vehicles, but not humans, as initially envisioned by the government.

"It turned out to be a harder technological problem than we ever anticipated," said Mark Borkowski, executive director of the electronic fence program at the DHS, earlier this year. "We thought it would be very easy, and it wasn't."

Congress was sold on the initiative as a way to combine newfangled gadgetry with old-fashioned fences to secure the entire U.S. border with Mexico. So far, physical fencing has been installed over 600 miles of terrain under the program. But the technological portion has languished.

Trouble with the invisible fence began in the design phase, when the DHS set demands for the technology that surpassed what was available at the time.

The DHS required, for example, that the system help Border Patrol agents be in position to apprehend 90 percent of the incursions over the border, but the technology has achieved only a fraction of that goal.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/ ... e3fee.html

Given a BILLION DOLLARS I could have made that border tighter than a gnats ass! Double fence and boots on the ground.