Thread: DHS Web site to track fence building may start

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbc ... 002/NATION

Fence-mending on the Hill
By Stephen Dinan
March 6, 2008

Americans may soon be able to track through a Web site how quickly the U.S.-Mexico border fence is being built as a way of assuring voters the government is taking border security seriously.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday he will pursue the Web idea, even as he assured a skeptical congressional panel that plans for a virtual fence to complement the physical barrier are not dead.

"We don't want to reveal things that would let bad people know what we're doing, but I think we could at least in general terms put on the Web a tracker," Mr. Chertoff said.

News reports in recent weeks have questioned the pace of construction of both the physical barrier and the efficacy of the Secure Border Initiative, which includes a "virtual fence" of cameras, radar and sensors that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials are trying to erect to cover the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

Members of both parties have been skeptical of the virtual-fence idea, and their complaints were fueled last week when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) told Congress an initial 28-mile test phase in Arizona fell short in its performance. The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress.

Mr. Chertoff acknowledged the system is not working as well as it should, but said the virtual fence concept is alive and said the agents on the border tell him it's already helping.

"I have said to them, 'Does this add value?' " he said. "They have looked me in the eye and said it does add value."

Mr. Chertoff said that by the end of this year there will be 675 miles of physical barriers on the border — though 300 miles of it will be vehicle barriers, not the pedestrian fencing Congress and President Bush called for in the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

He said DHS received a fourth unmanned aerial vehicle and will have 7,500 ground sensors and 40 mobile radar and camera systems by the end of this year.

Not everyone on the committee was swayed by Mr. Chertoff's assurances on the virtual fence.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, a Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the problems with the Arizona phase show it has been "a failure that will lead to a three-year delay" in deploying the next 100 miles.

He said he is disappointed the administration isn't building physical barriers faster, and isn't building the two-tier fence the 2006 law specified.

Mr. Chertoff disputed the length of the delays, but lawmakers said one way to dispel questions about what's happening on the border is to post information on the Web about where the fence has been built, and to put up as many pictures as possible.

"Why not let people see the fence?" said Rep. Chris Cannon, the Utah Republican who proposed the idea to Mr. Chertoff. "I think there's a huge amount of misinformation out there."

Mr. Chertoff agreed, and a DHS spokesman said the concept already has been a matter of internal discussion at the department.

Meanwhile, in the Senate yesterday, nine Republican lawmakers announced the formation of the Border Security and Enforcement First Caucus, and introduced a package of bills to press for more enforcement.

Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, sponsored a bill to force completion of the double-fence barrier along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border called for in the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

Other bills in the package included punishing states that allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, encouraging state and local police to help in immigration enforcement and establishing mandatory minimum sentences for those caught illegally entering the country.

Originally Posted by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

"We don't want to reveal things that would let bad people know what we're doing,
but I think we could at least in general terms put on the Web a tracker,"

So, Mr. Chertoff, does my attempt to hold accountable
a scofflaw and criminally negligent federal executive branch
make me a bad person?

No, don't say what you think, Mr. Chertoff.
As a top cop, just say the facts, what the law says.

The top officials - Pres. Bush, Sec. Chertoff, CBP Gen. Aguilar - are so deep in denial about the invasion of illegal aliens that they actually think they can put up empty bollards, not even filled with concrete, across the border and call it secure.

Or do they think they can put forward any old "Chertoff's Folly," such as the failed Project 28, as a sop to the masses

AND GET AWAY WITH IT?!?!?!?!?

Americans may soon be able to track through a Web site how quickly the U.S.-Mexico border fence is being built as a way of assuring voters the government is taking border security seriously.

I believe the government as much as I believe this: